
Everyone Else Is Trash - fern12
https://www.theplayerstribune.com/doublelift-league-of-legends-everyone-else-is-trash/
======
arciini
I think it's especially interesting that this showed up on the player's
tribune, which includes gems like Kobe Bryant's letter to his younger self.
Esports is being treated like a conventional sport here

The fact that e-sports has exploded I think has a lot to do with how they've
become more similar to real-world sports. We've moved from very artificial
e-sports like Starcraft, fighting, racing (usually 1v1 games with extreme
focus), to distinct role-based "MOBA" games like Overwatch, League of Legends
that are much more similar to popular existing games like soccer and baseball.

Unlike in the earlier games, they rely slightly less than pure mechanical
skill, which makes the sports accessible. They're team games with
differentiated roles, allowing beginners a way into the game playing with,
rather than against their friends. Sounds familiar? This could describe
soccer, basketball, football, and all of the top spectator sports today.

Their only real substantial difference is that they're far more accessible,
requiring only equipment that many already have (the games intentionally
minimize system requirements) and don't require real physical athleticism.

I think it's no surprise they're becoming popular as spectator sports: they're
building on a proven formula, but adding a dash of accessibility.

~~~
drharby
>artificial esports like starcraft 2

So chess isnt a sport?

~~~
IntronExon
It’s a sport in the same way that a tomato is a vegetable; by some definitions
it is, by others it isn’t. What annoys me is that videogames have a chance to
be themselves without glomming onto “sports” like chess and other games. Chess
doesn’t need to be called a sport to be worthwhile and respectable, and
neither do videogames.

For the sake of money and “mindshare” though? Chess and Starcraft are sports,
and tomatoes are veggies.

~~~
drharby
Theres a set of defined rules where outcome is exclusively impacted by the
participants alone, no chance.

The better player wins.

It is a sport

~~~
IntronExon
[https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/sport](https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/sport)

You seem to have invented criteria with meaning to you, but that’s all. Then
again, people have decided that tomatoes are vegetables, and that’s fine I
guess. Mostly though it just seems that “sport” has a certain cache and “not a
sport” is often used in a derogatory manner, which is a shame. A lot of people
seem to have accepted the notion that the only skillful, valuable forms of
competition are sports, and their language reflects that.

ESPN has a much simpler definition based on a, “can we make some money here?”
test. For me? I’m not a fan of most popular sports, but I do love games. I
don’t see the need to butcher the language for the sake of broad acceptance,
or a buck.

------
freetime2
As I was reading this, I was reminded immediately of Isaiah Thomas' farewell
letter to Boston when we has traded from the Celtics that I read a few months
back ([https://www.theplayerstribune.com/isaiah-thomas-trade-
celtic...](https://www.theplayerstribune.com/isaiah-thomas-trade-celtics-
cavaliers/)). Then I googled it and realized that was also hosted on The
Players' Tribune.

So I guess this is a thing now, writing long-form farewell letters for fans
when you are traded or cut. Honestly, I kind of like it. I've never liked IT
more than when I read his farewell. And while I'd never heard of Doublelift or
TSM before, and don't really know anything about League of Legends, I enjoyed
reading this article too. Sports are more interesting when you know more about
what the players are thinking.

I dream of a day when 120 character tweets by celebrities and presidents are
behind us, and long form content is back in style.

~~~
jackschultz
I'll throw this in here since you were reminded of another Players' Tribune
article. It has to be because they use of ghostwriters all the time. Every
single one of their articles have the same form, same word selection, same
pacing.

Has anyone else noticed this? I'm not saying it's bad bad, but tough to take
seriously if all of them are so similar. It'd be fun to go through and do some
text analysis to see if it's provable.

~~~
protoplant
I think that's standard. Writing is hard, I imagine political books are
similar. Though I think the purpose of the Tribune was to allow athletes to
control how they are heard.

------
ry_ry
A little over a decade ago (so somewhere in the early triassic period as far
as videogames go) I was involved in big tourneys within the terrible game I
was no-lifing at the time for efame, eglory, and shitty prizes.

My teammates and I had played for years at this point and despite being better
at the forums than the game, we knew our way around the meta and had enough
experience to make sensible decisions on the fly. Even then, we weren't ever
within touching distance of the top tiers. Not even close.

Every tourney we were watched, jeered and very occasionally cheered by
thousands of other players as we muddled through early stages against other
weaker teams before eventually being out meta'd and out played by better
players and it was brutal, adrenaline-shaking dopamine-flooded experience. It
was physically addictive at its best, and absolutely soul crushing at worst.

Even within my short, strictly amateur 'career' in esports, the gulf between
the top teams and everybody else was crazy. The level of dedication and raw
focus the eventual winners possessed was frankly insane and something I simply
wouldn't ever be able to muster. These guys who are already mechanically
superb are living and breathing their games.

