Mihir Vasavda at Asian Games: Why E-Sports is the highest-ticketed and the sold-out event of the tournament in China | Asian-games News

The only man seemingly in his 50s confessed to being bewildered, if not out of place.At 8 a.m. on a weekday, teenagers and people in their early 20s horde the arena that resembles a Star Wars set with a glass of beer in one hand and a lightsaber in another.
Chinese rock blares out of the speakers inside the Hangzhou eSports Stadium. But it mostly falls on deaf ears. Most are glued to their phones, twiddling their thumbs and tapping relentlessly and halt only when the lights go off and the music stops.
The anticipation builds as the circular stage with four stations slowly illuminates. Then, an emcee, with the flourish of a ring announcer, comes forward and introduces the players who, one one, emerge from a tunnel. Shy under the spotlight, they blush and wave at the crowd.

“We feel like rockstars,” says Thailand’s Suebka Chayut, the winner of eSports’ first medal at these Asian Games.
To many, they are.
Like pro wrestling, hip-hop, rap music and computer gaming, eSports have transformed into a mainstream phenomenon from being an underground movement over the last decade.
For a young man’s sport that has Olympic ambitions, these Games will be a true marker. At China’s tech capital, a city that’s home to a huge gaming industry, eSports is making its debut as a medal affair at a major multi-discipline event.
Asian Games – Hangzhou 2022 – E-Sports – China Hangzhou Esports Centre, Hangzhou, China – September 26, 2023 Players from Team China step onto the podium after winning the Arena of Valor Asian Games Version Final, during the medal ceremony. (Reuters)
“This is to target the younger generation,” says UAE gamer Harib Sami. “They know the younger generation will keep playing, playing, playing. Earlier, they tried with football but the newer generation, no one moves! So you have to make your business around the kids and target them. That’s why they have added eSports.”
The seriousness and legitimacy of the sport will be debated for the years to come, as the International Olympic Committee flirts with the idea of including it in the future Games programme.
But for now, most indicators have been encouraging. The tickets, despite being the highest-priced among all sports – were sold out within moments. A few nights ago, thousands landed at the Hangzhou International Airport to welcome the legendary ‘Faker’, the South Korean legend of the League of Legends. The reception he got was second only to the Chinese TT team when they arrived here but gaming heads aren’t merely big-name hunters.
“I am here to watch YSKM. He’s one of the greats of our game,” says 18-year-old Pao, who paid 500 Yuan or roughly Rs 5,700 for a morning session ticket.
YSKM is the gamer tag of Taiwan’s Chau Shu Tak. He isn’t on the roster for the day’s first game but ‘SwordArt’ is. The fans go mental in the stands when his name is announced. But a groggy ‘SwordArt’ – aka Hu Shuo-Chieh – tiptoes on the stage, sits on a chair too big for him and yawns. “We usually play until 2 or 3 in the night and wake up late in the morning, around 11 or 12,” he says.
Today, he has to play at 9 a.m.
It seems an ungodly hour even for the fans but once the game begins, everything else halts. The next 20 minutes are a full-on sensory experience. Like hockey broadcasters of yore, the in-house commentator embarks on a breathless mission to describe everything that’s unfolding in Chinese.
The seriousness and legitimacy of the sport will be debated for the years to come, as the International Olympic Committee flirts with the idea of including it in the future Games programme. (Reuters)
‘If you miss one click, you are dead’
The crowd, wielding their lightsabers, watch the action on the four giant screens displaced from the roof – the bird’s eye view of the game and a close-up of the poker-faced gamers, who manipulate the keyboard with their left hand while the right frantically clicks with a mouse.
These ‘actions per minute’ are what gamers use to justify the cited as one of the many reasons for considering eSports as a legit sport. “You are constantly clicking or pressing the keys. In a 20-minute match, our combined action is easily above 2000. You don’t stop,” says UAE’s Harib Sami, making a clicking sound. “If you miss one click, you are dead.”
Gamers compare League of Legends to chess. There’s strategising, they say, right from picking the characters, or the meta champions as they call them. The first pick may seem beneficial but the one who goes last can get the actual advantage.
“It’s a strategy game, and also a fighting game,” says Thailand’s Chayut, the bronze winner. “Just like chess.”Most Read
1
Watch this Space: Chandrayaan-3 sleeps as US Space Force punches a hole in atmosphere

2
Canada’s defence miner expresses concern over measures taken India

See More

It might be tough to imagine Praggnanandhaa and Gukesh adopting meta avatars and going on a wild killing spree and bringing down structures to earn gold and destroy the Nexus, which is League of Legends’ ultimate goal.
That, though, is for another day.
For 20 minutes the match lasts, there are oohs and aahs from the stands with every slain, double kill and destruction of minions and monsters. There’s no conventional scorekeeping; just a plethora of stats that indicate the team is in a winning position.

At last, when the Nexus is annihilated, the camera pulls back and shows the humans on the stage: the nerdy, bespectacled boys – that’s what they are – of all shapes and sizes.
The modern-day athletes.