Should gamers get national colours?
This week saw a unique event: a small bunch of young men were awarded South African national colours just before flying off to the Far East to compete in the world championships. This doesn't sound all that unusual but for the skill for which they were honoured: playing computer games, specifically the recently released Battlefield 2142 from EA.
Most people I spoke to about the event seemed to think that awarding colours to gamers demeans national colours. I disagree. The amount of effort required to master a game like Battlefield 1942 - let alone Battlefield 2142 - can run into the thousands of hours. Yes, some of the skills are pure twitch but a lot are cerebral: teamwork, planning, strategy, thinking ahead. It's not vastly different from chess. If we're going to award our good chess players with national colours before they go charging off to represent SA, then why not our gamers?
The league is well-organised, fiercely competitive and properly overseen by the Mind Sports Association locally. The winning team - Advanced Special Forces - were untouchable in the national league.
Anyone who thinks just "playing computer games" is not a sport obviously hasn't had a good crowded FPS team game on a LAN recently. It's fun but it also requires enormous skill, study and dedication to get really good. I wish our team well in Taipei and eagerly await more awarding of colours to the really great gamers in our midst. It's good for the industry.
Being third just fine for Nintendo
The New Yorker has a fascinating piece on Nintendo's contentment to be in third place in the console wars.
While Sony and Microsoft lose hundreds of millions of dollars duking it out for first place in the race to control the living room, Nintendo has been quietly making $5 billion in profits selling games consoles. Without the pressure to be number one, Nintendo actually makes money on each console it sells and focuses on fun games which make it high profit margins.
Strangely, Nintendo's fall from the number one slot in the 90s might be the best thing that ever happened to it. You don't have to be number one to make money in the video games industry.
Thanks to EA, Agasa and the New Yorker for this week's insights.
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