The 2nd of April a group was created on Facebook with the goal of gettng Swedens and one of the worlds most famous and best E-sportsmen of all time. Emil "HeatoN" Christensen into the competition. Christensen played the game Counter strike and won pretty much everything there is to win. This game was and probably still is one of the most popular competitive computer games of all time. The group now, after 5 days, has slightly more than 32000 likes. Obviously there are a lot of voices against allowing an E-sport into the program as it differs quite a lot from all other sports, or does it? There is no doubt that you get more tired physically by playing football than by playing a computer game but what about curling? or shooting? or golf?
You don't need to be fit to manage well in these 3 sports. Sure, golf players walk a lot but that isn't really part of the sport and they could use a golf cart. These sports are hardly more physical than gaming, is there really such a big difference between swinging, aiming and clicking on buttons? Not in my opinion, the difference would be that Counter strike, CS, is more intense for a longer time. I would actually say that it requires more of you physically. You need to keep concentrating 100% for a quite long time, without breaks unlike the other sports I mentioned where it's more about precision and short time concentration. I don't play CS personally but I play other games and I play chess, something very similar to gaming in what it requires of you and for some reason almost everyone among the best chess players is fit. Yeah, you need the same kind of stamina to focus as you need to exercise. Why do you think that you get tired after a long test in school or a long day at work? Your brain needs more oxygen than usual while focusing, just like your muscles while exercising and stamina is how much oxygen/second you can produce. I am quite sure of that it's the same kind at least.
That being said, why shouldn't E-sport be allowed? I can come up with some reasons people might give.
- You don't perform the act yourself, you just control the character.
Answer: Well, what about motor sport? You just control the car.
- A gamer wouldn't stand a chance against these real athletes.
Answer: These people were athletes a long time ago, many of them are in regular or even bad shape nowadays and HeatoN happen to have played ice hockey when he was younger, he changed to gaming because of an injury. He is however still fit and due to being a gamer he is a great team player and has insane reflexes. Something that, together with his height and length of arms should make him a nightmare in the night duel that I gave a link to earlier in this post.
Do like me and 32327 others, support the campaign to get HeatoN into Mästarnas Mästare. Swedish television, the creators of the show has said that they find HeatoN an interesting name, that they appreciate the engagement and that they will look closer into the request. Many large newspapers has also written about HeatoN.
HeatoN himself has said that he would love to participate and that he thinks that would give the ever growing E-sport the fame it deserves. And to all of you that says that gaming is something only kids do and that it's bad for their performance in school. Starcraft is the national sport of South Korea, I would say that they are doing just fine
when it comes to school.
Link to the group once again:
https://www.facebook.com/Heaton2015?fref=ts
Good night people. HeatoN