Jamaica Computer Society Speaks With
Jamaican E-Sports Administrators
Jamaica Computer Society Speaks With Jamaican E-Sports Administrators
Jamaica Computer Society Speaks With Jamaican E-Sports Administrators
The community of electronic sport gamers
in Jamaica have told the Jamaica Computer Society (JCS) that they are ready to
grow their sport locally and to make their name internationally. An April 30,
2020 teleconference under the theme Business Continuity Through
Technology, hosted by JCS Deputy President, Jason Scott with
Chairman and CEO, Jamaica Esports Initiative (JEI) Gregory Moore and Director
of Esports Jamaica, Dexton Graham was a peek into the scale of the sport on the
island.
COVID-19 has shone the spotlight on
e-sports as it is the one area of sporting that has remained open and available
to sports enthusiasts. Fans of motor sports drivers and elite international
footballers have been unwittingly pulled into e-sports when their sporting
heroes turn to playing on PlayStation, X-Box, Nintendo consoles.
Moore and Graham noted that globally,
e-sports had moved over the course of 15 years from being a leisure activity to
enthusiasts forming national federations and players being able to earn a
living through gaming and becoming professionals.
As a background to what was said by the team,
I set out some additional information below.
- Sixty five 65% of the Commonwealth’s 2 billion citizens
are under the age of 30
- Data suggests that 16-24-year-olds are more likely to
watch esports tournaments (32%) to traditional sports tournaments (31%)
with 44% watching live streams of video games
- Eighty nine 89% of adults in the Commonwealth have a
mobile connection today and just under half of them are using data
services
- Among adults in the Commonwealth who access the
internet, 82% access it on mobile devices
- By 2022 almost everyone online in the Commonwealth will
have a smartphone and access to sufficient bandwidth to stream video
- Individual media consumption across all form of media
has increased from 7 hours to 8 hours per individual per day.
Back to the JCS telediscussion.
- Extremely low female involvement in major eSports
titles like CS:GO (24% Female), DOTA 2 (20% Female), Hearthstone (26%
Female), Rainbow 6: Siege (23% Female), and even Overwatch (26% Female)
highlights the core challenge in attracting more female eSports fans.
- The slow increase in traditional female fanship of
eSports may be due to an increased prevalence of mobile games in
competitive gaming. According to Skillz, a
platform that offers mobile competitive gaming and boasts a large
selection of casual games, 7 of the top 10 mobile earners on their
platform in 2018 were female.
- Skillz has shown us that one of the keys to increasing
female participation in eSports or competitive gaming may be through
mobile and tablet devices, with games in non-traditional eSports genres.
The International Esports Federation
(IESF) headquartered in South Korea is a multinational body that represents
national federations of gamers who use “physical and mental abilities to
compete in various games in a virtual electronic environment”; its website
lists Jamaica and the Bahamas as the two accredited members from the Caribbean
out of a total of 63 national members. Vying for world domination in e-sports
is the Global Esports Federation, headquartered in Singapore, which has a
vision that includes, “grow the interface between traditional esports and
sport-based (active) esports communities.”
Ultimate respectability for a sport is
having an event within a traditional active sporting movement, and e-sports
administrators are eager to be there with their gamers. Already, the
Commonwealth Games Federation, FIFA, and the Olympics have indicated varying
shades of interest in incorporating e-sporting bodies into their membership.
The Olympics sees e-sports as an extension of active sports; the Commonwealth
seems to be looking as e-sports as another kind of sporting activity
independent of existing sports.
The Commonwealth Games Federation, in its
May 2020 statement, noted the reasons why it must take note of e-sports:
In its December 2019 communique, the
Olympic movement is clear that esports should be parallel to active sports,
“The International Federations are encouraged to consider how to govern
electronic and virtual forms of their sport and explore opportunities with game
publishers........The Summit concluded that, at this stage, the sports movement
should focus on players and gamers rather than on specific games.”
The JEI is recognized by the Jamaica
Olympic Federation (JOA), and has itself helped to birth e-sports federations
in the Caribbean, namely the Bahamas, St Kitts, Guadeloupe and Trinidad and
Tobago.
2018 was the breakout year for Jamaican
e-sports; the JEI became a recognized body within the International Esports
Federation (IESF), also the local business offering tournaments, As an events
organisation, EsportsJamaica, saw real growth in the number of participants in
tournaments and the prize money that was offered. Scott and Moore said that the
vibrant pool of players allowed them to host a three-part series from which a
national squad, The Dr Birdz, was selected. They are pleased that the talent
did not come from one part of the island. The all-male pioneering Dr Birdz team
are: a gamer from Manchester, two gamers from St Elizabeth, and three from Kingston.
Their first international outing was the 2019 EVO competition in Las Vegas, and
the experience was valuable to set out the scope for funding and talent
recruitment that is needed to expand and develop the sport.
At a May 7 event, the Minister of Science
Energy and Technology, Fayval Williams, said that Jamaica has a 45% Internet
penetration, so it may be expected that more talent will emerge with the
ongoing expansion of broadband.
Gamers have a selection of competitions
from across the Caribbean and in addition, thee is now an Afro Caribbean nexus
that offers tournaments between the two regions. Locally, lucrative prizes has
attracted more players and more players has in turn attracted sponsors. The
discussion mentioned the 2018 League of Legends competition at UWI which gave
away $400,000 value in computers for the winning team; and the 2019 Area 51 at
Sabina Park where Pizza Hut was the title sponsor. Pizza Hut is a subsidiary of
the Restaurants of Jamaica organization, so the event had the benefit of a
fulsome, professional marketing effort that brought even more attention to the
event and the sport.
The excitement around these tournaments
has reached into homes with children who also play in tournaments, and this has
been an education for parents and caregivers who would now consider supporting
their child’s interest in e-sports. Graham recalled a mother's pleasure when
her child won J$30,000 at an EsportsJamaica competition. The shining example
was the multi-million prize money won by teenagers and young adults at the July
2019 Fortnite World Cup
that was held in the Arthur Ashe Stadium, New York City.
Moore has approached secondary schools
and today, there are six or seven schools that sanction e-sports clubs. There
are also teams of players who have organised themselves into clubs and both UWI
and Utech have official e-sports clubs.
He notes, “It is a viable option for
persons who may not have the option to physically compete … but they have the
thought pattern, the brain power, quick fingers to be able to compete because
e-sports requires a lot of mental work and some persons who may not have the
physical attributes can definitely shine in that space.”
It was a satisfying discussion. The
unspoken matter of course is the very stark gender imbalance in participation
of e-sports.
Research agency Insights which summarised
gender and gaming reported that unless new types of tablet and mobile based
games become widely available, the participation of females in e-sports will be
low.
Sports is a key area for development in
Jamaica, including employment. Rolling out the long-awaited national Internet
broadband network is critical for Jamaica to unearth talent wherever it exists.
COVID-19 has provided a reminder that this is a mission that is yet to be
performed.
/end
References
v=JTHYgS2bgdQ https://mobile.nation.co.ke/sports/athletics/Dealing-with-the-training-and-financial-disruptions-of-covid19/3112514-5520560-rpoo5j/index.html
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