IeSF Newsletter - vol24
www.ie-sf.com
2012. 2. 10
IeSF Headline [ Member Nation Reports ]
Swiss
‘Sport Accord Affiliation’ Project
Israel
SA
Romania
[ Interview ]
Won-suk Oh, Secretary General of IeSF
[ zoom-in ]
Currently, IeSF is knocking on the door of Sport Accord (previously known as GAISF, the General Association of International Sports Federations) which is the umbrella organization for both Olympic and non-Olympic sports as well as organizers of sporting events and sportrelated international federations. The main objective of this project is to promote e-sports field with support of Sport Accord and to prove public confidence and prestige of IeSF in the world. Currently, Sport Accord counts 105 members. - 90 international sports federations governing specific sports (Full members) - 15 who are conducting activities related to the international sports federations (Associate members) 1. Benefits of the project Since Sports Accord represents its members in various international commissions and councils, IeSF may benefit from its position as an umbrella organization within the international community to promote IeSF’s interests, to facilitate partnerships and to voice our concerns as a member. Thus, practically, it will incline public confidence of IeSF globally, enhance cohesion between member associations and their governments, ease the support of governmental fund and sponsorship, and enhance the status of e-sports by recognizing it as regular sports.
4. Cooperation from IeSF members In order to make this project done, efforts of all members are required. Therefore, IeSF would like to request cooperation of our respectful members in order to prepare and complete the application to Sport Accord in the future. The list below is the request that our members need to provide for Sport Accord application. It will be greatly appreciated if you send listed things in accordance with the form that we sent you via e-mail. 1) Current address and phone number of your association 2) Current number of registered e-Sports player 3) Copy of official document for organization’s registration ※ If you have further question, Please contact limcw@ie-sf.org.
RIOT GAMES KOREA
[ opinion ] - Real State of Excessive Immersion toGame - Strength in Numbers
2. Project plans & process Regarding this issue, IeSF is planning to obtain full membership of Sport Accord by the year of 2013. We have been preparing all the necessary study, activities and diplomatic/political things during 2011, and we will collect all the necessary documents and proof of activities, and activate the project plan during 2012. The process of the project plan is as follows:
Global Data
IeSF Notice for Members Dear all members! We expect all of you are busy with making business plans for the New Year, and hope all may go well during the year. As we are making progress for our new businesses of 2012, we have requested several issues for all members, but the progress of submission is being delayed. All of them have sent to you via e-mail. For smooth process of our business, once again, we ask your active and immediate cooperation for things stated below: 1. Media Resource Survey for press and broadcaster (Refer to the applicable format sent via e-mail) 2. 2012 Business Plan of your organization (Refer to the applicable format sent via e-mail) 3. 2012 Title Polling (Refer to the applicable format sent via e-mail) – Due on 10th of Feb 4. Survey for Sport Accord Affiliation Project (Refer to the applicable format sent via e-mail) Once again, we courteously ask and expect your immediate action for submission of applicable information, and appreciate members who already submitted information for your quick response.
