I have always enjoyed almost any sport but there is one series of sports which has always been woefully underrepresented. I’m talking about mind sports, sports which involve a battle of human intelligence. For every mind sport there have always been hundreds of other physical sports. Don’t get me wrong I love many ‘physical’ sports and they also showcase moments of exceptional human intelligence and creativity. But they aren’t the same as a pure battle of wits, one mind versus another. I believe this is a travesty since the brain is humans must incredible attribute.
The mind sports which do exist tend to be terrible spectator sports. Chess, the obvious candidate, is too slow and not great to watch. Others have similar problems. The revolution in mind sports began with the popularity of TV poker. It has great drama, and bluffs of course. TV poker has been very successful but it can be a bit repetitive. Its other major problem is that no matter how skilled a player is he can still lose through bad luck. This detracts from the idea of a great battle of minds. The initial boom in poker viewing figures has subsided
However there was one mind sport I stumbled upon which has had a bigger impact on me than any other sport. I’m talking about the e-sport Starcraft: Brood War. Starcraft is a real-time computer strategy game usually though not exclusively played between two players. The game is extremely dynamic because each player plays as one of three almost perfectly balanced but very different races. Every player plays one of either the human like Terrans, the insectoid alien and all-consuming Zerg or the psionic alien Protoss. A player will always play as the same race in all his matches as it would be too difficult to master another race.
Despite being produced by American company Blizzard entertainment the game has gained most popularity in South Korea and it is here where the game first became a sport. The game is extremely difficult to play. Most professional players will average over 300 actions per minute (clicking the mouse and pressing the keyboard). And that doesn’t include watching the screen, mini-map and planning strategies.
In my opinion it is by far the greatest mind sport to ever exist. It is the best sport I have ever played or watched. Nothing can match it for drama or tension. It has all the elements which make a great sport. Unlike other mind sports it’s very easy for an audience to follow a match. It has dramatic moments which can completely turn a game. Because of its difficulty it is extremely intense, the game takes phenomenal concentration and skill and a single moment of error can lose a game. No other sport pushes the human brain to such an extent and as in all great sports the very best players can do things no one else can.
I first stumbled upon e-sports in 2008 after playing a few games of Starcraft with a friend. I used to play a lot of poker and that is how I discovered e-sports. A lot of former pro starcraft players like ‘Elki’ Bertrand_Grospellier moved over to poker. Here is the first game I ever watched with English commentary (a rarity back then)
Since then I have been completely hooked. The game never tires thanks to the stream of new maps which come out every season. Despite many hundreds of games I am still terrible at playing the game (max rank D+ on ICCup) but I don’t really care since that just makes winning a game that much more satisfying. The best part of watching Starcraft is when a player invents something truly innovative which know one has seen or done before. I love both playing and watching the game.
I believe e-sports will be huge in the future. To some extent they already are. The recent IPL tournament in April had 3 million unique viewers over 3 days. The sport is now starting to spread much more widely outside South Korea thanks to the release of Starcraft II. At the moment the world is not quite ready to except it. The cultural attitude towards video games is still negative, although this is changing. The majority of the population still do not even play video games let alone watch them.
Probably the greatest challenge that any e-sport faces is that they are subject to changing technology in a way that other sports aren’t. Starcraft: Brood War is an example of this. The game is now over 10 years old and people new to the sport question the graphics of the game. Moreover the next instalment of the game, Starcraft II, has now been released and many viewers and progamers have now switched over to the newer version. That said e-sports are only going to get bigger and I can’t wait. Mind sports are finally here to stay.