The rising popularity of competitive gaming seems to entice companies into creating more niche ways to play them. Virtual reality was the first contender, with Centertec attempting to bring VR eSports to their own arena. While some people may not have been interested in that, Centertec’s popularity has grown since their announcement. Their idea also comes at a key time in VR history as the technology is becoming more popular as days go by. There is one concept, however, that confuses me every time I think about it.

That concept is theater eSports. By that I mean playing eSports in a theater while the same game you are playing is broadcasted to the big screen and the audience right in front of you is watching. Think about it as if the players at CS:GO’s ELEAGUE were in the audience playing on a laptop; you now have the idea of what Super League Gaming (SLG) is trying to do. They started off innocently enough with Minecraft, not a very competitive game, but then moved on to League of Legends. After securing a deal with Riot Games, SLG now has the right to host League tournaments in theaters across America. The question that remains is why?

SLG Idea’s

Competitive video games are meant to be played on a desk with a desktop keyboard, a mouse, a screen and a computer tower; preferably also in a comfortable chair. SLG’s system, however, is missing all of that. The players are crammed into theater seats with a laptop on their lap and a tiny mouse pad next to them. At the same time, the game they are playing is being blasted on the massive theater screen in front of them with the audience sitting in the seats right in front of them. Not only is the tiny space the players are playing in extremely uncomfortable for a high action game like League, but unless the no talking policy of a theater applies here too, the players will hear both the game on theater speakers and the audience talking and cheering. There is a very good reason professional players usually play in soundproof booths, so they don’t hear the casters, the audience and the arena speakers. I imagine that playing the game literally seats away from the audience, with nothing but some gaming headphones on, would distract the people playing. Not to mention that no matter how good the gaming laptops they are playing on are, they will still not offer the same performance as a gaming desktop computer. With all that in mind, are there any pros to SLG’s idea?

Perhaps this concept could become popular. I suppose that having the audience so close to the players will bring about a higher sense of community and connections by allowing the audience to easily interact with the players. That is all the positive aspects I can see about this concept due to the negatives outweighing the positives. Perhaps this whole concept will become popular. The world of eSports is very volatile in terms of people and concepts that enter it. After all, professional European soccer teams are becoming involved in eSports day after day, so SLG has every opportunity to make it big as well.