No, South Africa is not in the top 10 of eSports

No, South Africa is not in the top 10 of eSports

So the wonderful and fully functional (where’s my sarcasm font?) MSSA sent out a press release yesterday stating that South Africa is now ranked 10th in the world in eSports.

I read through the PR and chuckled quietly and then deleted it as we all know it’s total nonsense – but then this morning I received a question from a community member about this and so decided to put together a quick article showing why this press release shouldn’t have been believed straight-out by sites such as MyGaming (who claimed they were 10th in the world) and el33tonline (who at least said 10th in the federation) and posted without at least pointing out some serious flaws.

So let’s go through this shall we?

I’ll paste the entire PR at the end of the article but here are the three parts that really should have been properly investigated:

“…the team slipped in 2012 to 18th position, but still showed improvement with the team coming home with a silver in the Women’s StarCraft II event.”

The team did not show improvement and this line keeps on being thrown around as if a silver in this instance is great. Generally a silver is fantastic except that this time there were only two competitors. Silver is pretty much guaranteed. And do you want to hear what the winner had to say about our South African competitor?

“Honestly, my opponent was pretty bad. But I was plenty surprised by the fact that South Africa also had a female SC2 division going on. I hope more and more female players start playing so that we can get a lot of tournaments going on in the future.”

Now this is not slighting our lady who did the very best she could, but to use this as your yardstick MSSA is more than a little ignorant.

Next up the PR states:

“Even though the team did not return home in 2013 with any medals, the overall standard of the team had improved, and the team was able to arduously climb up the ladder to force into being ranked 10th in the world.”

No they climbed the IeSF ladder to be 10th in that federation which definitely does not represent the world.

And finally:

Of course South Korea is ranked 1st, but, when you consider that South Africa is now rubbing shoulders with the power-houses of eSports, the future looks very bright indeed!

Now South Korea is a definite powerhouse in eSports but how about those other little powerhouses that aren’t at all affiliated with the IeSF like United States of America, The United Kingdom, Germany, Poland and Australia?

Oh and wait! The last little blip. We are actually tied 9th with Serbia with a total of 43 points in the IeSF rankings. On the more comprehensive rankings however we’re shown as 10th – but things don’t add up. Austria, Azerbaijan and the Philippines have the same score of 11, but aren’t tied, while Spain and Mongolia are tied, despite there being a 5 point deficit. It seems that in the IeSF the points are like those on “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”

Anyway to round it up, we have performed adequately in the IeSF rankings, even though the number of member nations seem to be dropping year after year. Yes, we’re doing well in this limited pool of countries that doesn’t include some of the best in the world, though the unfortunate reality is that we are not the 10th best country at eSports.

Oh and as a side note to keep everyone in the loop, our ex-MSSA president Colin Webster is now board member of the IeSF and Chairman of the Players Committee – so it is in his and the MSSA’s best interest to spin this federation as the global option for South Africa.

-RTD

Here’s the press release:

The IeSF have released the rankings for the 2013 year. Thanks to the sterling efforts of the 2013 MWEB Protea eSports team that attended the 2013 IeSF World Championships, South Africa is now ranked higher than ever before. South Africa, it would be imagined is sorely disadvantaged in eSports, but the character and strength of the South African gamers has overcome the odds to rise up and demonstrate their worth. From being unranked in 2010, the South African team has ploughed its way through the opposition to make it into the top twenty (13th) in 2011. Unfortunately, the team slipped in 2012 to 18th position, but still showed improvement with the team coming home with a silver in the Women’s StarCraft II event. Even though the team did not return home in 2013 with any medals, the overall standard of the team had improved, and the team was able to arduously climb up the ladder to force into being ranked 10th in the world. A big thank you is thus extended to every member of the team who contributed towards this fine achievement! Of course South Korea is ranked 1st, but, when you consider that South Africa is now rubbing shoulders with the power-houses of eSports, the future looks very bright indeed!

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