Episode 3: eSports

what drives everyone. Since more televised, I feel like now, and just the amount of leagues which we'll get into. And we have a old board of our Los Angeles team like outside my place, so it's legit. Yeah Valiant, Yeah, used to be the Clippers up there, but not anymore. Were like, we're replacing you. This is really great because at Nertificent, like we said, it's a show for everyone.

And this is actually a topic one of the few topics, but yeah, one of the topics that I'm not as well versed in, so how to do a lot of research on this. Although I do have friends which will be having one of them join us in a little bit. Malik Forte, who's a friend of mine who is now in the Overwatch League. Are you host? I saw a commercial for him. Yeah, he's a commentator for a minute, like he was a gaming editor as well, and of

course he was at nertict Um before that. Yeah, he's been a commentator on Overwatch League, he's been part of blizz Con, he's done fighting game for me. He even, you know, grabbed the sticks a few times himself, so he's he's we get both sides. I'm really excited. Yeah, so he'll be joining us in a little bit it but just kick us off if you have no idea what e sports is. It is a form of competition

using video games. So it's most commonly a form that's organized in multiplayer video game competitions now primarily between professional players. So we'll get into that, as far as how to go pro, how to go viral, how to go viral, and let's go into our very first of many sidebars. I'm gonna take us on. So the fact that it's called the sports is probably one of the most debated facts about the sports. A lot of people don't think

that it should be called E sports. I remember when they had, are the heroes of the Storm tournament that they had, the college league they have and it was airing on ESPN, and people like, why is this on ESPN? This isn't a sport and what silly is? ESPN also shows World Series of Poker, which which is like, it's the same difference. But to really tackle this argument, the definition of a sport is an activity involving physical exertion and skill, in which an individual or team competes against

another or others for entertainment. I feel like the only real debatable part about this is the amount of physical exertion. Now, what one thing I can tell you is there is a desparate difference between your average person trying to play a video game and a professional player because it takes a lot of hand eye coordination. You have to have a certain quickness with your fingers. So the debate is valid and strong. But I'm gonna go ahead and say

it is indeed of sport. And if you don't believe me, just play video games for over three hours and tell me how those fingers. And these are professionals that that will get into but there are essentially I mean, they're training every day a lot of them, some of them. One of our friends, actually, Janelle Santa Cruz, I know her brother was living in a house because he got picked up as a professional player. Um was living in a house with other competitors or other people on his

team in order to compete. And now many many game developers now are actually they design their games based off of professional e sport. Oh yeah, we'll get deep into that towards the end of this because I have lots of thoughts about it. It really has made an impact on gaming. But before we go there, let's talk about the history. Let's get into it deep diving into the

history of e sports. So the earliest known video game competition took place on October nineteenth, nineteen two at Stanford University for the game Space War Space War Stanfords Hugh Stanford had to add an extra one in there. Uh. Stanford students were invited to an Intergalactic Space War Olympics, whose grand prize was a year subscription to Rolling Stone. That's kind of interesting, like those two things together actually,

given that time, very truly humble beginnings. Now that like the rewards are in the millions, but back the first one to get a subscription Rolling Stone. I mean I would take that now, to be honest. Oh yeah, but very quickly it jumps up to even spicier because in the seventies, nineties, eighties, I'd said that all out of order. But it got it got bigger, the tournaments started becoming

a big thing. But I don't want to get too ahead of myself, and I just want to take a quick stop because during the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties, video game players and tournaments began being featured in popular websites and magazines, including Life and Time. One of the most well known classic arcade game players is Billy Mitchell's. He's mostly known for his high scores in six games,

including Pac Man and Donkey Kong. But most people will know Billy Mitchell from that movie The King of Kong, mostly because he painted as a bad guy, because every movie needs like a good guy and a bad guy. I love it because the name of the villain and

um karate kid is Billy. I love it. Yeah, I was gonna say right before then, in uh in nine we had the Space Invaders Championship was held, which was held by Atari, and that was the earliest large scale video game in competition, So that attracted ten thousand participants across the US, and that I think helped establish it as more of a competitive mainstream. At the time, it was still a hobby, but definitely something that people were

paying attention to. Oh yeah, and then were really when it really blew up, because video games as a whole kind of stepped it up and it was taken into a huge competitive level and it's all the rise of PC gaming. Along with this came the first true E sports competition read Annihilation had tournaments for the first person shooter Quake, which is widely considered to have been the first real instance of E sports. I remember this, and if you don't know what Quake is, uh, we'll take

it back. It's basically like a Doom esque shooter, except it had This was the first kind of versus mode of that, and you had these. It was the kind of same first person shooter guy in the bottom. I was a huge fan. I never really got to play it because my parents didn't buy it for me. I had the captain crunch out with their own like bootleg

oh man. Yeah. So carrying on with that, more e sports tournaments started to pop up in the nineties, including which was Nintendo World Championships and that actually toured across the US as well, and they held their finals in the Universal Studios Hollywood and California. I just need to say this as my sidebar, I found out Blockbuster Video. May they rest in peace. Um they brought me a lot of hours of my childhood, so I still respect him.

But Blockbuster Video also had their own World Game Championship in the early nineties. It was co hosted by Game Pro magazine and actually not only was the US involved, but also citizens of Canada, the UK, Australia, and Chile were also eligible to compete. Also, one more thing about Red Annihilations tournament, which this is how I heard about it.

