Haochen Tian 1

Haochen Tian Instructor: Malcolm Campbell English 1102 09/23/2013 Pro Gamers: I Aint No Joke

As a kid that was born and raised in the early 90s, Ive been a gamer my whole life, growing up playing Mario, and trying to finish quests in Zelda but unable to read the Japanese dialogue was all huge parts of my childhood. Date back to the early 2000s, I remember finding out that there are professional gamers out there that compete in a world level tournament called the WCG(WCG (World Cyber Gaming), with a prize pool as big as $200,000., tThis career sounded amazing to me, but little did I know how hard it is to become a professional gamer. It was one of my favorite excuses when my father asks me why am I on the computer, again, IM GOING PRO DAD!, but slowly Ive became more a fan of professional gaming than actually attempting to become one, mainly because I understand that it is very difficult to be a professional gamer. As the video gaming industry is largely growing for the past decade, the professional gaming scene has expanded way beyond everyones expectation, in a good way, more organized annual events, large prize pool, and of course, more professional gamers. So right now theres developing structure for professional gaming, and one of the topics that people discuss all the time is, should professional gamers be considered as athlete. Professional gamers makes a lot of money, they get scouted, they sign contracts with professional clubs/teams, they train all the time, and at the end of the day they compete at a really high level with everything theyve got. So why shouldnt they be consider as athletes?.
Commented [MB4]: I like this sentence since it explains what professional gamers do such as getting scouted and training. I actually didnt know that gamers can get scouted! Cool! Commented [MB3]: Maybe you can separate this sentence into two sentences so it is more clear. Commented [MB1]: How about level tournament called World Cyber Gaming (WCG) I think it might l ook better having WCG in parenthesizes. Commented [MB2]: Why is it hard to become a pro gamer? Do you have to invest in it at the very beginning or do you have to train so many times a week?

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Basic Comparison An athlete is a person who is proficient in sports and other forms of physical experience, according to Google Dictionary, and that is also what comes to our mindwhen we think of the term athlete.fits the traditional idea of athlete perfectly. Michael Jordan, the proficient basketball player; Jackie Robinson, the proficient baseball player; and Jerry Rice, the proficient football player., and of course the white hockey players. They all are amazing at what they were trained to compete in, they all are winners, and they made good money. Now lets look at professional gamers, and we should address them as their actual title eSports Participants. There are over 60 eSports participants have earned over $100,000 solely from tournament prize money(), and pros also profit from streaming (broadcast his live gameplay of daily practice/games, not tournaments, over the Internet), sponsorships, and also special event appearances, so there are a huge amount of pros that makes over 6 figures easily. Now lets compare the career developing structure betweenbetween American pro the sports, and eSports. The process of developing a sports athlete in the US is a fully fledged system: kids start as early as pre-k,. track and field or ball gamesIt can be anything from basketball to cross country, they all tend to start training early at an early age, and trained since youth; elimination process starts frombeginning in elementary school, when you start playing for athe team, thenthe process continues in middle school, junior varsity and varsity teams in high school, if the kid is really good at this, he will get and he should get scouted by colleges, receive a scholarships and play at least a couple years., scholarships will be offered, after couple of years in college, Then, they will go pro, to play in a professional league or represent the country. The ones that are gets eliminated on the way, might still look for a way to make a living out of this career, coaching and such, but they dont profit nearly as much as the pros do.
Commented [MB9]: How about they all tend to start training at an early age. That way early is not used twice in that sentence. Commented [MB8]: I think this sentence should be separated into two. There are over 60prize money. Prossix figures easily. Commented [MB6]: Like that you included the gamers title here. Commented [MB7]: Are you going to include something here? Commented [MB5]: Need a space between these two words.

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On the other hand, eSports pros have an equally strong system for development. Every single eSports game nowadays has its very own ranking system. The game really doesnt care about where you went to elementary school, or if you have torn your ACL before. The only thing people see about you before one becomes professional is their stats, gameplays, and whatever the player decide to put on his or her profile page. Players ability to perform and compete is almost the only thing that matters in this field. Players will get scouted for being top ranking in the game, contracts with professional teams will be offered to the player, or in some cases, even represent the country. eSports pros dont go to fashion shows and they dont take drug tests, with less publicity, they arecan be more focused than professional athletes, but still they are receiving the credit they deserve, or being recognized as a legitimate profession by the general public. So the income gap isnt that big, they go through a similar process to become professional of what they do, and yet they are being looked at completely different. Why?
Commented [MB11]: I like the ending to this section. Ending it with a question to be later discussed in the upcoming section. Commented [MB10]: Maybe you should describe what the ranking system for certain eSports here.

Misconception Lets face it, not that many people understand the art of videogames. Parents of our generation hates videogames, they hate it, they hate the idea of it, and they hate the fact that their kids are always playing it. Why? In the U.S. theres the infamous Grand Theft Auto series where all you do is kill, steal and rebel against law enforcements, Daniel Petric shot his parents over a copy of Halo 3, and lets not forget the Columbine High School Shooting; in Asia, you have kids spend every night in the Internet caf, and spend their parents lifesaving on online games. Point being there are so many reports on the negative effects of videogames, and if the readers did take a side on any of those reports, they will hate videogame with passion.
Commented [MB12]: Great reason for why parents do not like video games. Are there any other reasons why they do not like them such as changes in their kids behavior (such as becoming easily irritated or violent) or their kids dependency on certain games?