Member Nation Reports
2012. 2. 10
Swiss reports
Anticipation for Swiss e-Sports in 2012 Dario Salice, President of the “Swiss E-Sports Federation”
Less than four weeks ago the end of 2011 came up and I looked back to reflect about what has been going on in Switzerland regarding electronic sports. This review gave me a lot of promising memories which make me believe that Swiss e-sports is starting to get back on its feet. I didn’t have this feeling for a couple of years, so this was very special for me to see. Not even a month has passed since then and I try to take a look forward. This is not easy, without getting too much influence from the fresh review. In life, and especially in e-sports things can change so much that something which was perfectly true last week, doesn’t have to be valid tomorrow. If I’m allowed to make a wish list for the year 2012 and what it will bring to the e-sport community in Switzerland, it would probably look like this: 1) Community activity I appreciate many things the community accomplished over the past 12 months. I followed clans like My Insanity, Binary Evasion and Broken Arrow over the past month and have seen that not only Starcraft brought them a boost of motivation to compete within tournaments in Switzerland and other countries. But besides Starcraft, the second difference is “awareness”. Clans became much more aware that they have to take their visions in their own hands to be successful. The mentioned clans and certainly others as well showed creativity to get attention from the community and create a fan-base around them, which I haven’t seen in a while from e-sport teams in Switzerland. Not only the clans did evolve over the past 12 month, but also other community members showed an increasing amount of activity. LAN-Parties which have been the backbone of our e-sport movement over many years went through something like a“renaissance” in 2011. Event Organizers which gained some experience over the past couple of years showed a good deal of continuity and new organizations came up to create events for the community. When I spoke to our LAN-Ambassador Beny K I get the feeling which this new generation of “LAN people” are motivated to bring back the events they loved, when they were attending BYOCs. I hope that this level of motivation and activity will continue to grow and evolve in 2012as it did over the past 12 months. I’m sure that the Swiss E-Sports Federation will be able to contribute its part and provide the community with the support it deserves. The awareness that the community has to work hard to improve e-sports is a great step towards that direction. 2) (Positive) Media attention Media coverage about Gaming and e-sports did change a lot over the past few years. Journalists who wanted to get attention by writing false prejudices about gaming where faced by harsh criticism from their readers. A new generation of journalists is coming up, which themselves grew up with video games. The perspective of those young authors is a different one, and acknowledges the benefits of games much more than their predecessors. I hope that e-sport will get more regular media attention in 2012. When I consider that the e-sport movement must be in its “teenage-years” by now, I’d like to see more articles about competitive gaming on sports pages and cultural essays more than on the usual “techpage” or “new stuff from around the world”. In 2012 I had the chance to be a part on some good articles about electronic sports published in papers, news-pages etc
The effort for more (positive) media attention will be pushed much more by the Swiss E-Sports Federation, but needs the support from the whole community which has to create the content and activity needed, that good messages can be broadcasted into the non-e-sports-world. 3) International activity Thinking about the international e-sports federation (IeSF), I hope that the organization will keep on evolving not only in size but especially in their activities. The IeSF World Championship has been established and is an important part of the international schedule for the Swiss e-sport athletes. The IeSF also has other area of activity, which I’m looking forward to contribute. The establishment of relations towards traditional Sports Organizations like IOC and Sports Accord are steps to make IeSF and esports, in general, much more stable and recognized. 4) Positive e-sports awareness in the public Last but not least I hope that the positive awareness of electronic sports and gaming in general will continue to improve. Not only positive media attention, but also a good attitude from the e-sport community will be important for this improvement. People who have the chance to attend an e-sport event always rest impressed with how well behaved and positive the atmosphere is. Just a couple of days ago, I spoke to two bartenders working in a Pub where a Barcraft-Event took place for the second time in two months. Even though the bar was packed with (mostly male) gamers, they never experienced such an easy and peaceful atmosphere in that place. Every time I take people to such events they are impressed by the fact that so many gamers with different cultural and religious background can spend days and weekends on such small space without having any trouble. If we can communicate this awareness to the public, a big step towards the acceptance of electronic sports has been done. I’m very much looking forward to this new year of competitive gaming. The Swiss E-Sports Federation created an internal motto last year, called “reboot”. I’m wondering what will be the motto for 2012. Dario Salice, President of the “Swiss E-Sports Federation”
Member Nation Reports
Israel reports
Israeli Electronic Sports Association News Nitzan Dikshtein “Israel E-Sports Federation”
Israeli e-Sports tournament - Hanukkah 2011 On December 25th 2011 on Hanukkah holiday a major e-Sports event was held at Modiin city near Jerusalem, more than 1,500 players and spectators attended the Event making it the biggest Gaming event in Israel for 2011. The tournaments were in the games StarCraft2, Counter-Strike Source and also a CoD:MW 3 tournament which was a big success. The IeSA didn’t take part in the event organization but was supporting it by advertising through our media, advising the organizers and supporting at the event itself. ESL to continue its activities in Israel On January 12th, ESL, the biggest e-Sports league has stopped its activities in Israel due to end of contract with the local Gaming site "Vgames". The IeSA contacted ESL management in order to continue its activity in Israel and eventually IeSA owner Nitzan Dikshtein took upon himself the rights to operate ESL’s leagues and tournaments in the country, giving the Israeli e-Sports players the opportunity to continue playing with global players on a daily bases.