In those tournaments, the winner received a Ferrari. But get this, the Ferrari was previously owned by John Carmack, the lead developer for Quakes, So how much money was quite bringing in that John? And it was a test erosive if I remember correctly, it was pretty ball in Ferrari. On a separate sidebar, since we also talk about our personal experiences in here, I know several of my friends who now work for people that got big in cryptocurrency. And so a lot of those companies that they like host

or do freelance for. It's like basically one you know dude that owns it or something that each of these studios is trying to pay them in cryptocurrency, which a part of me is like, yeah, I also want like several options. I would like several options to be paid in case one of these goes under. But yeah, but yeah, I to really stay on the quake notion for a little bit. This was also kind of like the early beginnings of online multiplayer, just in a larger score. I

remember heat dot net. It was one of the early leaders of online gaming, and I actually signed up for account right as it closed. Like I had the account, I convinced my dad to get some faster internet, and then I logged back in. It was like heat dot net is closing its doors. I was like, Okay, well this sucks. But then during the two thousand tens, e sports grew tremendously, incurring large increase in both viewership and

prize money. Although large tournaments were founded before the twenty first century, the number and scope of tournaments has increased significantly, going from about ten tournaments in the year two thousand to about two hundred and sixty and two thousand ten. Many successful tournaments were founded during this period, including the World Cyber Games, Intel Extreme Masters in Major League Gaming, and the proliferation of the tournaments included experimentation with competitions

outside traditional E sports genres. For example, in September of two thousand six, Fun Technologies Worldwide Web Games Championship featured seventy one contestants competing in casual games for a one million grand prize. So that was something for any one. Yeah, Well,

that's what's so funny. Is it kind of crept up on you because it's always kind of been big in Korea, Like that was where it was with the StarCraft tournaments, and one knew it was big, but it just wasn't sticking out here in America for I mean, it was it was underground when we're talking about from the nights until about now. It was still pretty underground. It wasn't as large scale. So I was watching a documentary today on Netflix called All Work, All Play. It was filmed

in about the sports. It was basically about the life and struggle of becoming a professional gamer and something that they had said often and it was like the lack of like respect for North American gamers, like they're just not considered on the same level, which that has changed since then, it's still a meme like Crash is a meme within League of Legends, and it's because you know, in a doesn't make it that far in these huge scale tournaments. It's usually dominated by UK and Europe, mostly

Europe and Asia. But you know, we're we're we've maked, we've we're making strides. We're gonna get up there. Big in a teams are evil geniuses. That's uh, they're great in a team. Actually that's the only one I know that's giving genus. What I did want to say is the popularity, like if he was saying, has grown tremendously. So back in it was estimated that there were seventy one point five million people worldwide that watched e sports,

so it really did jump up quite a bit. And that was also because of the increasing availability of media platforms like Twitch where people can now live stream them playing. Well. I think it's mostly because the difference now is people see this happening and no, it's available. It's always kind of been around, like one of the big tournaments used to be the cow Cali counter strike tournaments. And I've had friends who's competed in that, but that was beyond me.

Like I remember, I remember in high school trying to put together a counter strike team. I never even had counter strike, but I made like a graphic and uh, are you like key club but you were trying to do it for counter strike like a school club. Yeah, but I had no concept that was already like established leagues, that we're having counter strike tournaments that you can compete in.

And I remember before we started recording, you were talking about like how tennis can be inaccessible because it's a very expensive tennis, gymnastics, figure skating. It's kind of like your parents have to have money in order for you to compete in those. And that's kind of how each sports was, especially the nineties era, because also you have to have a a PC that can run counter strike, which may not have been you know, this was before

there was a computer in every household. This was when having a computer was like, oh okay, it was a luxury. Yeah yeah. So to have a computer also strong enough to play counter strike that you can lug to a land center and have a land party, which a land party for those who don't know, is where you basically hook up a whole bunch of computers to one kind of server. So LAND stands for local area network, and it's a computer network that spans a relatively small area.

So you create a network between all the computers, usually in the large room, and that way you can play counterstrike at a good broadband because playing online not that good. You know, this is like fifty k dsl D. So when you have these land partis, you're able to play almost as if it's well not almost as if, because you're side by side, all on the same network. Yeah, what I was going to say is that going back to how tremendously this popularity has grown, so it's expected

to reach about five hundred million fans worldwide. By million. I can see that, Yeah, I mean I could see it too, But also like was you know, they said seventy one point five million and now it's like five million worldwide and that's thanks in part two Intel Extreme Masters i AM, which is the longest running global e sports tournament series. They mentioned that in the in the documentary as well, that there were ones that were before them,

but they kind of dropped off. They didn't quite have the same platform and in structure and everything, and this is the longest running one. Yeah, Intel Extreme Masters is one of the best run because they were partnered by the e s L, which is the Electronics Sports League and uh really it launched into the year two thousand and it was a successor by the Dutch clan Liga, which was founded in so this is a law, so

these people know what they're doing. And e s L is like e s L is the NFL four counter strike. If you're talking about counter strike tournaments, you're talking about the s L. But just like the NFL, they're running into some issues here and there, and we'll get into that a little later, but they're having issues with cheating, teams cheating and not having to span because it's blowing up. Basically,

the scene is growing quicker than these companies anticipated. So it's now you can't really have officials at every one of the qualifying event. And when you can't have officials, remember I'm a big fan of Rainbow six Siege and they had their own invitational and a lot of the qualifier matches are done online with someone like they're not in person, like a lot of these major events, so people are cheating and you have to like turn in. It's almost like a report on like the activity that

your computer was doing. But those can be falsified. And so there was lots of accusations or as we call them in the gaming industry, hack usations of people hacking, and some of the evidence looks good, but it's kind of hard for them to be able to pinpoint every single one because it's growing faster and it's hard to watch so many different games. Yeah, we'll definitely get into the ethics of e sports here and dive into that a little bit more. What I did want to say

is back to you comparing it to the NFL. With these companies, a lot of them sought to create leagues that followed essentially North American professional sports, so in which all the teams participate in a regular season of matches, just like the NFL and MLB and all the other ones that I can throw out there. Oh yeah, that's completely why the s L eventually created Eligue. But I'll wait for Molique to be here to talk about that

because he's very well versed in it. If I remember correctly, he kind of was a part of it in a small way, arn't big way. I did want to say in that the All Work, All Play documentary when they were talking about League of Legends, they said, sixty seven million players play this game every month. Fifty players in North America actually play at a pro level. And this is in quotes. Just like it's very hard to get into NFL or Major League Baseball, it's just as hard

to get into League of Legends. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, But going back to league, So Maligue is a commentator for one of the biggest leagues, which is the Overwatch League. Yeah, because Blizzard Entertainment announced the Overwatch League based on the game Overwatch in two thousand sixteen, with its inaugural regular season featuring twelve teams starting in January two eighteen, and players got contracts to play on teams that are guaranteed an annual salary and benefits, as well as sharing the

