E-Sports are on the Come Up
On July 28th, 2019 Fortnite held a tournament that had a prize pool of 3 million dollars for who ever came in 1st place. Over nineteen thousand people attended the three day event, and had over 2 million views on Twitch and Youtube. What amazed many people was that a sixteen year old named Kyle “Bugha” Giersdorf won instead of the many older, top names in Fortnite. The media shared the same reaction that the gaming community had, but there was one comment changed the way the media perceived esports in its entirety.
On a news station, one of the newscasters commented saying “ this kid won millions of dollars playing video games.” This did not really offend anyone, but the comments after is what really upset many people in the gaming community. The caster proceeded to say “it makes no sense that what people work for these kids can just play video games and get millions and what interests people to watch this rather than a football or basketball game.” Many parents believe that their children could make way more doing other things than playing video games. Some parents even say that playing video games makes their child lazy and are worried they either have no social life or will not make it far in life just by playing video games.
There are many examples that have proven that Esports and gaming has gotten people with big brand deals and meeting top celebrities such as Drake, Ariana Grande, Chance The Rapper and Lil Dicky. On March 15, 2018 Fortnite Twitch stream Tyler “Ninja” Blevins had the chance to play with Hip-Hop artist Drake which boosted their numbers by a huge margin. Ninja later got another opportunity to play with another Chance the Rapper and is close friends with Brendon Urie from Panic at the Disco, Baseball player Trevor May, and musical artist Jeffrey “ J Cryus’ Cryus. Ninja has also been seen on Steve Harvey’s Family Feud and has recently signed to a streaming platform called Mixer.
There have been others who have turned nothing into something like Twitch streamer Hammoudi (Moe) “Yassuo” Abdalrhman, aLeague of Legends streamer who got famous for playing Yasuo the most hated and skilled champion in the game. He also was known for beating top Professional gamers such as Faker, Imaqtpie, Bjergsen, and others. Moe started off as a high school graduate who had turned down a scholarship for streaming he was not able to balance school and league so he took the road less taken and hoped for the best. He grew in popularity in the League community with his clean outplays and beating Pros he met along the way. He recently joined a team formed by retired CoD player Matthew “ Nadeshot” Haag called 100Theives. He plans on looking for his Pro debut sometime in the 2020 season.
Becoming a Pro gamer is not something people can just decide on becoming. It has taken the top names a lot of practice to get to where they are now. With having to be seventeen to enter Esports, it makes it hard to get your name out there. Streaming could help but it will take u almost a year to get noticed. becoming pro will take up to four years of practice and not at just any game but a game that has strong relevance and following that calls out to you and suites you. There are so many stories of people who have gotten to be professional gamers even with obstacles such as strict parents and family members, being LGBTQ, to even having nothing and being poor. The fact that many people had persevered through challenges and became pro is amazing and should inspire others aspiring to be professional gamers. The fact that many people believe that gaming wont get people anywhere can be demoralizing for many people that aspire to go pro and all it takes is trying to get yourself out there. It can take less than a year with enough practice and you are willing to give it 100 percent.