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Hi guys

Do you have any ideas on how to grow eSports in South Africa?

/wonder what jamins suggestion is going to be...

I take it you mean like what South Korea has going? Full live coverage, broadcasting? Or are you talking about leagues and such?

Anything really. More specifically how do we make eSports mainstream in South Africa?

Solid multiplayer games that a wider group of people can play as well as a wider genre and not playing titles todeath ( looking at you cod4).

in the last year, every LAN I've been to has revolved around 1 or 2 titles. and some of the guys are such elitists and take it so seriously that the fun evapourates faster than aid money in zim.

you also need to remove the geeky stereotype from pc games. you don't need to know the in an outs of a pc to be able to play.

Well i have had a few idea's and i think it all boils down to exposure to be honest.

Just to note from what has been said; I think the ESport is going to mean a certain level of elitism. What draws a lot of players to become Professionals is the fact they want to be the best! So seriousness of a game, i do not think, is the killer of ESport.

When i was aspiring to become a Professional gamer myself, i thought about this topic quite a bit. As we all know our Counter Strike 1.6 community is rapidly deteriorating (or more correctly said HAS deteriorated). So is War Craft 3 probably (I cannot say for sure as i have not been on for so long). But i think we find games become old fast and we move to the next newest thing. This isn't to say that, that is not a bad thing. However, i if you check the Top ESport competitions (eswc, wcg, dreamhack, kode5 etc etc), you will find The fore-mentioned games are still the Games been played professionally. Of course you will find some variation amongst tournaments

In the past we have managed to send some of our top players to these tournaments, however i do not know if you ever followed our rate of success? Pretty much dismal. The top teams in the world easily destroy our best players. Not to mention that those countries (lets take sweden) there are many other players and clans fighting for the top position and coming close. We on the other hand lack the player pool that other countries have. I do not think its the matter we actually Lack the players, but more the enthusiasm for Esport Gaming.

With this sort of enthusiasm, you often find there are Large prizes, and more importantly Recognition. When you win that tournament, players across the world know your name (well you nick at least). This i think is the biggest draw for players to fight to become top achievers. Another thing we do not have is that this sport often becomes an actual income for Clans and their players. Teams like SK, Fnatic, and many others, this is actually their Job. We could never possibly get ourselves that kind of money to support ourselves.

This brings me back to exposure. We need to expose our players to international Gaming. We need that "practices" and experience that you can only acquire from a diversity of playing techniques and other players. Our players as it is, are good, i remember hearing a report that SA 1.6 players were normally better on "aim" than international counter parts (if this is true, i do not know). Im sure we come pretty close to reflexes and Aim capabilities though, just we lack what people call "brains". Lol, i mean our strategies are rather poor because they are under developed.

How do we address this problem? Oh, thats easy get faster lines? I am sure we all laughing at that statement now, but basically that is our biggest problem. Not even 4mb lines, and i doubt 8mb, 10mb lines will achieve the latency we need to play properly. So I propose this. Surely we can get a dedicated time on a fibre line to play cross continent? (i admit, my knowledge on this is not great, and this may not be at all possible). Lets say that the top 2 players or clans get to play on a dedicated line provided by telkom, and now SEAcom and Neotel. They do not play on it all the time, i mean twice a month they go to a place provided by a provider and they play a couple games against international teams. Regular tournaments or a Ladder system is implemented to provide those clans the opportunity to take the top positions.

Now on a worst case scenario note. Let say that is not possible. I think the next thing to do is to arrange short tours, for both SA players going out, and international teams coming in. Arrange Sponsorship with Airlines (this must be impossible) or any other international Brand (ie Intel) to help pay for costs.

OK so thats my point of view on the topic Guys, I hope we can promote ESports. Cause the lack of it, was what killed my, and many other South Africans, aspiration to become Professional.

I actually want to add one more thing quick. A lot of this actually Fails with the sponsors. So many times i have heard about our national Qualifiers, the organizers fail to deliver on things like a tour etc. So we would also need to sort out a better sponsoring system.

KillerByte wrote:Anything really. More specifically how do we make eSports mainstream in South Africa?

How ? well we first need some first rate players.. or the ones that exist need to be noticed by the likes of PCF, or other unmentionable gaming magazine / online publications.

Unfortunately no SA players pop into my mind if I think about 'Did you see that game between'

Jae-DongLee for eg immediately when I think Star Craft, and Jonathan 'Fatality' Wendell when I think of various FPS.
Vaaitjie Koekemoer, unfortunately not

SA is not even listed on the WCG Official website as a contender.

In the words of a famous Star Trek Captain Jean-Luc Picard

Let me refine the quetion even more

How do we (gamers) get more exposure for the eSports community and make it main stream. Better players will come when they learn about competitive gaming. We need to think of ways to make the competitions bigger, not just by having a Rage every year but what about a quarterly tournament which is linked to MSSA and which will get gamers colours.

Sponsors are a problem every one faces but they do exist and they do want to help grow gaming. AMD and Sapphire need to be commended on this. They have shown big interest in growing gaming in SA. But I think the problem is that the suppliers do not see the value of sponsoring LANs.

International Exposure. Makes more interesting. I would play non stop for 2 months if i was given an opportunity to play against Heaton, or Zet

Well firstly LAN is dead or dying thanks to new online systems. Secondly I would imagine someone like ol' Julius pissing his pants at seeing 120 people gathering to "train" against each other with virtual AKs and strategic bomb planting in "sabotage" or "search and destroy" games.

I enjoyed LANs. But I enjoy the SGS servers a bit more. Maybe if we could play against international players at acceptable pings then we might just get mapped. Besides if you do get the privelage of joining an oversea tournament for winning against internationals it would be like enabling god-mode when you play with low ping that side.