Sports vs E-sports

How sports are able to keep such high viewership without any change while esports games need to change constantly to stay relevant?

Sports, in general, are immediately impressive. You don’t need any context to be amazed by speed, dexterity, explosiveness, size...the list goes on. You know you can’t do what you see these athletes do.

Esports require insane context. Most people have no idea if what they are watching is hard (and the skill and dedication it takes) or not until they’ve experienced it directly.

A hundred hours in most games in not enough to remotely appreciate it. Because the higher you climb the more u appreciate the little things and the insane difference between two levels where most people can’t see a difference at all. I’m champ 3 in rocket league in I watch mid champ 2 gameplay and grand champ gameplay and can’t see the difference most of the time . But in game, I can feel it all day. A game like league or dota takes thousands of hours to get to that point

This ignores the fact that you've got years upon years of knowledge of sports and the physical capabilities of athletes to base any viewing of a sports play on, but lack that context for an e-sport. It's hard to grow up in America with access to television or with a family member who's fond of sports and not osmose some of that information. The average American is intimately more familiar with the workings of football or baseball than they are of even the most popular videogame.

Everyone has some basic idea of how fast a person can run. If you saw footage of someone running at some speed, you'd be able to tell from their own movements and how quickly they clear other objects (like painted lines on the ground) whether this person is hauling ass or jogging leisurely. You can do that because you've seen tons of people run, and you can run yourself. But pressing buttons with split-second timing in a precise but rapid sequence? That's something the average person could go their entire life without experiencing.

But pressing buttons with split-second timing in a precise but rapid sequence? That's something the average person could go their entire life without experiencing.

It even goes beyond that, at least in some esports. I'm mostly (okay, basically exclusively) familiar with Starcraft Brood War. And at least in those events, you don't even see what the players are actually doing in the sense of seeing their hands; you just see the end result on screen. At least if you saw their hands, you could think "that's really fast and I guess they're actually doing things at that speed", but it's usually hard to see that from the end result.

Casters will spectate the game with live commentary and in both Brood War and SC2 you can see the resources that the players have and their APM (actions per minute, which for most pros is around 400!!!) In SC2 you can also see production and units killed. When you watch the game you don't see the player's cameras and the casters can look anywhere on the map but will focus on important things like battles or skirmishes or buildings being made. Its a really fun game to watch and when you play it you really appreciate the skill it takes to play at that high of a level.

A lot of it comes down to with what people are familiar with. Its not fun to watch something you don’t understand. I grew up pretty much almost never playing or watching sports but played tons of video games, so consequently I can enjoy watching speedruns and esports as I can understand how they work and the skill required for them.

But less than a year ago I learned how to play tennis, and now I enjoy watching tennis. Now that I understand how the game works and have experienced firsthand what its like to be on the court and have great moments as well as fail miserably at a low level, I can appreciate it when its played at a professional level. Humans just like what they know.

Just to clarify, I don’t necessarily go out of my way to watch either, but I can appreciate them when I do see them.

Video games exist in a consumer bubble.

Sports don't. Sports don't change. Sports don't get re written, or replaced. You can't change physics. And to get good at a sport athletes spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and for some sports their entire lifetime getting good at it.

Then take a new game. It's going to be replaced by another new engine with better graphics that takes what that game did, but does it better.

People want esports to be taken seriously like real sports. It's competitive and entertaining. But something new comes along all the time. Even the most popular, intensive game like dota, hasn't existed a fraction of the time of a lot of the popular sports. So it can't have the same trans generational appeal.

Sports largely exist as entertainment. That's why they have monetary value (advertisement potential). But they exist in our society for complex reasons like mastery, didactis and some believe a replacement for war. Esports will always struggle to be in the same area because they can't natually/quickly appeal to society outside those who play the game. There isn't a physical component to it either. Your grandfather can't sit there and watch you play and be impressed the very first time he see's it. But he can watch someone basically defy physics on the tv and be impressed the very first time. He can make sense of what he's watching. And again, 10 years from now that game will be replaced; there never will be a catch up period.

Smash is one of the easier esports to understand though. It's 1v1, winning and losing is measured by the amount of lives and the percent.

In Dota no one is going to understand that an Alchemist draft having a 5K gold lead isn't that much because Alchemist fundamentally farms much faster than other Heroes.

The Dota play is very impressive because they set up a Fatal Bonds Starfall combo to hit multiple Heroes but it makes absolutely no sense to a casual viewer.

I feel like your comment is another big reason on why traditional sports has a wider, trans-generational viewer base. At the surface, I think most people, even casual gamers, views esports being boiled down to hand eye coordination, or what we term "micro play". This means things like, getting a certain combination of button presses with the right timing, or knowing what to purchase for a certain character etc. Plays that revolve around the small, immediate decisions that you are able to execute on the spot. That's certainly one component of it, but it's equivalent to saying basketball is about height, or football about speed. Of course, there certainly will be differences between video games, but at the highest level, competitive play really revolves around strategy and teamwork (i.e. the ability to execute the strategy/adapt to opponents). This is known as "macro play", or as I like to view it: decisions you make in light of the entire game. This is simply because micro play is almost always limited by the fact that we are humans and have biological limits.