Game-Freak gaming club has opened a new branch The Israeli Gaming club "Game-Freak" widened its activity by opening a new branch in Modiin city. The club has 20 Strong gaming computers, and hundreds of gamers visit there every week to attend local tournaments and learn about the IeSA and e-Sports in general. The club, which is the headquarters of the IeSA, is working along with parents of young gamers to encourage good behavior, promote the importance of school studies and teach them as well about e-Sports and its future as a Real sport. Israeli e-Sports Championship 2012 – A Done Deal. The IeSA is happy to announce that the Israeli e-Sports Championship which will take place at Hod-Hasharon city for the second time on august of 2012. Last week Hod-Hasharon city council had signed a contract to host and support the event that will take place in the city just like in 2010 and expected to attract more than 5,000 Gamers and spectators from all over the country. The IeSA is working to finalize the event details; a website will be lunched in the following months and the countdown to the event will begin then.
Romania reports
Romania E-Sport 2012 'e-Sport Championship' Romania E-Sports Federation
After 10 years of organizing e-sport events in Romania, it’s time to reinvent ourselves and make e-sports a mainstream activity, involving as many people as possible while having all events broadcasted. That’s why, for the first time in our history, we will run a complete year-round of e-sport activities that will include all the national and international events. Basically our esports events in 2012 will run from February to mid-December. Our national championships will now be part of the “Romania e-Sport Championship” event, with 2 seasons / year, each season consisting of 18 weeks of online and offline events, featuring most played titles in Romania: Counter-Strike 1.6, DOTA2, FIFA12, Starcraft2 and League of Legends. Alongside our national competition, we will also host Romanian qualifiers for all the international e-sport events that we are affiliated with: Dreamhack Romania 2012 World Cyber Games 2012 Romania WCG Euro Championship 2012 Romania International E-Sport Federation 2012 World Championship Romania qualifier Based on the huge success of DreamHack Balkan 2011, I am proud to announce that Romania will be again one of the few European countries that will host a DreamHack event in 2012.
DreamHack Romania 2012 will be our biggest event ever, with huge prizes and the first global e-sport event hosted in Romania, with players attending from Asia, North America and Europe. All the action in 2012 will be broadcasted online via PGL TV, following Romanian players in all national and international events, offering non-stop action throughout the year. After a great 2011, we are working hard to have a lot of Romanian players attending international events and getting a place on the podium.
Member Nation Reports
South Africa reports
When Gaming Partnerships Work Mixed Chicks (South African Online Multi Gaming Organization)
Robert 'PandaTank' Botha was awarded the title of e-Sports Player of the Year 2011 by Mind Sports South Africa (MSSA). I caught up with Colin Webster (The president of MSSA) and Matt 'fluke' Merks to talk about StarCraft and competitive gaming in SA. Colin Webster president of MSSA Lola: On what basis was PandaTank chosen as eSports Player of the Year? CW: “At the end of every year, the MSSA’s Management Board gives out awards to deserving individuals. In 2011 the Management Board felt that Rob Botha deserved the title of e-Sports player of the year. The award is given out on a fairly holistic approach. Not only did Rob win the MSSA’s online league, but he demonstrated true character at the National Team Trials and at the 2011 International e-Sports Federation (IeSF) World Championship. Without doubt, Rob exemplifies what an e-Sports gamer should be – kind, courteous, focused and competitive. His results at the 2011 IeSF Championship were also part of why he was chosen as e-Sports Player of the Year. Rob is the first South African that has passed through the group stages of an international championship and has finished in the top eight since the early 2000’s. Lola: What does the MSSA plan for StarCraft 2 SA? CW: “There is no doubt that StarCraft II is one of the most important games in the world. Thus the MSSA shall treat it as such. The MSSA shall introduce the game into the official inter-school league in order to help develop a wider and stronger player base. At the same time the MSSA is fully committed to sending gamers to represent South Africa in StarCraft II at both the IeSF and IeDF World Championships. Depending on finances, the MSSA may also be in a position to send gamers to represent South Africans at other international championships as well. Thus in 2012 the MSSA expects to see even more gamers earn school provincial colours, senior provincial colours and Protea Colours for the game.”
