In the last decade or so, e-sports have grown exponentially. It commands nearly a $1 billion in revenues besides attracting more than 400 million viewers. It is just not the streaming that if offering great opportunities but many spectators are flocking the stadiums to watch e-sports contests. Many e-sports franchisees are constructing stadiums to offer live matches to spectators. The contests are intense and spectator involvement is only increasing. The anticipated advances in virtual reality, augmented reality etc. will only enhance the popularity of e-sports.
E-sports are nothing but competitive video gaming. Video gaming has existed for many years but was more viewed through amateurish form. Many cities and even countries regulated video gaming if not banned as it apparently sought to promote gambling. Video gaming contests were popular but more localised and amateur in nature. Further, the terminals needed to play the games were not granular. The advent of PlayStation, X-Box among other gaming platforms and the accompanying content development by the gaming industry rapidly transformed the scene. The critical mass was perhaps first attained in Korea in the aftermath of the 1997 financial crisis. Soon, the fervour spread to other countries. Today, the e-sports industry has morphed akin to the other sports industry.
It might be moot to debate e-sports constitute the literal meaning of sports or not, but the way industry has evolved and the competitions are organized, it would not be wrong to equate it with the sports industry. E-sports became part of the South East Asian Games and was a demonstration sport in the 2018 Asian Games. Negotiations quickly began between e-sports administrators and International Olympic Committee (IOC). In 2018, thanks to late Pat Bauman, a seminar was held between the two bodies in Switzerland seeking to find ways in incorporating e-sports into mainstream sporting community.
Yet the reality check was different. The IOC seemed reluctant to accept e-sports into its fold. The ostensible reason is the violent content in e-sports. One set of e-sports are essentially virtual versions of real life sports. Some other e-sports belong the mind sports category. The most popular of the e-sports however fall into the first player shooter games or multi player battle games. In other words, e-sports achieve popularity in virtual wars or virtual combats. Killing to gain territory in virtual terrain remains a prime objective. Therefore, it is widely presumed that e-sports promote violence.
The IOC believes that the Olympics is for demonstration of sports that harmonize the society than promote violence. One of the motto of Olympics is of course rejection of sports that demonstrate violent ethos. Yet the history of sports is something different. Sports itself evolved as safer version of channelizing human aggression and violence. It is immaterial whether one is playing a team sport or an individual sport. The current IOC President Thomas Bach was a gold medalist in fencing that draws its origin through sword fighting. The popularity of combat sports is evident in the Olympics. Yet the IOC rejected the parallels between the two. It called the combat sports and other elements that drew their roots from violent mechanism to a civilized expression of sports skills and arts. On the other hand, it contended, the glorification of violence in e-sports negated the Olympic ideals.
It is just not IOC but many other countries and cities including China, Argentina etc. that are placing restrictions on violence in e-sports. Some studies argue that e-sports breed a tendency or propensity towards violence. Shootings in US have often been linked at least in popular perception to practice of competitive video gaming. Yet, there are contrary arguments too. They argue the violent tendencies lead to e-sports. Their line of contention rests on the premise that instead of e-sports causing increase in violence, it is the other way round. Some support might be found that many engaged in combat sports have roots in troubles with their aggressive behaviour and proneness to violent act. In many ways, sports was the taming of the violent instinct inherent in a human being.
Yet, as in sports, the violent impulses have to be channelized into safer avenues. E-sports too can provide the same avenue just like the normal combat sports. It would be imprudent to assume e-sports create violent tendencies. The same should hold good for those engaged in combat sports. In this context, it would be prudent to seek shelter in economics. While economics is a pursuit of Pareto optimality, yet real life more often than not will ensure the non-achievement of the same. Arrow’s Impossibility theorem among others highlight the same. A solution to these lies in 1956 paper by Lipsey and Lancaster. The authors posit a theory of Second Best. In their assertion lie the following. If failure to meet one condition results in the non-attainment of Pareto optimality, then the objective can be to achieve the second best position. Yet, this second best position cannot come unless one alters the other variables to suit the new conditions.
Man has been historically prone to aggression and violence. It is perhaps inherent in the genes, a product of the times spent the nomadic wild existence, a pursuit to defend territory, food, resources and off-spring. In later times, this violent tendencies evolved into wars and conflicts for territory, resources and women. The war gave away to new avenues to keep humans fit while also seeking to temper their aggressive nature. The new avenues were sports. Even as late as later medieval days, the sports often had a strong violent component that included killings. The duel as mechanism for solving disputes lasted well into the 19th century. In Pareto-optimal terms, the violence inherent in a human would find its outlet through aggressive impulses that would yield to peace only when there is satiation in resources. Yet satiation might not happen. In the context, the alternative would be seeking refuge in the Lipsey-Lancaster formulation of theory of second best. The same goes with e-sports.
E-sports offer a safer avenue for channelizing violent impulses. To a human, the tendency to conquest can take shape in the virtual domain with little negative spill overs. If violent content in e-sports were having an impact in real life, it would also have been evident in those sportsmen engaged in combat sports. Sports like paintball, airsoft etc. offer good avenues for realising combat potential without the adverse consequences. If the other conditions for violent impulses is sports are relaxed, competitive video gaming can generate new outlets for physical expression. The inherent objective would be to channelize the conquest spirit of war without engaging in real conflict. Implied is a translation of the same on a virtual platform. The virtual platform while giving the thrills of war restrains the physical dimension of the same. E-sports fulfil the objective. Hence the e-sports need to be looked afresh through a prism of theory of second best rather a simplistic assumption of inflating violent tendencies in the players.
Thoughts on Theory and Practice 