Mentioned in this article Games: League of Legends

Note: It has been brought to my attention that I didn’t make a clear enough distinction here between “sports” and “spectator sports.” Sports is a widely defined term that ranges from professional leagues to kicking the ball around with your family or friends during a school break. Spectator sports, however, have defined structures, are built for viewing, and entire industries built around them.

Translating this into the digital realm, “gaming” is the term given to playing video games widely, whether in a line at Trader Joe’s or in front of millions in the LCS. “Esports,” in that sense, is the spectator sport equivalent to gaming.

Look, I get it, right? Amazon invested heavily into Twitch in 2014 and there’s going to be some overlap between the online behemoth and esports. Some of that has been great, such as the Amazon Prime/Twitch subscription deal.

And then there’s today’s Champions of Fire, a “casual mobile game eSports tournament” with a $100,000 prize pool to be played live in Las Vegas by top gaming celebrities. It will be live streamed and re-aired on CBS Sports Network, featuring games like Fruit Ninja, Disney Crossy Road, and Pac-man 256. It is, very clearly, a marketing drive for the Amazon app and game store.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]The entire esports industry is based on the idea that talent and skill at playing video games is entertaining to watch.[/perfectpullquote]

Let me be abundantly clear here: there is no semblance of esports in Champions of Fire. The entire esports industry is based on the idea that talent and skill at playing video games is entertaining to watch—whether that’s developing team strategies in titles like Counter-Strike and League of Legends, or watching somebody speed their way through a game like Dishonored in 40 minutes when it’s supposed to take ten times longer.

There are reasons that the casual mobile titles in Champions of Fire are not top esports titles. The first is simple: these titles aren’t esports titles because they aren’t supposed to be. Their developers did not build them to be played in a competitive environment. And yes, while some do have leaderboards that let you compare yourself to others, that doesn’t really mean competition—especially as many mobile titles accept payment for people to boost themselves up those leaderboards.

[perfectpullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]These titles aren’t esports titles because they aren’t supposed to be.[/perfectpullquote]

In addition, many are not entertaining to watch. They don’t have many of the spectator tools that come with esports titles. Many are repetitive and simple—and if they do have strategy, it’s not easily apparent. Many of these titles are puzzle games, which require dozens of hours of memorization to understand, and viewers won’t have that background.

And on a final point, it’s not immediately apparent to me that the players will understand those strategies either. The Champions of Fire are all celebrity streamers and gaming personalities—which means while they are good at games in general, they are not good at these games. And given that there’s five different titles, there’s no telling how well these players have been able to practice, meaning that their performance in these games will be suspect—and more importantly, decidedly worse than people that have sunk dozens of hours into playing.

All together, it’s a pretty insulting move for a company that should have known better. It’ll definitely be especially insulting to people that take those gaming titles seriously—people who should be the ones in this tournament. But instead, Amazon is handing this tournament over to celebrities that will bring in their personal fanbases, which gives the actually talented players in these games zero chance of success.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]It’s a pretty insulting move for a company that should have known better.[/perfectpullquote]

Perhaps the most uninformed element of this event, however, is how it has been marketed. There are a number of sponsored articles from a variety of gaming outlets calling this “esports for all.” I personally received several emails from marketers bragging about how these games are the same kind that “you (or your mom) may enjoy in line at Trader Joe’s.”

This really underlines to me the misunderstanding going on for non-endemic sponsors to the industry. In traditional sports, “[Note: spectator] sports for all” would be taken as a joke. Nobody wants to play the games the way that the pros play—they require referees or umpires, giant stadiums and fields, and have insanely complicated rules. But that’s also what makes them entertaining to watch.

That’s what makes them sports.