Let’s talk coaching Bobcats!

Today I sat down with the Coordinator and semi-coach of the Texas State E-Sports Overwatch team, Nick ‘Kuda’ Miller, for a short interview inside of discord.

In the video we talk about questions such as:

• What do coordinators and coaches do for the E-Sports teams?
• Is being a coordinator/coach enjoyable?
• Has the Texas State E-Sports club been what you hoped it was when you joined?
• Do you have any advice for those looking to join an E-Sports organization?

Nick was very professional and gave detailed answers on what goes on inside of an E-Sports organization. Coaching and Coordinating is often an overlooked job in E-Sports and some sports in general, due to the staff not participating directly in games. But coaching and coordinating is every part important and sometimes more. An example we talked about is how coordinating impacts the team’s ability to participate in tournaments both virtual and LAN.

Lastly, Nick speaks out about the intricacies of the game and what coaches and coordinators have to look at to help the teams. Things from mechanical (skill based) control over there characters, macro and micro play (anything from keystrokes and map based strategies), and group communication. Coaches and Coordinators review footage and spectate games in order to provide corrections to play and develop game plans for the future based on the roster. They also control the inevitable task of removing or changing positions of the roster, dictating who plays and who needs to be removed.

Hey Bobcats! Today we’re going to talk about the positive and negative impacts illness’s have on E-Sports, and ways that we work around them.

As many of us know at this current time, Covid-19 is presently affecting all of Texas State. For many this means spending more time indoors, moving out of dorms, and only online classes. For the E-Sports club, however, you’ll notice that everything is mostly typical.

For most of the E-Sports members both at Texas State, and across the country, we already participated in ‘Shelter in Place’ unless required to do otherwise. Thus, most of us were already at a low risk for infection and contributed to the flattening of the curve.

However, there are 2 problems presented by E-Sports that makes it uniquely difficult to compete during this emergency.

1. Most professional E-Sports tournaments happen indoors at an arena/convention center setting. This is no longer possible as it is a breeding ground for infection/transmission. Due to this, all professional and non-professional E-Sports levels had to take a 2-week to month long break. An example of why this was necessary, is the fact that a tournament that preceded the initial calls to shutdown in early March, led to two members of a professional Overwatch team to get sick with Covid-19

2. Another problem concerning Texas State E-Sports, and likely other universities across the country, is that Texas State was required to empty out the student dorms. This has displaced a number of E-Sports players, requiring them to either move to an apartment, or back in with their parents. The issues with this could range from poor internet, inability to participate due to living situations, and loss of computer access.

But, there are also very positive outcomes from this too. I’ll limit it to the big 3.

1. The first positive outcome is that due to E-Sports being over the internet and primarily indoors focused, it allows quick recovery from potential drawbacks. For example, even though multiple sports leagues such as the MLB and NBA are currently postponed or suspended, E-Sports has made it’s return less than 2 weeks after. Having to change relatively little and returning back to their regular streaming platforms anyway.
2. The second positive outcome is that E-Sports recently have been receiving more media attention due to the outbreak. When I say this, I mean that due to people being forced to shelter in place, they turn to the internet where video game streams and E-Sports are easily accessible.
   
3. Lastly, during this time E-Sports gives a fun and competitive environment for those displaced or unable to participate in their competitive sports. For example, the streaming platforms and games have seen a massive influx of players taking place on their multiplayer servers, and of game downloads. This is a direct result of people having nothing else much to do but watch tv/netflix and play video games or read.

Let’s watch some games Bobcats!

Media coverage is crucial to any attempts at establishing a professional gaming scene. Be it virtual or in person, competitive gaming requires:

1. Exposure to the public – The public is necessary to competitive gaming, in order to prove to potential sponsors and to generate revenue to gaming companies, sponsors, host-organizations, and players. By providing exposure gaming is able to establish viability for companies to come in and provide funding.
2. Sponsorship – Similar to extreme sports, racing, or other competitive games, the life blood of these is money. In order to generate revenue, it’s necessary to prove the viability of them to potential sponsors, who will take a risk investing in advertisements or sponsorship. This sponsorship is then used to pay the players, the host-organization, and promote the viewing of the sport.
3. Streaming Platforms – Unlike football and basketball, E-Sports doesn’t tend to get media coverage from the mainstream media. Recent developments have led to certain games or world championships ending up on ESPN and ESPN 2, but this is still relatively rare. In order to increase exposure and get around the media gatekeeping, private platforms are used to host, view, and create gaming or other content. Examples of this are Twitch.tv, Youtube.com, and Mixer.com. These content platforms are used as sources of income for content creators, primarily gaming content, and are viewed widely. These allow for the generation of funds through Ad sponsorship, or through community subscriptions (similar to Pay-per-view, only on a monthly basis).