team's revenue and prize winnings. And the reason that's very important is because kind of the the structure before it was kind of iffy. You never knew what could happen if, like, especially right now in the e s L, you have teams cutting players right before the big matches and cutting them in a way so that another team can't pick them up, because just like just like other sports, their

trade blocks and there's like trade deadlines. So what they'll do is they'll keep a player they know they're going to drop on until the deadlines over so that other teams can't pick them up and use that player against them. But if you look at how it affects the player players out of mound, Yeah, and not only that, we're talking about young people here, So a lot of these

people are ones that have dropped out of college. They've dropped out of school to pursue professional e sports and now they're at a level where they are getting paid professionally, but they don't necessarily always have a black up plan. And so when you do something as shady as this as cutting them, and then now they don't Now they're out of money, and now they are also banned. Like if you said where they can't get onto another team, we kind of screwed them over. Yeah, they have to

wait till the next season pretty much. And you bring up a good point where like a lot of these kids aren't necessarily going to college. There there's no backup plan and has it stands so far kind of because we all know if you play football or basketball, you play for as long as you can, but if you get dropped, you have to find something to do, or if you last long enough, you become a coach. It's

very similar in E sports. There's coaches in the sports, and a lot of these coaches are ex E sports players, and your other options is either being commentators or trying to make a living on Twitch streaming. But a lot of times, you know, the big dogs on Twitch are the ones who are still playing, right right, right, Yeah. I think it's just important to understand that these are

young people. They also deal with the pressure. I think that is something that they're not always used to as far as you know, as reading interviews with them and some of their parents and stuff, that these are kids, some of them have dropped out of college in order to pursue this full time, and then they get cut, or they lose a match, or they lose a tournament, and it's like the amount of online harassment that they deal with that I think all of us are like, yeah, well,

that's what you signed up for. I mean, that's not how I feel, but that's what people say to me about the career that I chose, is like, oh, well, that's what you signed up for. You're gonna be a public figure. You're gonna get this. And I'm like, yeah. But one, they're young, so I don't think that they're always necessarily prepared for the amount of online harassment or and it's just relentless. I mean, I feel like that's uh,

something else that we can get into. But what I did want to say is that there are universities that encourage and have e sports programs. So um. According to scholarships dot Com, there are more than thirty u S colleges and universities that offer scholarships for gamers, and I guess the University of Utah is one of the largest

ones to offer scholarships for video gaming. UM. I was watching an interview that they did that was talking about just like the important that I'm glad that a lot of these universities understand where technology is going and they're trying to also incorporate that, and mainly they also want to encourage like, yeah, if you want to continue academics, if you want to continue going to college, but you also want to be a part of this esports program.

You can do both so you don't have to sacrifice it, and you can get your school paid for exactly. Now, that's that. I think that's a great plan. What I didn't want to say is so the University of Utah currently offers players partial video game scholarships, but with the plan their future goal of offering full video game scholarships to its gaming team. Oh yeah, but it's it's good, but it's tricky for me because I feel like the median age for most professional gamers is within the sixth range.

Except for Overwatch lea, I believe you have to be over eighteen be a part of that league. But yeah, because the median age is so young, it's hard to really kind of capitalize off of, you know, a structure similar to most sports, where you know, you go through college. Most most players get the first two years, then they jump out, or sometimes they'll get the full four years. But with this one, it's I don't know, we'll see.

I don't know if with the because also the reason the media age is so young is because this is those are the ones who are playing right now, and I feel like this our generation at least, really, like I said before, you weren't able to even compete in the sports because your parents are like, what are you

doing on those games? What are you doing? So I'm curious to see if the media age for professional level players rises a bit now that there's a bit of understanding that there is a little bit of worth to having your child play and get better at video games. Um Ray Lee, who I who works at Twitch. We were hanging out what I did my episode of Fresh Stock, and he was talking about how he went to I want to say it was Singapore or something, and they're at the cyber cafe and his mom was trying to

get Ray. Uh. This kid's mom was trying to get Ray to talk some sense to his kid to get him to stop playing video games. And Ray had to be like, I just want you to know he's really good, because I guess the kid was really good and he could possibly be a professional player. So I want you to know before you asked me to do this, if you really feel like you know you this is unsustainable.

If he's doing bad at school or something, I can talk to him, but I want you to know that there is a benefit to this that if you allow him a certain block of time to practice. This could really pay off. And I think it is that thing where it's like meet in the middle, because I understand a parent not wanting a kid just saying forget school

and do this. But there, But just like any other sport, I do think there might be some benefit to be like, Okay, you want to do this, you want to be good at this, or you get to play it for two or three hours after school, just this game, no other games, you know, like really treated like a sport. This is practice. I'll check in on you. No farting around. You've got

to be playing competitive, high level. But it also takes an understanding of that game, you know, because because people understand football and basketball in a general sense, like even if you've never really followed the NFL or the NBA, you get the idea of the game. So like the concept of someone practicing it, you can tell where it's like video games. You're like, okay, Like there's a difference between playing at a competitive level and then casually just around. Yeah, no,

I hear you. I am. I want to have kids just to put them into the sports. My brother actually he was a This is it's also possibly another alternative to sports like too. So my brother was a a football player growing up. He was in the Dallas Morning News, like he was m v p UM at his high school and it was a big thing. And I talked to him recently. He was like, I'm not going to

put my son in football. That's a different topic for but he was like, I'm not going to uh And I was like, what, you were so good and you were respected, and he was like, I'm not doing it. Getting into ethics, I did want to, uh talk about how there have been reports actually pretty publicly of players using stimulants like riddling and adderall and things to significantly

boost their boost their concentration. Also, some players will take propanol, which blocks effects of adrenaline, or valium, which is prescribed to treat anxiety, in order to remain calm under pressure. So in July, Corey Freezing and ex Cloud nine player, admitted that he and his teammates were all using adderall during a match against Vitrus. Yeah. Yeah, they just openly And I guess maybe you can because I don't know

if it's actually regulated. I mean they're not like they're not checking, they're not doing blood tests before this, and I think because no one's really done anything like this, And I don't mean East sports in general, I just mean using riddling as it because there is the question of is it does it give you an edge or it might just be like a blanket almost Olympic statement where it's like you can't do it at all. Yeah, yeah,

