Some people have made sourdough starters; some people have dived into a reading list or a Netflix queue; some people have taken up jogging (including me, briefly). We all have our lockdown obsessions. It turns out, at least based on the evidence of the last few months, that mine is watching esports; specifically, Rocket League (developed by Psyonix) and Counter-Strike Global Offensive (developed by Valve and based on the Counter-Strike mod for Half-Life)
For the uninitiated, “esports” is a term for professional video game tournaments. The concept of esports tournaments has existed for many years, with elite-level competitions pioneered by Street Fighter 2 and the Nintendo World Championships; the growth of the internet pushed the popularity of esports through the 2000s, but it is in the 2010s that the concept has exploded. (Wikipedia helpfully compares there being 10 global competitions in 2000 to around 260 in 2010.) This has allowed a full-on industry to rise up, with developers often sponsoring and hosting events for players with million-dollar prize sums on offer.
It is perhaps unsurprising that esports would thrive in lockdown as most professional sports were closed down. Where a professional football match might need a huge range of support staff, a Rocket League match just needs six players and their computers. Many “real world” professional athletes took part in electronic tournaments while in lockdown. Formula 1 and Formula E both ran esports championships while the season was delayed, though the professional drivers that took part tended to be the younger ones. (Formula E’s championship even resulted in a driver getting fired from his team for cheating.) There were multiple FIFA charity tournaments featuring professional footballers, and these were no slapdash affairs; these events often had hosts, commentators, analysts and a full broadcast team behind them.
Which leads onto another advantage esports has: the ease of broadcasting. No radio frequencies or television broadcast licence needed; you only need a channel on Twitch, the livestreaming website, and you can get tens of thousands of views — most games now build in observer modes and Twitch support specifically for this purpose. Some matches are “locked” so that they can be broadcast by the organisers, while others (typically qualifier matches) are open to the public, and most matches are broadcast by different stations in multiple languages. This also makes esports a lot easier for potential fans to find; rather than being stuck on a pay-per-view cable channel, all of Twitch is free to access and supported by adverts and subscriptions.
Ironically given the above, my introduction to esports actually came from the BBC, who occasionally acquire the rights to certain events and put them on their website. A few years ago they broadcast the Gfinity Elite Series; a multi-game tournament that saw 8 European teams compete in CS:GO, Rocket League and Street Fighter V to accrue points towards a Victor Ludorum trophy. My first introduction to esports, I remember watching and enjoying it hugely at the time, but not really having any reason to stay engaged once the tournament was over. When I put the Rocket League Spring Series on to watch back in May I was expecting something similar — just something to pass the time.
A couple of things changed this time, beyond the obvious implications of lockdown. The main one was that this time I found a team to support.
Endpoint are a UK-based organisation with teams in Rocket League, CS:GO and Rainbow Six: Siege, while they also support a player in the Quake Pro League (for Quake Champions). I picked up on them instantly at RLSS because they did what I like in a team: they punched above their weight, taking down FC Barcelona Esports (considered one of the top teams in Europe, and a team who had recently beaten Endpoint in the regular league season) in their opening match before ultimately finishing 4th in the competition, with commentators singling out their playstyle for praise.
Having decided that I liked Endpoint, their Counter-Strike team helpfully had lots of matches shortly afterwards where they, too, attempted to outdo expectations. In the three months I have followed the team (still, at the time of writing, unsuccessfully attempting to push into the world’s top 30 teams as ranked by fansite HLTV), they have taken victories against established sides such as North, Movistar Riders, and ForZe; the rivalry against ForZe going back to Dreamhack Open Anaheim at the start of the year when Endpoint (then ranked #46 and the lowest-ranked team at the competition) pulled off a huge upset to take down the CIS-based team (then ranked #13).Since then the sides have traded blows repeatedly, especially in the online #HomeSweetHome competitions. Endpoint have been the victor most often, most notably defeating ForZe 2–0 in the final of the 8th competition to win the $30,000 prize. These kinds of stories and grudges provide another hook into the world of esports.
