This is written in response to Tobias Sherman's 'open letter to esports', published last week, and available here.

Dear Mr Sherman,

Here at Luckbox, we are aware that not every part of the company has a long tenure in esports. Folk like Sujoy and Redeye have obviously been around since slightly before the invention of electricity, but there are some of us who are newer to esports, and recognise that it is important for the scene to set expectations, and then the money to react accordingly.

Meanwhile, it seems as though over at ELEAGUE, where you cut your teeth, or the FOUNDRY, the amount of money being waved around has made some people forget the fundamentals of what got us here today. Venture capital is a house built on sand in the hands of all but the wisest of business folk, and esports has survived more than twenty years of ups, downs and all-arounds without it. Asking the world to bend, and esports to adopt the name ‘new sports’ overnight, so ELEAGUE can get a tiny bit more wedge in their wallet, is probably not the way to go.

For a start, one of the main reasons you gave both on Twitter and in your letter was the confusion that investors suffer when trying to decipher if ‘esports is sports or not’. Aside from the very obvious point that if it were sport, there would be no need for the e-prefix, we are really struggling to see how the word ‘new’ is more helpful in this situation. At least e- is accepted as a prefix for ‘electronic’ items, such as mail, where the word "new" is so vague as to be perfectly pointless.

So, moving beyond that confused billionaire, let’s move onto the meat of your letter, or rather, let us try. The reason we say that is that your definition of esports is one coined by a controversial, occasionally insightful and always deliberately emphatic man known as Thorin, or Duncan Shields to his mum back in Sunderland. While we are all big fans of Thorin here, what he makes his money off is big, talking point takes, rather than the pure analysis and fact you might get from a more cerebral, less entertaining pundit.

Multiplayer video games played competitively

Google, a far more universal source that has far less stake in making the reader angry, happy, sad or so on, simply defines esports as ‘multiplayer video games played competitively, normally for spectators by professionals’. There are elements of the mainstream media that want to challenge this, and attach things like racism, sexism, questionable hygiene and (in some extreme Gamergate related cases) genocidal hatred of all minorities to the word, but they are all incorrect, and simply projecting their own unhappiness outward.

So, it seems as though the real issue up until now has been communication, both in terms of how the mainstream media communicated esports to the masses, and also your own struggles with the words ‘no, hence the e’ when asked if esports is sports (can we suggest a King’s Speech-style therapist?). Changing the name of the game won’t make those sections of the media that currently hate esports fall in love with it, so any image improvements will require a lot more than just a slap of new paint.

You speak of the need for evolution, as though you’ve not been at the centre of a company that has gone from nowhere in the game to hosting CSGO Majors in a matter of years, and the desire fans have for the same. While the second part is true, this is the real crux of the matter, the fans, and they are going to be on one side of the argument alone.

Fans do not need to be told they are doing things wrong, and in esports they have already spent a lot of time having their faults and foibles shoved down their throats. The money people who would love to see esports replaced by new sports would not even be in the room without the millions of ‘low value’ viewers that have built esports into what it is, and they way to succeed is not to change the shape of the mountain, but learn how to better ascend the slopes.

Of course, this should all go without saying for a man in your position, but that apparently is not the case right now, and it worries the people at Luckbox. Without the fans, there is no 1.3m viewing figure on ELEAGUE, there is no ELEAGUE Major at all, and the venture capital is also gone. Put metaphorically, be careful not to throw the baby, bath, bathroom, towel, rubber ducky, soap and loofah out with the bathwater.

Yours

Us