so yeah, so there is some issues with that. But speaking of the Olympics, you know they've been looking for Olympic game recognition. But actually we'll get into it after the break. Right, we're back again. We're here with my man, Malik Forte, freelance e sports dude and music producer. Man. Thanks for having me, Man, Yeah, no, we when we knew we were talking about the sports, it was right there we got my first person. I thought of, yeah, yeah,

you've you've been in this industry for a while. I feel like now, yeah, I mean I've been in gaming just period, right for a while. Actually getting back into E sports has been kind of about a year or two because I was out of the sports for a good minute just doing like traditional game journalism and stuff like that. And this is kind of like my foray

back in Man. Yeah, and you've been killing it and we're gonna get into Like before the break, I would say, we were talking about the Olympics games, recognition of the sports. We're gonna get into that in a second. I got ma laite questions. I want to let's talk about you got it on your shirt right now. It's something that's always interested me. I've known about it as long as I've known you, but I've never truly formally asked about what is Crew ham Crew Hammings is a group of

my friends. To be honest, Uh, we kind of got a little underground community that's just centered around like gamers who like hip hop. Oh yeah, so it's kind of like an emerging of just like the urban type of nerd. Oh yeah, and yeah, I mean, to be honest, like the cool thing about Crew hamm is this is like it's mad underground. So like, yeah, we ain't all about the like social media stuff, not like the rest of us. Yeah, I mean, everybody does it individually, but as far as

crewham goes, like, we just keep that underrest. Like there are a lot of pintil now now it's out now, I mean lasted it on this podcast. I mean there's a lot of members of Crew and who are out there. You might not know. It's like the Illuminati. Yeah, pretty much everybody's like works in the game industry or something like that, or the music industry and kind of goes

in between. Both has their hands in different areas. There's a member who works for Capital Records and so he's always doing stuff with like little Yati and got that guy on the Twitch streaming, so so that guy has been like trying to do that, and you know there's been a big, like I guess a phenomenon with Twitch and hip hop kind of. Yeah, let's talk about this Ninja.

You know, the boy was salty because I was like, like, I get why it was Ninja, but it should have been one of us, by one of us, I mean me or you know, there were people who said that to me and I was like, no, this is good, bro, Like, yeah, I mean Ninja somebody I actually, you know, have come across before. Um just in the old m l G days. He was one of those people who played Halo really get at that game. And uh, I mean it wasn't lucrative back then to be a program. It just wasn't.

And uh so it's kind of cool to see him get this type of recognition now, because it's like I feel like sometimes the journey into the sports for a lot of people, it seemed like it made have been for nothing. You know, like you you put all your passion into this competing, into helping to grow this scene, but like at the end of the day just was not lucrative and like you ended up in very precarious situations in your life because you decided to see this

thing full time. And so Ninja was one of those people. You know, he had a wife, you had people to feed. So to see him getting this type of success, to me, it's it's been awesome. That's super dope too. But also it brings up a good point because you know, e sports now, I feel like it's a young man's game, but there's so many old heads who used to be in the sports. So what must that be like to see now all these young dudes getting money and some old dudes who had to just leave it in the

dusk because there was no money. Yeah, it's it's cool. It's cool because like I fel like, there's a good amount of these guys who appreciate it and they appreciate the fact that there were others who kind of took the fall in a sense in order for them to

be in this position. At the same time, Uh, it could be frustrating when there are people who don't appreciate it, who feel like they are entitled and I mean entitled men, to be honest with you, it goes with like a good portion of like the game community, the community, there's a lot of entitled people out. Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about the community as far as um. I don't know, like the balance between it being like a nurturing community but also dealing with, like you said,

entitlement or online harassment. And again we're dealing with people that are super young having to deal with this and getting money and coming up so quickly. I mean, what are what have you experienced or seeing now that you are so heavily part of it. Oh man, I don't seen all types of stuff, you know. I mean there's a situation recently where UH met a kid I won't say his name, but I met him over the summer during a tournament we were doing called the Overwatch World Cup.

Very nice kid, probably one of the most humble kids I had met. So after that, I hadn't seen him. I know that the Overwatch World Cup got a lot of eyes on him and a lot of other people,

so he got way more popular. Time went on, and then you got a twitch dream that was popping off, super popular, and I don't think he had anybody in his corner to kind of like let him, yeah, like somebody let him know, like yo, like be careful with his fame, be careful with the popularity and you know, the community, like don't let it make you, you know, make sure you're in control of that. Now. I feel like you might not have anyone there tell him that.

So he's been running into some issues. It's been just a lot of controversy around for that reason. And I mean, for me, I hate to see that happen to people. I feel like you just gotta be careful because I feel like the culture itself, it's very unpoliced and very there's no there's not many guardians, it's not many thought leaders. Uh, there's a lot of people who are just out there to make things happy and get attention and stuff. And so for that reason, there's just a lot of it

can be a lot of toxicity. Right. I also feel like it's like you were saying it's these young people that they suddenly start coming up and now they're partnered with companies and all of a sudden, it's like, now you have to watch what you say online. Um, we were talking earlier about how some people will quit college, which you know, I have mixed feelings about him. I I think a lot of times that's over overrated at times as someone that has a college degree and doesn't

use it like most of the world. But they quit college to join some of these teams and they get dropped from the team, and then they don't always have a backup plan. So I think a lot of times when people hear about professional gamers, they think of it on this huge level and not like, oh no, these are actually young people who are still struggling to find

their place in the community. Yes, and then they're they're at that age where the influences are going to matter the most, you know, so there needs to be more people who are stepping in and making sure these guys don't get too lost. But a lot of people, you know, you can't really if somebody is getting so much attention and they're seeing just like a type of success that they've never seen before. You can't tell them what to do. I remember somebody said that type of stuff about like Tupac,

like he's in his moment. You can't tell somebody like that what to do. And it's the same. The same goes for like a lot of these younger guys. Yeah, it's just like Kanye says, like, wait to get my money right, you can't tell me nothing, And it's true for better Yeah, look, it's it's one of the top ten. It wouldn't be. Don't worry. We'll go on the air

very mad about it. I don't know who did that, but basically, yeah, when you have when you're getting success, it's kind of hard to steer someone from a course because they they're like, this is working for me. But what people don't understand is when eyes are on you, it's a it's a it's a wave. They build you up just to knock you down. Yeah, I feel like that. I feel we see that a lot in the community.