A simple example, and I'll use soccer since it's hard to explain with esports without some prior knowledge: micro play would mean, as a forward, should I continue forward and attempt to bypass defenders with my footwork or should I pass now to maintain possession. Then you'd probably evaluate who the defenders are, how many of them are there, how likely you are to succeed going through them, and if there are teammates around you who are ready for either play. Macro play on the other hand, again in the same position, would mean sth like: I know we are 1-0 up, and there's 10 minutes left to the game. It's our game to lose now so my best bet is to maintain ball possession and tire them. Hence, get this game plan across to my team, and try our best to execute it. This means, you might not even take what seems like an easy defense line since your goal is to maintain possession. (example on how micro and macro conflicts)

Most traditional sports are pretty simple from a viewer's perspective. Like, tons of people that watch the NFL don't have nuanced understanding of formations, strategy or even what the difference between encroachment and off-sides is, but most humans if allowed to watch say, one quarter could probably explain "one team is trying to make the ball go that way, and the other team is trying to stop them."

Also, like you said, it's much easier to perceive the skill involved in a say, football or basketball, even if you have never played. Seeing an actual human, do things that are very hard or impossible for most other humans is easy to recognize and most people like to watch other people do things they can't.

Watching a game of LoL/Starcraft/COD/Overwatch is harder if the person does not have experience with that particular title, or video games in general. I get excited watching C9 Sneaky steal a drake with lucian W when the other team's jungler is right there in the pit because I KNOW how hard that is, that it was a rare play to see, the skill of the attempted play involved and a million other details about what is going on. My wife on the other hand, seeing the same play, has no context for why that should be applauded. Neither of us are talented swimmers, but we can both watch Olympic pairs diving and marvel at the great divers because all humans have some sort of understanding of how hard co-coordinating intricate patters of movement with another human is.

Not to mention that changes occur slowly in most physical sports, due to familiarity and the fact that the "balance" of those sports is generally determined by the physical characteristics of the players. Where as in Esports, patches come out relatively often and sometimes change the game monumentally. An esports team might do really well one season, but then not so well another because a particular map/champion/item that they utilized heavily was nerfed, but a football field will always be 100 yards from end zone to end zone and the devs can't just tweek Jerome Bettis' stats a little when he runs mother fuckers over and has 6 1000 yard seasons in a row.

In addition, most esports are not location specific. I am a Patriots fan because my father was born and raised in Newton Ma. and I still live in NE. I have a friend from Philly who doesn't even watch football, but still calls himself an Eagles fan. Esports are inherently NOT physically limited. Team Liquid is... well they are just Team Liquid, not LA liquid, not Brazil Liquid, not Houston Liquid, just Team Liquid. This is cool, in a way, but it disallows the casual fan from even being a fan based solely on proximity.

It's because sports take place in the real world, both in terms of human capabilities and the physics of the planet itself. So people can
 instantly compare sports to their own abilities, or what they have seen happening around them every day of their lives.

I have been able to run, jump, and throw for as long as I can remember. So, even before I know the rules of a sport, if I see some run faster, or jump higher, or throw farther than I ever have, I immediately know how difficult and impressive it is.

With e-sports I have none of that context. I have absolutely no inherant knowledge of what is easy and what is difficult, what is mundane and what is extraordinary. You have to learn the environment in which the game exists and operates before you can even begin to appreciate how impressive people's actions may be.

Essentially here is no barrier to entry when it comes to starting to appreciate sports, as we've been subconsciously learning the core 'rule-set' without even knowing it our entire lives. E-sports will never have that luxury.



Esports are also inaccessible to some people - a spectator who isnt familiar with the game being played may not know what the objective is, or how the teams work, or even the most basic of rules. And it can be hard to learn that by just casually watching, impossible in some cases.

Compare hockey with starcraft for instance. If I had no idea how hockey was played when I first started watching, I can quickly figure out the overall goal - get the puck into the other teams net, the team that does this the most in 1 hour of play wins, they take a break every 20 minutes. I can figure out what everyone's job is, and what is and is not allowed in normal play. Sure I might not know what the hell an icing is, but I got enough of an idea on what's going on to enjoy myself. I can get excited when one team is close to scoring, because I know the team is close to scoring

Now with starcraft. If I had no idea how the game was played I could grasp the overall objective quickly enough - destroy the other army, but I may not know exactly how that's achieved. Is it the most damage in x number of minutes, if it is, then how is that measured? do they have to destroy all the buildings? Do they need to kill the little robot guys getting crystals? This is hurt by one of the two teams usually forfeiting before the actual game is completed - as a viewer unfamiliar with the game i might not always recognize that the forfeiting player is in an unwinnable position, and simply quit to save everyone 40 minutes of a slow boring attrition.