have been very negative to the MSSA, and yes, the MSSA does do things differently, but what the MSSA is seeing at the moment is a strong and steady growth, not only among the schools, but among clans that continually attacked the MSSA and everything it stands for. It should be remembered that the MSSA is a Universitas and that none of the office-bearers are paid in anyway for their time and trouble. The MSSA remains an instrument of its members and reflects the wishes and choices of the majority of its members. Personally, I get a great deal of enjoyment of seeing gamers do well out of what they enjoy. When you consider that at Wits University alone, seven students have been awarded their full university colours (full blues) for their achievements, and that gamers are now eligible to earn Sports Bursaries, you will realize what the MSSA has done for the gamer. Many schools now too award School Colours to gamers which just help to enable the potential of learners who play e-Sports. The advantages of earning Protea Colours and representing South Africa too have a great effect on the individual – and that is why I do it! There are many anecdotes that I could share, but one of the stories that immediately springs to mind is when the MSSA awarded Protea Colours to a gamer, and the gamers’ mother beamed and exclaimed, “I didn’t know that he was that good!” What is even more interesting about this anecdote is that the mother so mentioned also had Protea Colours – but in a different sporting code! “ The recognition and accreditation of e-Sports as an accredited sport, does not just have benefits for the publishers, but have immense benefits for the youth. Instead of just spending hours aimlessly playing games, the gamer can now chart out a more focused approach. For example when I was young (long before the advent of PC’s) I was a competitive swimmer and used to do up to 14 000 meters a day. The training taught me many life skills which, to this day I still hold dear. Had I just spent all those hours just ‘chilling’ at our home pool, the hours would have been wasted, with very few lessons learnt. Thus gamers can have goals and ambitions, and through the system of championships, colours, and awards have something very real at the end of the day which has enriched their lives, and even used on a CV.” Lola: Last year you teamed up with PolarfluKe to host a Starcraft 2 provincial championship. What has your experience with this partnership been like?
Lola: What has your experience with the SA StarCaft community been like? CW: “I have found my interaction with the gamers who play StarCraft II to be most rewarding as the gamers with whom I have dealt, tend to be highly motivated and intelligent individuals.” Lola: In your opinion how do the SA players compare to international players? CW: “My biggest regret is that we as South Africans cannot interact more with international players than what we do. Our gamers probably have more guts than the international players – just because of the obstacles they have to overcome. However, the international players have a distinct advantage, as no doubt Rob will tell you, as they all know each other on a face-to-face level and are thus more able to exchange ideas.” Lola: The MSSA has taken a lot of negativity from especially the SA competitive community. Why do you continue to support and develop e-Sports in SA? CW: “Sure there are some gamers who are not members of the MSSA who
CW: “PolarfluKe was incredible! PolarfluKe is more than able to run a championship to the highest possible level. Testament to its ability is how many top international gamers are now playing in the leagues. All one has to do is read different fora (forums) to see the praise that it gets from overseas clans. Without PolarfluKe's help and dedication, it is unlikely that Rob Botha would have attended the IeSF Championships and that Jason von Belkum would have attended the IeSMoD Championships. It is the silent hard workers like PolarfluKe who are always there, always making other people achieve their dreams.” Closing thoughts In the SA competitive gaming community we can share a lot of stories about how difficult the road has been for us. Players face unnecessary drama and rage from within the community, clans hardly stick together and sponsorships are hard to come by, to name but a few. But then there are stories like these that make it all worth our while, that give us hope. The partnership of PandaTank, MSSA and PolarfluKe has shown us that it is possible to achieve what every competitive player wants – the opportunities to compete at the highest level and the recognition for achievements earned. Letting go of your prejudices does have its benefits.