But that's what I have is set in some of those the sports community that it feels like when someone does come up, it's like, oh, one of us made it, and let's tear them down just to kind of put an ending to that whole conversation. I think, you know, a huge part of it is that the sports is still kind of new, so there there haven't been many people who've reached that level to say I've had that experience to speak to the younger guys like what you had, fatality,

he was like the first ever millionaire program. Remember, But I mean that dude took a route that like I don't know if many people are gonna be able to take, which is like he invested a lot, he had his own business and things of that nature. So he was really the first to kind of start doing that. But yeah,

it's tough when it's so new. The scene is so new, and uh, I think we'll see a difference as time progress, isn't I didn't want to ask you real quick on the topic that we had talked about as far as like performance enhancing, since it's not as heavily regulated, do you have any thoughts on that as far as like players taking I mean pretty publicly actually some players said openly that they take adderall and riddle in and things

like that. Yeah, I mean to think about those particular things, is like some of those dudes take those drugs as part of their like everyday life, so they would take it, so they would take it regardless, you know. And uh, I don't know if some some people say like it helps them with their gaming, but maybe it just helps them function as human beings. Yeah. Yeah, So I don't know.

For me, it's kind of hard to to like wait on that because I think if you're taking it just for that one reason, like I just wanted to increase my game, it's kind of cheesy, like like, okay, so you're you're admitting you want to give yourself an advantage. But I mean, I know a lot of people actually meet those things just to function here. So it would be hard to regulate, right, It wouldn't be hard to regulate, Yeah, I mean they are lot of legal drugs. Yeah, so

it's like players are turning your prescriptions. We have to make sure you can be good. But I wonder if that's going to change now that going back to us talking about the Olympics, yea, yeah, because I feel like it would have to be regulated at some point as far as the sports put machine towards being recognized through the Olympics. Yeah. Yeah. And so speaking of the Olympics, so we already talked about the Intel Extreme Masters and just how that the strength of that that whole tournament.

So it seems like during the Winter Games they went ahead and did a peong Chang tournament. The International Olympic Committee used it as a tryout to see the possibility of it being an Olympic game. What do you think about that, my league? I know my thoughts, but I'm curious about yours. I mean, I think that's pretty cool. Yeah, I think it's cool. Yeah, I mean yeah, I feel like we're gonna hit a point really soon where the discussion of like what games need to be Olympics comes up.

And when we have that discussion, that's I feel like that's going to be like an interesting one because there's a lot of video games that I don't think necessarily would fit in that category something they do. But right now, I think it's cool for everyone to just have that discussion around their games period. Well yeah, and this actually lobs up into the next thing we're going to talk about, which is like how games are being built free sports. But just to stay on the Olympics a quick second,

I feel like that is an important conversation. What do you think would be your three games if you had to pick right now, I know my three. I'll let you know my three after you say yours. Street Fighter. I feel like that would probably be the top because it's I mean, EVO already feels like an Olympic event when you go there. Uh, people are already rapping their countries. You still get the US a chance and the crowd

things of that nature. So that's cool. Um, the next game, I would say, and I'm not just saying this because I work on the game, I think a lot of people would agree with you. Yeah, I think Overwatch definitely see the World Cup and how how yeah passionate, the fans are so passionate and yeah, oh yeah, and when you put all the players together on each team is it's it's it's cool. And the World Cup last year was like, I don't know if you guys got a

chance to come. Hopefully you can give me tickets this year. Yeah, if you want to come, let me know. The reno was was packed to the Soundclip League. But yeah, no, in your third game, my third game, that's tough. I'd probably go with I want to say Smash. I want to say Smash like Smatch, but no, I'm gonna throw

a wild card in there and say Rocket League. No, that's actually Rocket League has been very entertaining to watch the I think that would be a cool Olympic, so I also overwatched was on my list as well, and it definitely would be street Fighter because I feel like street Fighter is and I know some people in the fighting game community gonna be real salty about this, but it is I feel like the top like fighting game that anyone can watch and get a general understand because

because everyone knows, like how dukins all that stuff, Like, you can show anyone right that old school uh Diego blocking the the chun Ley kicks, and everyone's hype that that is so understandable. You don't have to have known about the Perry system. You know. What he did was tight. I saw it just was on the top of Reddit gaming and people were like, what happened? This is tight? What happened? And I feel like that's why I feel like street Fighter. Now the next fight would be which version?

But yeah, we'll leave that up. I mean because yet Third Strike was kind of yeah different, yeah, but my third I think I would go ahead and give that to League. The only issue with that is the huge fight between like doodle or League, but I feel like a MOBI is You're like, I'm trying to think of the comparable Olympic sport where it's like not everyone understands it, but there is like a sports thinking level to it with the lanes and every like having the top down

view helps. Yea, it reminds you almost of a football game exactly, and that's why I'm like, I feel like that's the best translate. But the one I liked about the ones you chose is I feel like on a global level it's pretty balanced, but I feel like mobi's it's still Europe in Asia they got those locked would be uphill battle for us and is having a rough time. I'm sorry, evil, but yeah, let's h How E sports is influencing games has been blown my mind because now

we're starting to have games built around the sports. The first game I have written down here is Quake Champions, Like that was built in mind with the sports last year at H I believe it was twitch con they paid to have a Quake Champions tournament running the whole time just to get other streamers interested. And on one hand, it's like, man, I really mess with that because you guys are like the O G Triple O G of E sports. I'd understand why you want to build that.

Next hand, I just don't think it's sustainable to build your game around E sports because you're just betting on so many factors that you can't depend on that you should not build a game for E sports. Yeah, you make a good game first, Yeah, that's just go for that. You know, that should always be the goal, and then

everything else will fall in line. Now, I guess when it comes balancing and stuff, that's a whole different conversation because when you do have a game, like I wonder how the guys over a Blizzard feel because they're making this game and they're trying to make it accessible to everybody.

