On eSports and Gaming Competitions

Last year, on December 27th, former chess world champion Garry Kasparnov took to Twitter to make some comments about the eSports scene, specifically in Seoul. He wrote that although Chess and Go are far less popular than eSports, because of the volatile nature of videogame fandom, Chess and Go will still be a popular game-sport 100 years from now, while League of Legends tournaments will be relegated to at best a footnote in the history of competitive gaming (broadly defined to include tabletop games). He wrote that ” the strategic purity of chess (or go, etc) is timeless for a reason. No storyline to tire of, no expansion packs to buy!” Despite the backlash from the (video)gaming community and my own inclinations to prefer playing videogames over tabletop games, I am inclined to agree with Gary. I don’t mean to say that eSports won’t be around in 100 years – in fact, as technology improves and we become a more technologically immersed society I expect eSports to only grow in popularity. However, I don’t see League of Legends tournaments (or Starcraft 2 tournaments, or tournaments revolving around any given videogame) to be around 100, 50, 20, or maybe even 10 years from now.