I genuinely can't even begin to imagine what it's like for professional LoL
players at the top of the scene, small teams competing for huge prize pools
with individual performance publicly dissected and analysed in microscopic
detail by hordes of armchair pundits.

Throw in the inevitable post-tournament rosterpocalypse and flakey team
management, I can't help but feel professional esports is cannibalising these
players.

------
montyf
Thanks, it's interesting to see articles like this every now and then as
someone who briefly followed pro League back in the day. I guess it was Season
1 as I remember Doublelift being a lowly Blitz main before he switched to his
current role. It was a lot of fun because there wasn't an officially
sanctioned metagame -- not the case anymore. The game has been dull to watch
for many years now.

Video games don't interest me these days, but the spirit of competition is one
thing I miss about them. I always wonder what it's like to face the kind of
pressure that top performers do.

~~~
Kagerjay
I didn't expect to find a LoL post on ycombinator. I used to be a huge LoL and
DoTA player as well, played moderately competitively, but I don't play those
anymore since they suck too much time up.

A couple years back I went to The international Dota 2 in seattle for the
first time with a buddy. Its a whole different dynamic actually playing DoTA /
LoL vs watching professionals esports teams live with other attendees for 7 -
10 days in a row. The closest analogy to this is watching a football game on
TV vs actually going to the stadium and seeing it live.

You get back into the spirit of competition there, since everyone else is,
even if you haven't played in years.

Its only fun IMO if you don't go to an esports outing often though, otherwise
it'd get dull after awhile.

~~~
montyf
I got into Dota 2 after League -- now THAT is a great game to watch. I played
for a while before quitting that, too; as you say, it sucks up a lot of time,
and there was no surrender option. Going to the International must be a great
experience, though.

------
ggm
It looks like the kind of motivation to succeed which works in classic sports,
also works in new sports. If you are of a mind to aim to 'the best' then it
doesn't matter what field its in, what matters (to you) is to BE the best.

I rather like the US army recruiting slogan of old:

 _be the best you can be_

It doesn't lead to being able to write blow-off letters on fan sites, but it
makes me happy. I think I'm a low bar achiever.

~~~
delinka
_Be all that you can be_

I can still hear the jingle ;-)

------
jack9
This eSport hype journalism is as tiring as LoL public chat.

------
ahdroit
" but one day I went to LeBron James’ Instagram, and I saw that his comments
section was full of the exact same sort of garbage that I was getting"

------
chias
Gosh that page has infuriating scroll behavior. Maybe it's supposed to
implement smooth scrolling, but it somehow gets confused as to where the
scroll _actually_ is, which means any scroll attempt including using the
keyboard flickers up and down very rapidly for about a second before finally
settling down.

Thank goodness for Firefox's "Reader" mode.

~~~
wlesieutre
Has the same crazy jitter on Mobile Safari. Is there a browser that it _does_
work right in? Chrome?

------
Aloha
I have enough trouble understanding why anyone likes regular Sports - I'm even
more befuddled by eSports.

~~~
ajkjk
Have you played either? Esports make a lot more sense when you play the game
competitively yourself. It's (to me, and lots of people) always fascinating to
watch people being excellent at things that I'm not that great at.

~~~
Aloha
I did, soccer as a kid. I didn't enjoy it much.

------
keyle
I play pinball on a competitive scale. It's great fun and it's internationally
ranked (IFPA). We get toghether, and battle on machine that takes a lot of
skills and knowledge to master. Seriously, the silver ball and physics bring a
world of constant chaos.

E-sports seems like a bad joke that went on for too long. It goes to show that
if you pump enough money into something, it will become a thing. The old
saying "if you strap enough rockets to a pig, it will fly!" is basically it.

I hope not every 'sport' or 'hobby' come to that level, as it brings so much
sadness and fake happiness in competition.

~~~
sushisource
Maybe I'm just misinterpreting what you're writing but are you really
suggesting pinball is a more deserving sport than e-sports? That doesn't
exactly feel like a convincing argument.

If you're saying "I don't understand why League is big and Pinball isn't".
Well, that's popularity.

More importantly - who cares what other people like? If you don't like it, you
don't have to jump in screaming "but this is baaaaaad!"

~~~
keyle
No what I'm saying is pumping too much money in a e-sport/hobby is bad.

~~~
gnahckire
Could you elaborate on how/why you view it as "bad"?

From my POV this is a "good" thing.

E-sports get a lot of eyeballs (views). More eyeballs (views) = more
endorsement due to increased audience.

Personally, I'm an advocate for e-sports because I enjoy playing games &
watching people compete at them especially at the elite level.