INTERVIEW
Won-suk Oh, Secretary General of IeSF
Finding a continuous growth model to develop eSports globally "Achieving the result of standardizing e-sports with five sections. Aim at being international sports federation in 2013"
The results of the 3rd of 5 year long term plan will be appearing gradually. Won-suk Oh, Secretary General of IeSF(International E-sports Federation) who has been working in IeSF since 2009, announced that the plan for IeSF to be International Sports Federation in 2013 would begin to take concrete shape. The plan is to increase the number of members up to 45 and prepare for the registration and to cooperate with International Sports Federation like ICO or FIFA. Additionally, They will standardize global e-sports and build cooperation flexibly with civil e-sports events. "The biggest role of IeSF is to build constantly available infrastructure. We try to our best to support and deal with civil e-sports events having difficulty in holding unprofitable events. " Although Won-suk Oh, Secretary-General of IeSF, is taking a step forward to make a cooperative relationship with civil e-sports hosts, he is still being careful that it might make them misunderstand because IESF is under development now. If IeSF could help reach a satisfactory settlement civil e-sports hosts face, it would be desirable to consider solutions and develop each other. What we have been constantly discussing is to choose the game company and the game genre. We have acknowledged that there have been still lots of different viewpoints toward e-sports. IeSF will play a leading role in solving the problem about the game genre with continuous conversation. Cooperation with company having the game title is the key to developing esports. IeSF has always been trying to deal with lots of problems. Take MOU with Hanbitsoft for example, it would be a meaningful work to start to discuss e-sports with game company despite discontinuity under various conditions. IeSF is planning to discuss game title with company and narrow different viewpoints between the game company and affiliates by putting all the ideas together.
IeSF has been discussing the game title and dealing with intellectual property rights. In 2010 International e-sports symposium, experts collected opinions and tried to come to an agreement via continuous relationship with company having the game title. As a result, we led it to success even there were inevitable problems due to structural matters. We are doing our best to lead to the sound development of e-sports by holding an Asia, Europe conference, a symposium and general meeting to improve communications with our affiliates. One of IeSF's Long term goals is to stand on its feet. To do this, IeSF will have implemented a plan to decide each national role and who will pay for over a long period of time since 2012. Won-suk Oh, Secretary-General of IESF, is expecting that It could not only lay foundation to continue these kinds of efforts developing e-sports but also help acquire its independence. "Not a few affiliates play a major role but every affiliate would participate in discussing the most efficient way to improve. " Won-suk Oh, Secretary-General of IeESF, suggested IeSF should make a foundation for every affiliate to help and develop each other mutually in 2012. Improvement will proceed automatically while some countries having poor infra structures learn the system, so he said IeSF wouldn't proceed rapidly. We could be looking forward for IeSF to showing its own growth model for the public and unity in 2012.
zoom in
Revitalizing e-sports industry with LOL Starting the regular e-sports league in MarchCan be the biggest hit ever like “Starcraft”? e-sports game industry in Korea has turned around again and is rising now despite the downtime of e-sports industry. League of Legend, one of the biggest hit game titles both in Korea and all over the world, will be released soon in the regular game league. Riot Games Korea promoting “League of Legend” to be the main title of e-sports announced that the regular league of “League of Legend” will be held on On-gamenet TV in March. Both Korea and overseas market faced with downtime of e-sports are now looking forward to the launch. Game officials have been expecting that “League of Legend” in 2000s will revitalize e-sports industry as “Starcraft” did in 90s. We’ve visited Riot Games Korea to check the ongoing projects and the organizations of “League of Legend”.