The other thing that kept me engaged this time where I wasn’t a few years ago is the information that is out there. HLTV, the website I alluded to above, is basically a one-stop shop for everything relating to CS:GO — upcoming fixtures and events, results, news on line-up changes, as well as live scoreboards and links to streams for ongoing matches. It has existed for many years but I wasn’t aware of it until recently; the presence of this level of information not only makes it easier to follow but is honestly kind of addictive in its own right. (Rocket League has many great fansites but lacks a hub with quite the same level of detail and convenience; I would speculate that there could be a gap in the market for one)
The world of esports is not all e-roses, of course. Just because it is easier to run a CS:GO tournament than a football one does not mean it is easy. Usually, esports tournaments are run as LAN (local area network, i.e. offline) events, with audiences; since the outbreak of COVID-19, all of these events have been cancelled. This, combined with the inability to travel, has restricted many teams, particularly those who cannot find comparable opposition in their region. (Competitions have been restricted to “regions” due to timezone differences; e.g. Europe, the Americas, Oceania and so on. As the top teams are not distributed evenly, this makes life more difficult for certain teams than others) Beyond competition, though, even the basics are affected: many teams have international players, who have been unable to train together due to travel restrictions. TeamSpeak and a broadband connection alone cannot make up for the lack of bootcamps and physical presence for team bonding.
Most crucial is the issue of player burnout. Esports is infamous for making large demands of players, even before the coronavirus pandemic; some training schedules called for practicing for up to 16 hours a day, alongside travel time. Most players retire in their late 20s as a direct result of the mental workload. But “working from home” has exacerbated this. When my job transitioned to WFH, the thing I missed was the lack of mental “dead time” — the time spent walking to the staff kitchen for a cup of tea, or my commute to and from work. I can only imagine that that feeling would be worse for esports players, who already stare at a screen for long periods of the day. Especially when many online tournaments feature punishing schedules and a lack of downtime — no interviews, fan interactions, or just plain old sightseeing possible. (The CSPPA, a Counter-Strike player advocacy organisation founded in 2018, have called for a minimum two-hour break between matches, but many tournament organisers ignore this). In CS:GO Astralis, until recently the #1 team in the world, made headlines for how two of their players were medically diagnosed with burnout — and the poor response of management. (Endpoint’s CS:GO team were vocal about their packed schedule in the first half of 2020, which has seen them climb in the rankings but ended with consecutive defeats to German side ALTERNATE aTTaX before their player break, with burnout cited as a key factor)
That said, these issues are beyond my control. The fact that player agencies are fighting to secure better working conditions is itself a good thing, as it is that tournament organisers and sponsors have pledged to work with players. Instead, it’s best to focus on the positives, and there are so many of those. For one thing, tournaments are going from strength to strength — with a huge overhaul of Rocket League esports incoming, the new season of the Rocket League Championship Series gets underway at the weekend, promising both a large monthly tournament (building to a series of international Majors) and a series of smaller weekly tournaments, guaranteeing regular competitive action for players and fans to enjoy, as well as more chances to “break in” to the competitive scene for incoming players than a regular league format offers — I suspect we will see some exciting upsets to come with teams coming through closed qualifiers for the chance to face the likes of Renault Vitality, Dignitas — and Endpoint, of course.
The fandom is growing as well. Success breeds success, they say, and the Endpoint teams have exceeded all expectations. The CS:GO roster is considered possibly the best UK Counter-Strike team in history, while the Rocket League side is still young but has been boosted by the acquisition of experienced Finnish player Metsanauris, which should see them push on from last season’s successes. As for the Rainbow Six: Siege team… well I look forward to finding out. Three months ago I had only a basic understanding of Counter-Strike; in fact the first thing that struck me upon watching competitive matches again was that Cobblestone was no longer in the map pool, and I needed a glossary to understand the difference between a half buy and a force buy. Now, while I still probably couldn’t explain what banana control is, or the difference between a good and bad T spawn, I can at least understand why they are important — the simplicity of games like CS:GO and Rocket League is key to their appeal; easy to understand, but difficult to master.
So here’s to the future. With RLCSX underway on Saturday, there will be plenty of action to enjoy — and not just Endpoint, but several new teams, like Guild Esports (backed by one David Beckham); Oxygen Esports featuring last season’s MVP Aztral; and esports veterans Team Liquid dipping their toes into the Rocket League field for the first time, alongside updated rosters from Dignitas, FC Barcelona, and more. In CS:GO meanwhile, there are rumours of changes to the map pool, with updates to fan-favourite Cache being pushed in a patch, teases relating to the potential drop of perennial map Mirage, and three new community maps being added to the game with rumours that one may become official soon. And beyond that, who knows? Maybe another great game is waiting for me to throw myself into.
