Forget what anyone not familiar with the world of gaming says. eSports is a thing. It’s absolutely a thing. A real sport. Players play professionally, live events are attended by literal thousands, there’s world rankings and everything. It’s a thing. Hell, ESPN bloody broadcasts it.
It is, unequivocally, an absolute thing.
And so it should be totally unsurprising to anyone that eSports is beginning to be absorbed into other “regular” pre-existing multi-sport meets.
In a first for Australia, the Uni Games is extending the olive branch to those who fight with keyboard and mouse.
This year, for the first time eve, the annual University games will feature a ‘League of Legends‘ tournament, where the best of the country’s teams will duke it out for ultimate national supremacy.
LoL, for those not in the know, is one of the biggest eSports in the world, with an annual World Championship worth US$1,000,000 to the victor (along with the hefty 32kg Summoner’s Cup).
The game, which is played by more than 67 million people worldwide, features two teams clashing head-to-head in a battle of skill, strategy, and logical thinking. It’s bloody intense, believe you me.
The Uni Games, scheduled to kick off in Perth on September 25th, attracts some 15,000 athletes from 42 different tertiary institutions across the country, who all gather to compete in a whopping 39 different sports.
If you fancy your chances on the virtual field, you’ve gotta first assemble your team. Then make it through inter-University qualifiers. Then regional online tournaments. Then the nationals. And then finally the Uni Games tournament itself.
If you need a little motivation, here’s some highlights from last year’s World Championships.
Good bloody luck.
Source: HuffPo.