Riot Games Korea, established in 2011, is made up of 30 members with the CEO, Jinho Lee. Riot Games Korea and has quickly become a leading global developer and publisher, successfully launching their debut title, League of Legends last December in Korea. Starting the regular league of LOL in March Riot Games Korea has always been making relentless efforts and moved the business forward quickly as domestic service of “League of Legend” started within 3 months after the launch of Korea and new launch of e-sports league would only take three months to hold. The most remarkable business of Riot Games is of course e-sports business. They have been broadcasting ”LOL Night Show” and “LOL Invitational” on On-gamenet TV since January of this year. Jinho Oh, CEO of Riot Games Korea, announced that those games would be relatively highquality and our users, a domestic branch and company officials would be very satisfied with that. There will be another big event with the game show on the air. In early March of this year, the fall league of “League of Legend” will be held with the prize of 2 hundred million won. This league will be held quarterly and the semi-finals will be carried live on On-game.net TV during prime time. The launch of regular league has caught the attention of many, users and game officials expecting revitalization of e-sports. Jinho Oh, CEO of Riot Games Korea, said “It is rewarding to launch the league itself. I hope every league goes well and users enjoy the game.” PC room business, the secret to the success Both their own business and organizational structures differentiate Riot Games from other game company; First, they have been pushing ahead with both businesses focused on PC Room and e-sports to expand game industry. Second, Organizational structure is also different. Riot Games Korea consists of three departments; game operation, marketing communication, strategic planning. Game operation team is in charge of customer support, translation, engineers. Marketing communication team is promoting e-sports and PC room businesses. And strategic planning team takes responsibility of whole company, HR and financial affairs and so on…. This strategic structure is one of the successful reasons for the fast-growing company and PC room business has an important note in the Korean market. We could easily find lots of users playing “League of Legend” in Korean PC room these days. One of company officials said “Franchising League of Legend Premium PC rooms would help lay the groundwork for the huge success of game.” In some ways, It is also reported that it would be nominal; relatively low profits compared with the number of concurrent users and subscribers of “League of Legend”. Riot Games Korea officials said “our company puts the priority on not profits but joy for users.
Executives in a meeting regarding website strategies
e-sports league planning meeting (total purse of 200million won)
User-oriented management It is impossible that paid items of “League of Legend” could have an influence on deciding the outcome of game. The game would be designed for users without paid items to enjoy the game and only a few items like skins or champions could be chosen selectively to pay. Jinho Oh, CEO said “Providing joy for users is significant to us, not profit itself” and “Our company game developers made differs from others” Riot Games headquarter said “consumer satisfaction is much more important than profits in Korea” With the support of US headquarter, Riot Games Korea will keep on running user oriented business. Jinho Oh, CEO said we are so sorry for not answering every questions occasionally, we are stepping forward with better performance step by step by hiring more operating team members soon to figure out all problems. What is “League of Legend”? “League of Legend” is a big hit title with over 32 million subscribers all over the world and concurrency totaling over 1.3 million players. “League of Legend” is a kind of “Multiplayer Online Battle Arena” genre, focused on strategies against the rival team to win the battle, mixed well with role-playing and strategic factors. The biggest appeal is various and balanced champions. Users can choose their champions considering races, character, skill, gender on their taste among over 80.
Jinho oh, CEO of Riot Games Korea
opinion
Real State of Excessive Immersion to Game
Won-suk Oh Secretary General of IeSF
Cares weigh heavily upon my heart. It even tears me apart that the situation is running toward wrong direction. A definition for the word, addiction, by a famed doctor just crosses through my head. He says that ‘addiction’ is a phenomenon happening when our body continuously desires or performs more than necessary. For instance, sugar addiction is a behavior of our body seeking to intake sugar than need be, and exercise addiction happens when our body attempts to exercise than need be. Namely it becomes trouble when it crosses the line, but the behavior itself is not the problem. Seeking for fun, pleasure and amusement are essential part of human behavior for human living. Nay, perhaps human live for the pursuit of happiness. I don’t understand why they are making the error ‘to break a butterfly on a wheel,’ although there definitely are factors of happiness which game gives us. Prior to arguing about game addiction of youths, if you are a real parent truly worrying about your children, it is proper to seriously deliberate what the interest and pleasure for them are prior to anything. There are huge gap and difference between the world that we used to live (industrial society) and the world that current generation is living (information-oriented society). Thus, the amusing factor for old generation and one for young generation are totally differentiated. Then, it would be more appropriate to actively participate in what our children are exuberating with them, rather than chiding and deterring them for their own amusing factor. I certainly know it is a lot more effective and powerful resolution from my direct experiences. For my son, a college student who is keeping his end up, since my son was elementary school student which is 10 years ago, I was an ‘irresponsible’ father in the tone of recent criticism on games, who have unlimitedly supported game CDs as he wanted. The only difference is that I was able to talk with my son about games as I got interested in games. My son still plays games when he is stressed out. I have never told him to stop plying them. Also, either my son has never addicted to them, or stood against me with this issue. Thus, I always tell my son, “I am not your leader, but a mentor. You should enjoy your life, and what you need to do is do what you like to do. I will always be the fence of the playground where you gambol just gladly.” The reason why I dwelt on my personal story is due to the question whether the older generations currently worrying about game addiction properly understand and definite amusing factors of our youths.
