e-Culture

e-Culture

            E-sports, in another word electronic sports, is a relatively new sort of culture said to be found by the establishment of the very first professional league of video gaming, modeled off of major professional sports leagues in United States, which became aggrandized and realistic through the first big tournament featuring a Ferrari as prize reward in 1997 and also through the emersion of a humongous South Korean e-sports industry of Starcraft, Real Time Strategy game, in 2002. Although, there is no definite definition of this subculture, I would like to define it as culture of video gaming, mostly online, consisted of many sub communities within itself which are usually categorized by game titles. In this subculture, "connection" is the key essence in keeping it as successful as it is currently. People actively participating in this subculture attend events, make an influence in the community, and economically sustain themselves on top of just playing games of their favor. People often look at the video games and describe them as just a child's toy and an unhealthy way of using time, but this overstatement surely overlooks the beneficial qualities of this subculture. This subculture evolved as the information technology advanced. Internet has instituted the connection between the gamers, which were not common back then, enabling the establishment of this massive subculture we see today. Although many people get involved in this subculture at home through internet, some actually go outside, for example tournament events, in order to actively participate. People get involved in this subculture not only by playing the game itself but also by creating guides, playing for beta, which is a prototype of a game, streaming, etc. However, as I stated above, since e-sports subculture obtains many large and small communities within itself, I would like to validate my points through a community on one specific game, League of Legends e-sports community.

            In League of Legends community, all of the players are connected through both internet and offline events. League of Legends, a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena game (MOBA game) released on October 27, 2009, is played by about 32 million players nowadays who are from 145 different countries around the world. Due to its large population, some players were and are able to become professional players who actually make unbelievably large amount of money and are able to economically sustain themselves. This great quantity of wages comes from winning tournaments, sponsorships, managing websites, and streaming their games. This business model has provided the fundamental basis for the huge web of connections among ordinary players like myself. For instance, such ordinary players would observe professional players playing in a tournament through online streaming services just as if common people were watching a soccer tournament on TV and chat among themselves to comment on their game plays and statistics. This has established the teacher to student like connection between the professional players and the ordinary players and friendship sort of connection between each players as well. Just by so, connection between the community members have gotten stronger, making this subculture community even bigger.

            The competitiveness has also strengthened the connection between players in League of Legends. In League of Legends, there is a game mode called ranked game, in which players play for their elo points. This elo rating system was modeled and implemented off of that in a chess ladder; winning a game will provide few points to one's total league points and losing a game will take away few points from one's total league points. Depending on his league points, then, one will be put into a league with those with similar amount of points. After he is put into a league, whenever he plays ranked games, he now gets matched with others with similar strengths in his league, increasing the competitiveness between the players. This competitiveness forces the players to visit the websites where specific guides are created and posted on, observe the games of the players who are ranked higher than them and ask them for advice in order to improve their mechanics and game skills. This process increases the communication between the community members, resulting in a broader connection within this subculture.

            The characteristic of a MOBA game being a game fought between two teams consisted of five players each has also contributed in augmenting the connection. As a team game, teamwork is the deciding factor in winning a game. From my observation, many players tend to be friendly to each other in order to understand their team mates and quickly establish a team work. This forms a tight bond similar to that of a nationalism among these players and through its process, makes the circle of friends bigger and bigger. This circle of friends is doubtlessly an icon of connection among the community members and can be concluded that this specific characteristic of a MOBA game has enlarged the connection within this subculture.

            The computers are the must have tools for this subculture and they are essential artifacts that exemplifies the element of "connection". In Player versus Player (PvP) games, which most online games are, reaction time and response time are the key to victory and although reaction time, meaning the time the players take to react to concurring events, is a human mechanic and ability, response time, meaning the time the hardware takes to respond to inputs such as clicking and typing, is not. This is no exception in League of Legends. Thus, not only professional player but also ordinary players crave for advanced and high-spec computers that respond quickly to the inputs. As a byproduct of this, quick and convenient interactions were enabled. Due to this, the players are able to communicate at any given time while working on any other task, multiplying the opportunity in which the players can interact upon.

            Another artifact that is essential to this subculture is an internet. Although this artifact is shapeless, it has a definite impact on this subculture and provides the foundation on which gamers can freely interact on. High speed and popularized internet is now a ubiquitous property to most civil people. Due to this spread of a massively advanced and universal communication tool, not only gamers but also any common people are now able to interact and communicate between each other, increasing the global communication traffic. Thus, both, the computers and an internet, contributed to the development of the mass connection domestic to the e-sports community nowadays.

            This subculture has grown rapidly in these past few years, understood more and more by others. However, although it is true that this is being understood by more people outside of this subculture, most common people still do not tolerate it. When I was first introduced to this subculture through several friends of mine I, too, did not have a good impression or understanding of this group. However, as I interacted with people and environment of this subculture, I was able to fuse into and comprehend the qualities of it more and more. The key essence of this subculture, "connection", absolutely contributed in stimulating the e-sports culture. I believe that we can learn to establish a better community ourselves by studying and not neglecting the reality  of this subculture and how the connection between the members have been developed.

Response

                I had quite a fun time analyzing the subculture I have been involved in for quite a long time. The researches I have done for this essay have provided me more knowledge about my own identity. Not just the characteristics, but also trying to understand what physical components require me to have when I want to participate in this subculture teaches me how advanced the society has gotten technological  wise. I was surprised about how influential my subculture was as well. This encouraged me to keep pursuing what I like and assist others when they seek for help.

                I have improved my sentence structure level compared to the previous essay. I believe the flow of the essay was pretty smooth. The flow of the words itself also improved. My evidences were logically and scientifically proven and thus are solid. I believe I did well overall. One point I need to fix is that my conclusion is not summarizing the total idea as much and I should work on improving the capture on main points and summarizing them.