'I see myself as an athlete': Why e-sports are not just fun and games
SINGAPORE: Wake up at the crevice of dawn.
Train for 3 hours. Break.
Train for another three hours. Break. Work.
Sundown. Train with teammates for another three hours.
Sleep. Wake upwardly. Repeat.
I could easily assume that this is the daily regimen of an aspiring Olympian.
In fact, it is an everyday routine for e-sports athlete, Amos Ker, who is better known in gaming circles as Quatervois.
Ker explained the significance of his chosen moniker in this week's Asia Business Commencement podcast.
"Quatervois is a French word and means 'crossroads in life'. I made a very important decision in my life, which was entering the eastward-sports industry. I wanted my name to have meaning."
E-sports take video games played by nearly people for fun and puts them on a professional person footing with tournaments, prize money and sponsorship deals.
At present 18, Ker has been playing video games since he was 14.
He developed an interest in the burgeoning e-sports scene at the time, which was being boosted by the growth of live-streaming sites.
During the podcast, Ker spoke of his ambitions in the same style as any aspiring professional sportsman.
"Because I am trying to make this my career, it is more than just having fun. I really want to be the best at information technology. Thus, I am putting in a lot of hours a twenty-four hours just training. Non just playing. Training. Training is playing with an objective. I put a heavy priority on achieving my objectives past the stop of a preparation session."
Ker applies the aforementioned kind of dedication that a professional sportsman would, because to him, there is no divergence betwixt traditional sports and eastward-sports.
"I come across myself every bit an athlete. At that place are a lot of skills in normal sports that eastward-sports has. It is super physically draining to compete in normal sports. Merely in e-sports, it is more mentally draining than most of the physical sports out in that location. There are hundreds more than tactics in due east-sports than actual sports, strategies and quick thinking skills.
"You need a much more than precise reaction time compared to normal sports. Yous can have a very fast reaction time in normal sports, but if you lot play east-sports, you demand to be faster than that. For example, you have 0.1 seconds to react to an animation and you have to react in time. If non, something could become s."
Initially, Ker'due south parents were unimpressed and unsure about where his passion could take him.
"There were days when I was competing at 8pm and 9pm at home, and they would be like, 'Can you finish playing and go and sleep or something.' And I was similar, 'But mum, I am in a competition.'
"There was a fourth dimension I was in a Southeast Asian meridian squad and I told my mum, 'I am in the top team in Southeast Asia. Can y'all just feel proud of me for once?' Information technology took some fourth dimension and a lot of convincing, simply they could see the amount of try I was putting in and at present they are fully supportive."
In results-driven Singapore, some parents might be alarmed about their child wanting to pursue a serious career in what appears to be simply fun and games.
Nicholas Aaron Khoo, chairman and co-founder of Singapore'due south Cybersports and Online Gaming Clan (SCOGA), said parents used to arroyo him expressing concern that their children would "stop upwardly on the streets".
The reality is that e-sports are now a large business organisation.
Market analytics company Newzoo has estimated that some 380 million people around the world volition watch e-sports in 2018.
That is an audition that can rival, or even surpass, well-nigh traditional sports events.
It is too moving into the sporting mainstream: E-sports were featured as a sit-in consequence at the Asian Games this week.
Newzoo also expects the global e-sports economy to hitting Usa$906 1000000 this year, and exceed US$i billion by 2020.
This ways large coin for tournament organisers, game developers and the players themselves.
Nicholas Aaron Khoo, Chairman and co-founder of SCOGA, elaborated on this.
"The prize money in a number of e-sports events is huge. There was this event that just concluded chosen the International [Dota 2 Championships] in Canada and the prize puddle was The states$25 million for the meridian viii teams. But the winners – individuals – walk home with more than than a few 1000000 dollars each.
"Recently even in Singapore, Singtel announced a tournament and the prize pool was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars."
Besides prize money, revenue also comes from sponsorships and merchandising.
Ker says he has made nearly S$20,000 over the past three or iv years, even though he but took upwardly gaming full-fourth dimension recently.
If all goes well, he could discover that his decision at the crossroads of his life was the best move always.
For details on how elevation players make their millions, listen to the Asia Concern First podcast here:
Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/lifestyle/why-esports-are-not-just-fun-and-games-217861
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