But at the same time, like they do have a league, yes, and so they do have certain things that they have to make sure not only not only do you have a league, but you have all these sports arenas that are popping up, Like you have actual people who who not not just the actual players, but so many people that rely on this as far as like income that I feel it spans out to more than just the league itself, where I I understand them wanting to make sure that it can be marketed. You know that it

will be important in the sports community. But I also understand what you're saying about just make a good game. Yeah, yeah, that should always be the main goal, because we've seen that format fail so many times where somebody's like, I'm gonna make an E sport. This is my first goal. I'm going out and making this an E sport and

its failed. It's just maybe, is how you would feel to about people just wanting to be professional in general and the sports Like, I mean, I don't know why I was reading different interviews were actually professional E sports players were like, don't try to go for this because the idea of you making it is so small, Like you were saying, yeah, like play too, because you're passionate. Play because you truly want to be the best, and because you truly want to get better and see how

that pans out. You know, like instead of like banking on making it maybe yeah, or banking on making it or just trying to follow follow someone else's path, I think that's just a life lesson everyone. There's people who want to get to certain places, but they like try to follow other people's paths and like I understand being inspired and taking inspiration, but like you gotta you gotta do your own thing when it's all setting done, And

at the same thing goes for players, you know. That's like there's a while there's a lot of people and Overwatch, like in the league now who are coming in that I appreciate because like they you can tell that they have their own play style. They don't inspire to be anyone but themselves, and like they're probably had people they look up to or other people who they can borrow some elements from, but they still incorporate everything and make it their own. Because you if you follow your own way,

that can be the new way. Like who's that boxer who just has no real technical skill? He fights like he's you know what I'm talking about, because you posted the link of him getting that knockout, Yeah Wilder, Like if you watch him, you're like, what, but it works. He swings and knocks people out. It looks like back in the hood went like that's how he fights, and that's like what I love about it. But also because

it works. If he was can you imagine if he was so obsessed with making sure he had the form down that he didn't do what worked for him. Yeah. You know, well he says in every interview like it's not about skill, it's about heart. When it's all said and he walks in with this bravado that you don't see for any other boxers, it almost it is Ali esque because it's just like he just knows he's gonna go in there, even if he's gonna get hit. He's like,

I'm walking out of that ring. Yeah for my daughter. Yeah, And that's what's up. But we can't talk about the sports influencing game without bringing up Player Unknown Battlegrounds. That game. I I've never had a game that I love so much but have so many complaints about it, because you can just feel the moment when they felt the money from East Sports and kind of just didn't care that much about polishing, Like that's that's how it felt for me.

It felt like the moment we started already just giving the money for E Sports, just doing tournaments back to back, what incentive did they have to really polish the game and really hit all the promises that they said they would do. Yeah, I mean that there goes the proof in the pudding right there. You know, like if you again, if you make a game and you're aiming to make an e sport, yeah, you're going to run into problems

at some point. Yeah. It kind of sucks, you know, because, like I like to see any of the developers win, and the fact that they weren't triple they might have been, I mean one of the reasons why right now they're kind of like losing that battle and kind of losing identity and whatnot. But yeah, I mean to support your game, you know, like just support your game. Yeah, exactly, because if you look at you know, it's biggest competitive which

I will admit is winning me over a bit Fortnite. Like, they weren't interested in the battle reale was just a fun thing. They just was a side thing that was like, all right, people like this, We'll just do this for fun. And then it just blew up and they're polishing it. There never once did they go all right, well, I'm

glad you like it. They're still tweaking it and polishing in the number of people playing it, and they're like hmm, because at first there weren't even any micro transaction to anything, you know, but then they start seeing like so many people download it and they're like, we gotta make this money back. Yeah, and then they got the battle Pass going, which it's a pretty good deal. Like I like the Battle Pass aspect. I like that they still playing for

an unlock system. Yeah, pretty much. And then there's and they're like, also, we'll still give you some free stuff if you don't pay for it. Like that, because a lot of people wonder what the sweet spot is for gamers, and this will be fun to talk about because we all remember what happened with Battlefront to you know, we all and pretty much, and I want to know if

you agree with it. Here's what I think. If you charge someone full price for a game, give them their game, But if you're charging them for free, people will be willing to spend money if it's a good game, and if you still have an aspect of it that's available for free. So like the fact that they're like, you can do the Battle Pass and you'll get all these like cosmetics, but you can get free cosmetics as well.

People like, Okay, I'll chip in a couple bucks. It's a hell mary that a lot of game developers probably won't throw because you know, if they're under a Triple A publisher like EA or something. That's not going to be the case, but it's it's worth I feel like it's worth it, you know, for if you have a good game, if you have something you know the different, you know, like again you said at Fortnite that was

an accident. You know, they didn't they stumbled upon that, but people everywhere knew that, like the Battle Royale genre was getting ready to grow, like even h one z one, and it's hey, they people were already seeing it. And then pub Je was like, let's capitalize on that. And then Epic, a Triple A developer who you know, Gears of War, they got playing games over there, but they're like, we're gonna, we're gonna hop on this. Everybody runs their

game on our engine anyway. That's that was the funny thing. Pub runs on the road. So it's like, come on, like, yeah, I feel I'm happy for Epic though, oh yeah, I glad to see them winning. Well. I feel like Epic is one of those very few still existing like wholesome Triple A developers, like you know, like they not only put out good games like Years and all this stuff, but they put out so many free games too, Like, you know, you got Fortnite that's free, Paragon that's for free.

So it's just it's like, man, I want to support you because you're just like games for people. It's a smarter model for a good multiplayer game. Even Overwatch shows like, I mean, they charged people for that game, but they showed over time that like people, if they're invested in the game, they'll come back, they'll buy stuff. So I feel like, if you're a multiplayer game, take notes. Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about your e sports history.