And that's just problems with the fundamental goal, a new casual observer would have a hard time figuring out what all the units are, what they do, in what situation should they be used, why they're only sticking with a small fraction of the available units and so on. To a new viewer to competitive starcraft, it's a jumbled mess of flashy graphics and confusing terms. So when a real big game changing push happens, I dont get excited, because I had no idea what was happening or how important it was. Sure I might have a decent enough time, but I might not dive deeper into the esport to really get involved.

And to nip off any "but those are casuals, no one cares about casuals", please remember that today's casual viewers are tomorrow's hardcore fans. If you dont give them a reason to care, and you make it hard for them to understand why its exciting don't be surprised when they stop viewing the content. You dont need to dumb down the game, you just need to present the information to the viewer in a way that helps guide the viewer to understanding what's going on without needing to watch a tutorial on the game.

Degree: Philosophy

I have a philosophy degree and work as a developer / data scientist. But I think it was advanced skills in math and programming that led me to philosophy, not the other way around. Philosophy was a way for me to improve my structured writing and arguing skills.

Several of my most interesting friends have philosophy degrees. Being able to engage on any subject because you have well-developed reasoning skills is pretty great.

However, I would strongly recommend going for a more lucrative degree, or not going to university at all. The economy of today is much different than what it was generations ago - focus on career, study philosophy in your free time.

I majored in chemistry and minored in philosophy and looking back several years later, I think it served me well. My job prospects are wildly better than the average being shown in the article, and I still managed to get broad exposure to the most popular philosophers and (much more importantly) multiple classes on formal logic. The latter point really has been critical for improving the way I engage with new topics. Many of my colleagues seem to have chosen to double down and focus almost exclusively on STEM related endeavors, and I think it has really limited them. These are brilliant people working at top institutions on problems that really make a difference to the world, but you'll still hear them uncritically parrot popular political talking points or old wives' tales that any rigorous analysis should readily discard.

Philosophy is a wonderful and useful discipline, but new degree holders may be disappointed if they expect to work in their field for reasonable compensation. Your advice to study the topic while also pursuing a means of adequately supporting yourself seems excellent.

The issue i see with philosophy major at the academic level now adays is that it’s not what it used to be. That is why philosophy major at the post grad level is so confined with what it can directly do in comparison to let’s say a stem major. By 17th century and prior, philosophy required beyond a focus on morality but also focused on mathematics and the cosmos. Even further back, Plato mentioned geometry as crucial to philosophy. If those initial requirements were still present to become a philosopher, then present major holders would be much more impressive.

Critical thinking is a required course even at the community college level. Deductive and inductive reasoning and logic were required, so was an ethics class, as well as philosophy of science. As a philosophy student, I feel like it teaches you how to learn better, how to spot patterns and sets, how to think critically, how to troubleshoot. They even had a philosophy of law class that had both philosophy grad and law students in it.

It really is the perfect undergrad major to go on to grad school for really any subject, and as a degree to go on to any job, you couldn't do much better. Most people don't use their specific major's knowledge much in the real world, and philosophy is a great foundation for anything.

Certainly logic and deductive reasoning are necessary for physics, and, as a result, a physics major will be taught these things without ever taking a philosophy course. And, of course, I agree that philosophy is a subject that is well worth taking for a future physics graduate student. However, this alone will not be adequate preparation for a physicist. Even if you have excellent deductive reasoning and know all about the foundations of logic, that doesn't mean you can solve a differential equation or write down a sensible Lagrangian. There is simply too much practical skill and knowledge that an aspiring physicist must know before doing research that an education in philosophy alone will not provide.

One particular mode of reasoning that a philosophy education does not really teach is statistical reasoning. While a philosophy student might take a course or two in the foundational principles of this kind of reasoning, it is not common for philosophy students to be taught how to put these principles into practice, quantitatively. But for a physicist, theoretical or experimental, the quantitative application of this kind of reasoning is bread-and-butter, and it takes time to develop the ability to do it.

It's not like philosophers have a monopoly on logic and deductive reasoning, right? These are foundational notions, and most if not all fields would provide training in them. Of course, if one was into formal and deep study, a philosophy class would be more relevant, but enough understanding to usefully apply these is in anyone's remit. So, e.g., most people would know what sound deduction is, but most (myself included) would not know the difference between a first and second order theory. Similarly philosophy of science, at least in the sciences.

That said, I'll take further issue with your comment. (Only talking about STEM because that's what I know best. Also, theorist bias.) Most 'hard' sciences comprise not just a way of thinking, but a large body of technical knowledge - both specialised and general (e.g. basic probability+stats, basic harmonic analysis, the systems viewpoint in engg.). Training in e.g. Information Theory is not something that one would get out of a philosophy degree (and for good reason). Of course, I'm not saying one cannot pick up this knowledge later, but the perfect undergrad major to go to grad school for X is X, or some closely related X', not philosophy. The one with most flexibility in STEM is likely maths, (and maybe EE/CS or physics), but only if you're interested in theory. A maths degree is basically useless if what you want to study is, say, synthetic chemistry or mechanical engg.