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Now, how do you convince the general public that theres a legitimate career in playing videogames. Well, besides the paycheck and the training process, maybe the size of various professional gaming leagues can help to make a point here. The general public can never imagine how organized eSports events are. Tournaments are not just a group of gamers get together and play without guidelines. There are professional gaming leagues and tournaments all around the globe, and broadcasted live over the internet, or sometimes even over television. Cyberathlete Professional League is one of the early eSports tournaments, founded in 1997 and has distributed over $3,000,000 prize money ("The CPL Heritage"); World Cyber Games largest international scale gaming tournaments, founded in 2000, it has been noted as the most influential gaming events in the history ("WCG Concept"); Major League Gaming is currently the most active gaming tournament hosting organization in North America, with currently over one million participants ("About MLG"). At the end of the day, eSports is expanding at an insane rate and it shows no sign of slowing down, but the winners are only receiving the buzz from within the community and the rest of the participants are being described as gaming addicts, so we still have a long way to go.
Commented [MB16]: Do you know what exactly the rate is right now? Commented [MB13]: This should be deleted. Commented [MB14]: Maybe you can go into detail on how eSports are organized and how they set up certain events. Also, about how many gamers are expected to show up to these kinds of events? Commented [MB15]: What kinds of guidelines do they have to follow?

Recognition Pro gamers are being treated complete differently in different countries. Pro gamers in South Korea are being praised like rock stars, for example, NesTea, a Starcraft 2 player from South Korea, is being sponsored by companies like LG and Steelseries, he also has a large loyal fan base (Rusell). South Korea has been known as a country thats video gaming enthusiastic, and their government has been very supportive on aiding the eSports participants by giving them

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the same level of access as national sports representatives when attending international competitions. Athlete visa are offered to Korean eSport Pros. China is another country thats been slowly catching up, the government is putting funding into training national gaming representatives in order to attend international eSports events. The United States government made a huge decision that would help eSports a huge step forward: they decide to give out eSports participant athlete visa. This means in the future, P-1A visa will be given out, which is international recognized athletes (GOOD). This is a huge leap forward, because the governments support is one way to closing the gap between culture differences, and it is also the signs of the governments recognition of the expanding influence of eSports.
Commented [MB18]: What is this? Is this just another word for participant athlete visa? Commented [MB17]: Maybe you can go into a little more detail about how China is still catching up and how they are different from South Korean gamers.

Conclusion

Sunday afternoon, fall of 2013, downtown Los Angles, Staples Center is a full house and the fans are excited to see two teams go all out against each other. With a million dollar on the line, the two teams that are in this have to give everything theyve got in their power to secure the prize money. This is not the season tip off game for the Lakers, but instead, the season finale for League of Legends, which took place on October 4th, 2013 in Los Angeles . with over 20 million viewers across the globe, this was the most anticipated gaming event in the history of eSports. Those gamers are competing in the same arena as Kobe Bryant and Chris Paul, and they have more fans watching online? Why shouldnt they be considered as professional athletes?
Commented [MB20]: Actually, this is a great conclusion to your essay. Loved it! Formatted: Superscript Commented [MB19]: Great starter sentence to your conclusion.

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Citation

Commented [Ma21]: This should be centered at the top of the page and labeled works cited.

"About MLG." Major League Gaming. N.p.. Web. 24 Sep 2013. <http://www.majorleaguegaming.com/mlg/about>.

"The CPL Heritage." CyberAthlete Professional League. N.p.. Web. 24 Sep 2013. <http://thecpl.com/the-cpl-heritage/>.

GOOD, OWEN. "First 'Internationally Recognized' Athlete Visa Awarded to Pro Gamer." Kotaku. N.p., 10 08 13. Web. 24 Sep 2013. <http://kotaku.com/first-internationallyrecognized-athlete-visa-awarded-1091077937>.

Rusell, Kyle. "The Highest-Paid Professional Video Gamers In The World." Business Insider. N.p., 15 06 2013. Web. 24 Sep 2013. <http://www.businessinsider.com/the-highest-paidprofessional-gamers-2013-7?op=1>.

"WCG Concept." World Cyber Gaming. N.p.. Web. 24 Sep 2013. <http://www.wcg.com/renew/inside/wcgc/wcgc_concept.asp>.
Commented [Ma22]: These cites should include a hanging indent. This button is found under the paragraph tab on the home page.

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Peer Review: (Comments are also included within the paper.) -MLA format looks good (font, size, margins, headers). -Cites are in correct order but they need to include the hanging indents. Also, since you have edited your paper, your cites page has moved down so make sure to move your cites to the top of the page (so there isnt a gap between the top of the page and the cites page title). -Overall, I really enjoyed your essay. It was very interesting and I learned a lot after reading it. I also thought it was convincing about how pro gamers should be considered as athletes. -Also, I enjoyed the intro since you started off with a personal story. -There are a few grammar mistakes but those can easily be fixed. -Have you thought of including any quotes from certain pro gamers or pro gamer coaches to help add more to your essay?