So you said you used to play the shooters back in the day, right, Rainbow, way back in the day. I still got the sounds of the slot machines and Calypso casino ringing in my head day and it's all good. That game was great. It was just an I played in the time when like the tournaments were scarce. It

was pretty much they're amateur tournaments were online. So you found a lot of those, Like there was one called g g L Global Gaming League and stuff, and they're all online tournaments and you'd make like a max like uh like nine bucks winning a tournament online or something like that. And then there's MLG and the MLG had Rainbow six for I don't know how many circuits, it

was several, it was a couple of years. It was like the game that came before Years of War, you know, so it was like at the bottom, but oh yeah, it was fun. Like my time there was very short. I developed like a bad reputation because I was a big crap talker, just a competitive spirit. I guess I

was one of those types. And then uh, I stopped and kind of went in and transitioned into like game journalism because I was like people were watching because of my rainbow sick antics and I was like, all right, let's just talk about all games. And then I kind of my way into this game journalism. So how did you get to doing commentary then in like on error and on camera stuff, well from being behind the scenes.

Well yeah, like one was like I would go to fighting game tournaments and do commentary because like it's very loose there, so like you can just sit down and do commentary sometimes, like anybody can if you just volunteer, if you go to the right fighting game event. So

that's that they're just giving the mic to anybody. Well, it's a community, so you are right, if they see you around there, cool, if you jumping on Mike, you know, because they know you understand the atmosphere and you can frame the story of what's going on and stuff like that. Also the nervous thing. So when you're working under Chris Hardwick and you're working with Jessica Chobat, you get thrown into a lot of hosting situations and you start to learn about that. So that it was kind of a

melting of those two things. Like I had done the commentary before I was hosting, already had relationships with people from like being in the game journalism. Some people knew me from back in the rainmost six days, it was just like kind of all those factors working at once, and then I landed into some sports. Yeah alright, well we'll jump into your Overwatch league stuff right after this break,

all right, and we're back. We're here with the league four day, just all around the sports dude, rapper, the exapper. Yeah yeah, yeah no, but yeah, so how did the whole Overwatch League thing happened? Because I'm gonna let you know how I saw it from my lens. Ok, you can do because you weren't doing it for a bit and I was like okay, and then people started being like, yo, where is the diversity, and you actually came and was

like no, they sent me an offer. We just couldn't work something out right now, and then next thing, I know, you're on. Yeah. That was the optic I would imagine from outside. Uh. So, I've been working with a Blizzard for like, yeah, four or five years. I've been doing

stuff with them on the hosting side. Yeah. So I did blizz Con before, I hosted like one of the launch events for Heroes of the Storm here in the US, and um, eventually I ended up doing the Overwatch Open, which was basically this tournament they threw down in Atlanta on TBS with you. I was gonna say that I've seen commercials of you on TBS. Oh yeah, yeah. People people have been telling me that I've never seen any of them. There was one recently. Yeah. Recent I mean

like in the last month that I saw you. So I don't know if they're you might need to get your money if they're like reading residuals residuals, but it's cool. Yeah, in the last month. Yeah, that's that's a lot of sports for you free work, you know, that's what it is. But uh no, I love the people down to the week um, and I'll be working with them again hopefully pretty soon. Anyways, I did the Overwatch open thing. It was crazy. We had like a crazy moment where I

loved the handshake with some guy. Remember that. I remember that. That was a meme. That was a real mean it was front page Reddit. God, Jimmy Fallon took. Don't worry because Jimmy Fallon said his piece. And then we did a broadcast and I got back there basically showing him messing up his handshake like some NBA players. So we

went back and forth, we traded it. Yeah. So that was my first for Way and Overwatch, and then I ended up coming back the summer of Seen and doing the Overwatch World Cup and so that was crazy life changing experience for me because it was like my first time trappling to a lot of those countries. Uh. I went to Shanghai where everybody asked me what team I played for. I went to Australia Sydney, where everybody asked me why we voted the president and a whole bunch

of other stories questions like that. It was. It was one of those But anyways, long story short, that was a life changing experience and I was like, I want to do something else. We Overwatch. I made such a great relationship with all the players, and so I had been talking with them, like since the conclusion of the Overwatch World Cup, which was around Blizz Con, about that.

And it was just one of those things where you know, the lawyers, they do their thing and they go back and forth and then you know there's certain things, you know, we can't budge on certain and their own budgeting, and it just took a little longer. And I was supposed to be there at day one. I was, yeah, And it was kind of crazy seeing everybody go like, well, what's what's up and calling me out specifically. I mean, I guess it was kind of validating in a sense.

It's like I'm glad they like acknowledged me, you know, like it means my work that I've done so far hasn't gotten unnoticed. I mean, yeah, you you are one of my favorite voices when it comes to Blizz because you've been doing I remember when I saw you up there on blizz Con Hold it Down, was like that my boy right there, and you've been killing it and Elie.

I remember when you started doing elag and we talked about it shortly because I remember correctly that's Turner Sports turn Yeah, like Craig Berry, the vice president of Turner, like one to get in the sports. Real Bad has been like a brand down there that they've been cycling mini games through the counter strikes their main game. Uh, they've done street Fighter previously. They just did tech in Um and Justice too, so they are definitely like looking

at fighting games pretty hardcore. They even did a Rocket League one and all all of them did very well. So the league, I would say, has been like one of the main uh pioneers when it comes to taking e sports and bringing it to broadcasts more in a more high quality. Oh yeah, no, the elague stories are great. So some of these tournaments don't have prize money, right, some of them they're just straight you gave me a face.

I mean some of them do. There's so many tournaments out there, yes, and this is a nerdy podcast for everyone, and a lot of people actually aren't the reason why we're doing this because a lot of people don't know the amount of tournaments and what all it entails. So can you talk about kind of what a tournament looks

like for sure. Yeah. So, I mean there's a lot of tournaments that don't have like there local and so typically what happens at locals, depending on what genre, is either like just a whole bunch of friends get together and they play for pride, or if it's like something like we have here in on the West Coast, we have Wednesday Night Fights, which happens in Santa Anna, and then out on the East Coast there's the Next Level Battle Circuit. These are fighting game tournaments that happen every week.