Also, the older generation should take a chance to reflect if they are somehow addicted to something, such as golf addiction, work addiction, or food addiction. As stated above, since addiction is the term that the body and mind seek for something more than necessary, it is not to flatly deny the subject itself, but to treat to control themselves. There is also other perspective. In Russia, where the longer history of e-sports exists, e-sports activities are recognized as effective activities to close and treat drug and alcohol addictions of youths, and actively supported by the federal government. It is pitiful that some people cannot think in positive way, while other people sharing same history cope with the same phenomenon toward positive direction with active participation. Moreover, in South Africa, e-sports are used as remedy to help student suffering from poverty by offering them scholarship to enter colleges, and providing occupation related to e-sports. It is also gladly supported by education departments and schools. We should notice there are diverse perspectiveIf pursuit of amusement is an instinct of human beings, isn’t it better to induce youths to find dynamics of sports through games when they search for a subject to release their stress. It is not possible to resolve the fundamental problem if we point out issues from the teeth forward, and look for easier answer such as obligating by laws. The older generation should concern in depth for younger generation to seek for pleasure and pursue happiness in their own way. Also, we rather not recklessly contradict the subject itself, but prepare specific and attentive resolution against addiction, in terms of excessive desire. Super-high speed information-oriented society, which older generations have never experienced before, is here. Also, in the future, ultra fusion society, that nobody can anticipate, is approaching. It is totally wrong that the older generations just sit back with the face of ‘I know everything’, as decorating their old experience as plausible excuses with short knowledge, and tell our children ‘do this, and don’t do that.’ We should rather come clean about our ignorance, and try harder to share and experience of younger generations’ pursuit. If we attend together, communicate with each other, and laugh and enjoy, I can undoubtedly say that there must be an answer.
Strength in Numbers I often get the question which “real” sport most closely resembles esport. When I am finished with the unavoidable debate whether esports is a real sport or not I rarely come up with the same answer. The answer is that there is no other sport that resembles e-sport. This is mainly because different e-sports are so diverse. The only things which games like StarCraft and Halo is that they are both played on an electronic devise and requires a lot of concentration. However, looking at the organization of e-sports there is one sport that closely resembles e-sport and that is boxing. Just like boxing there is no official federation regulating the world of e-sports and no official world championships. Many actors compete with each other to become the biggest and best tournament in order to get some sort of unofficial world championships status. I would very much like to see the IeSF as that official body. I would also like to see the IeSF World Championships as the official world championships even if I do not find that as important. The road to becoming an official e-sport federation is not a trivial one. Today the IeSF consists of 33 member countries and this is a fine start, but it is only a start. So, where do we go from here? The IeSF has always been about bringing countries together and through that cooperation become stronger and stronger for each new member joining the federation. Some members are quite established with government funding and approval while others are still struggling to reach that status. As the chairman of the Swedish e-sport association I can only start from our situation: In Sweden we have no government approval and getting it would be really hard.
This is not so much a problem of acceptance as it is how sports are organised in Sweden. Without going into details which are nothing but confusing e-sport will only become official and approved by the government if enough people support it and demand that it should become a sport. This is one area where the strength of IeSF could be a real benefit to countries like Sweden. By working together with countries where e-sport is an official sport we can show our politicians that e-sport is considered a proper sport elsewhere and convince them that it should be the same way here. At the last IeSF general meeting the member nations discussed how many of us who had received government acknowledgement. This is an important question on an international level and every member which has that status makes the IeSF stronger, so helping member nations like Sweden would not only make Sweden a stronger member but would also make the IeSF stronger. This may sound like a real cliché but as a federation we should really accept the concept of strength in numbers. This is of course not the only way the IeSF can help individual members. All members have different difficulties, some which could really benefit from the support of other nations and the IeSF as a whole. If the IeSF really aims to become the official international federation for e-sport we all have to chip in and help each other to make ourselves stronger. This is not something we should do to be nice, this is what a federation is all about.
Svenska ESportföreningen (Swedish e-Sport Association), Chairman, Magnus Jonsson