It is dawn of an e-sports era amid corona virus, stay home and stay safe syndrome and that such major world sports occasions postpone or wither as those pertaining to PSL, IPL, Olympics, Wimbledon, NBA, Tour de France and sports events in Australia, Europe, Africa and the Americas.
Corona stay home caution looks like a blessing in disguise for Pakistan’s on-line gaming kids. This applies to posh or commoners urbanized cities and towns of Pakistan with their elitist or less-privileged children or youth. Here name of the game is popular demand and common use of PC, Xbox, PlayStation and alike. Such gaming is more than passing time during corona lockdown as it carries the promise and potential of testing and enhancing our kids’ intelligence and ingenuity if pursued with time and health management.
E-sports (also known as electronic sports / e-sports) is sport competition using video games. E-sports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions between professional players, individually or as teams. E-sports games are League of Legends, Dota 2, Over watch, Counter Strike: Global Offense, Fortnite, Rocket League, Hearthstone, Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds, etc. People fancy Football, Basketball, Tennis, Ice hockey, Baseball, Table tennis, Volleyball and American football.
There are two primary requirements for a game to be called an E-Sport: (1) It requires a certain level of skill-set and (2) its player vs. player and not player vs. computer or a programmed machine.
Perhaps the biggest reason for E-Sports receiving a favorable response during the times of COVID-19 is that it promotes social distancing and staying at home. Many might view that inference as trash-talk, but it holds true. On top of it, an e-sport player can make a living out of it as well. In the times of lockdown, it is nothing but a win-win situation. World Health Organization (WHO), which defines ‘video-gaming’ and ‘digital gaming’ as a disorder, is now supporting the initiative to promote social distancing from top e-sports companies.
This gaming surge is most noticeable in the age group between 15 and 24. Youngsters in that age-bracket are spending 34 percent more time with games or e-sports. ‘Steam’, considered to be the biggest marketplace for games, saw its number of active users going through the roof on March 29, when it had 20.3 million concurrent online users, including about 7 million actively playing games.
Increasing viewership both in person and online brought e-sports to a wider audience. Major tournaments include the World Cyber Games, the North American Major League Gaming league, the France-based Electronic Sports World Cup and World e-Sports Games held in Hangzhou, China.
With e-gaming proliferating over the world sports horizon amid corona virus, how would traditional or real sports fare financially and in terms of public deprivation, as for example, PSL matches at National Stadium Karachi or Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore, or for that matter, Wimbledon or the British Open or Tokyo Olympics, the greatest postponed sports extravaganza of the world or many international Asian, Australian, African, European and American sports occasions. Is the logical answer not both sports in question co-existing trendily and cheerfully towards a better and brighter world!