People refer to him as weeklies, and you go there, you pay to get in, and then there's a pot. Whoever comes out first place, they win that pot and they go home with that depending on how many people show up, so that there's a lot of that happening. And then you have like your big invitationals, your majors, uh so to speak, that happened every year. For instance, like Evo's the big Fighting Game Major that happens every summer. It happens in Vegas. Typically everybody comes from around the

world and they play for like huge catch prizes. And then you have like your majors and other games like counter Strike, there's like ten majors a year. I think it kind of flucts your weights because they've been adding and taking away majors. But like these are the big tournaments for the big prizes and stuff like that. It varies from game the game though, to be honest, like even Rocket League, like some tournament like dream Hack would be like, oh, we want Rocket League, Let's do a

Rocket League tournament of cash prize. They'll find a sponsor. There's a prize there, you know. But the thing is these tournaments happening a lot more. There's a lot more like ways to make money playing these games. You just gotta be good enough. And the thing is, like what happens now is the sports organizations they find players and they send them out, They fund a way to get them out to all the tournaments, and then those dudes go out there, they win, they bring back some money

for the organization. So and that's kind of like been like a hustle for a lot of e sports. But now we're starting to see people make actual leagues, and so it's a little bit different because people are going in with like salaries now, like with the Overwatch League, people going with salaries and they have guaranteed money coming

to them. They don't have to worry about any majors or anything like that or you know this, it's a little bit more consistent and a little bit more guaranteed and upfront, and so they can just focus on playing and they know like when the playoffs are and they know that they have to make and win a certain amount of games to get there and things of that nature. And that was a big move because the sports was

tricky in that way. Earlier we were talking about how in counter Strikes, one of the big moves is wait until the trade deadlines are over so you can drop your players so that no one can pick them and

use them against you. But what that does is kind of screw over the place, right, so they can't make any money now because you didn't want any competition, right, So that I feel like that's a big change that needs to happen in those leagues to really prevent against that, or you know, maybe follow the Overwatch model, so if you want to drop your player, you could drop them because they're gonna get paid either way. Yeah, I appreciate the fact that they kind of like made a league.

There's still some stuff that Overwatch League needs to have happened, like there needs to be a players union and stuff like that. But I like the fact that these guys can actually focus on the game now, you know, they can focus on just playing and they don't have to worry about the inconsistency because it's basically like the freelance lifestyle. Yeah for sure. Plus like gaming, it's just not getting

to this point where's lucrative. So we were talking about one of our friends, her brother got picked up for a league and so he moved into a house and that was like his life, which is really fascinating exciting thing. But like you said, when you get dropped last minute and you don't necessarily have a backup planet can be I think startling for some of these younger players. Right. Yeah, I'm hoping we see a lot more situations where these guys don't have to deal with that. I mean, Overwatch

League is his own case study. I don't know if we'll have any more other leagues like that. I know League Legends they just went into franchise and teams too, so I mean, I'm sure they'll find a way to come around. I would like to see the fighting game

community do a better job with that personally. Now you do see a lot of players who are sponsored, uh, and a lot of sports organizations that are getting better about this, like Echo Fox right now, they're they're great, Like they give their players money up front, you know, they signed them for long periods of time. They don't just drop them. They stick with their players and stuff like that. But that's been that's actually been a huge problem though in EA sports for a while, so like

people just getting dropped. Just the way they treat the players is kind of but overall, yeah, which is why I was like super happy to not even like worry about what I'm gonna take a different route one bit already already got the one thing going against me, Like, oh man, all right, well before we sign off here, what do you think the future sports the media future? I see us well, for Overwatch the League in particular,

I see more things like that happening. We're gonna start seeing more franchising, We're gonna start seeing people try to create more structure around it, because that's, like I said, have been a huge problem about just people being able to have an access point to it, you know, So we'll see more structure. Overwatch League will continue to grow itself. I think there's gonna be expansion teams for sure, so

that means more players can come in. UM. And I think the fighting game community we're gonna start to see a little more structure around that too. I mean Capcom has tried to do some stuff with Street Fighter. UM. I hope they will relinquish their hold on that and let some other people step in. I'd love to see them team up with like Turner Sports and make a league for fighting games and just let that be it.

You know. It kind of sucks because the fighting game community is about people being able to show up on the day anybody, right, right, and so it's kind of hard to like organize all that stuff. But I see us figuring something out. Maybe there'll be more invitational tournaments things of that nature. But we'll just see a lot more structure in the immediate future and far into the future. Olympics, Yeah, maybe a union and stuff. Yeah. Like on Sports Center,

they're talking about East Sports. Yeah. Yeah. If he was covering that, people are like, oh, this shouldn't be on ESPN, And then he was like, but there's like poker on there, so there's all kinds of crazy stuff. Yeah, you know it's people eating hot dogs. Yeah that's true. That's true. Yeah, like it this hot dog competition, then yes, we should have the sports being covered on there. I feel like

the future of the sports is very bright. I feel like now it's generally understood to be something that should be taken seriously. Yeah, it took a long road. I feel like we both kind of saw where you know, how long it's taken at this point. But now it's like, yeah, and what I hope to see is that people are mature. Yeah, usually people to mature and the single girl a lot faster because I feel like immaturities was made it take so long in these games. Yeah, we're kids, so I

want to remember that. Well, where can people find at Malik four? Play on everything social media like Twitter, Instagram, everything, Just at Malik four play on the sound on SoundCloud too. On SoundCloud as well, and uh, every Wednesday through Saturday, Twitch dot Tv Slash Overwatch League, I'm never alright and you know me, it's your boy. If you I f y n W A d i w E on both Twitter and Instagram, catch a boy Wilder. I am at Miss Danny Fernandez. It's m S D A N I

F E R n A N D Easy. Don't write the other Danny Fernandez because I am apparently a Spanish boy band singer blocked me when I messaged him, so dang. Yeah. Yeah, And definitely if you want to, you know, follow all the Nerdificent socials any R D I F I C N T on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Like, subscribe gil as a five star review. You know you want to. You've been listening for this long. Let's get it in. Let's make it official. Please yeah, and tweet us, uh what

you want us to cover? This is supposed to be a podcast for everyone, so whether you are you know, an expert in this or someone new, what is something that you want us to cover? Let us know. Yeah, might throw it on the dock. We'll shout you out too, all right, Joe, stay r