These 3 key aspects of media coverage are what allows for competitive E-Sports, and other unique types of content creation to exist and prosper. Twitch.tv, for example, hosts an average of 15 million viewers a day. Youtube averages 2.3 billion views a day. This is very attractive to Ad and other sponsors looking to appeal to an audience that averages between the age of 18-35, and are predominantly male.

Let’s Practice Bobcats!

Practice, Scrimmages, Tournaments, and Interscholastic Competitions. These are some examples of things that school athletics, or school interscholastic competitors do during the school year in order to improve their ability and maintain their skill set and team cohesion.

An important thing to understand about E-Sports is that we practice our games.. alot. For obvious reasons practicing E-Sports games is really easy, typically we all play the game we compete in during our free time. Even in the cases we don’t, we are playing other games with skills or other aspects that will transfer over to the game. This is one of the perks of E-Sports competition, not only can just about anyone try their hand at competing, but you can practice anytime so long as you have an internet connection and computer.

When it comes to team competitions and E-Sports organizations such as the Texas State E-Sports organization, we gather each others best availability and establish a schedule for all of us to get together and practice in. An example of such seen below.

Listed above is an example of the website ‘When2Meet‘ and the practice availability of the members of the TXST Overwatch Varsity roster. As you can see, where as most sports would be forced to end due to dinner time, weather, or the onset of night time, E-Sports competitors can go on late into the night to practice, and can start practicing as soon as right after school if necessary.

Overall, practices and scrimmages are a key part to competitive play in E-Sports, not only do we practice a lot, but we can also compete a lot more. Due to our increases availability and ease of access to our competitions, there is also a higher likelihood at novice and amateur play of increased matches per session. For the TXST Overwatch team, previously we would compete in 2 best of 3 matches every Sunday, coupled with 3 practices and a scrimmage per week. The League of Legends team, for example, would practice for 4 hours twice a week and scrimmage for 2-4 hours per week, while also participating in as many as 2 matches of best of 3, which can last up to 2 1/2 hours each.

E-Sports and practice go hand in hand, and while we may not physically be practicing and working out twice a week or everyday… It doesn’t mean we aren’t practicing and working hard everyday to improve our abilities to win. A stigma which needs to be shed by the E-Sports community is that E-Sports is lazy and requires little time and ability. However, we put in hours of practice a day, and run the risk of taking the fun out of our hobbies for the chance to compete at high levels of play.

Let’s talk about money!

For many people who hear about E-Sports, they tend to believe it is just a collection of gamers or people with too much time on their hands, attempting to justify video games by labeling it a sport.

After many discussions and debates with various E-Sports club members, and personal experience, we’ve found that one of the best ways to show someone the merits of E-Sports and how it works through the use of the #1 way to anyone’s attention… their wallet.

E-Sports is a lucrative business model. The concept is simple, game companies release a game and make it competitive by installing a ‘ranked’ or rankings system into the game in order to push players to competing against each other. This competitiveness naturally develops into competitions or tournaments, which not only gives promotions and advertisements to new prospective players and people who have never heard of the game. Along with it, due to streaming, videos, and other modern media coming into play, advertisers for gaming computers, food, and other computer oriented products will flock to get themselves in front of the screens of gamers watching the competitions. The typical system used to determine ranked is a variation of the ELO system, established by Arpad Elo.

Ultimately, this leads to competitions in which game owners will drop a healthy sum of money, ranging from $10,000 – $10,000,000 for winning. Thus, E-Sports and promotions go hand in hand, creating a cycle of game creation -> game competition -> promotions during competition -> increase in sales and game purchases -> repeat.

Which leads to the reason people should ultimately take E-Sports seriously. E-Sports is the future of gaming and potentially of a version of sports. With relatively low risk, high reward, and the lack of physical fitness/physical exertion, people previously unable to be competitive or physically unable to compete in sports, may find an avenue in E-Sports.

Let’s Play Bobcats!

Tryouts! Similar to any sport organization/club, TXST E-Sports hosts tryouts for the games it participates in. However, tryouts work differently based upon the game and organizer. Below I’ll be listing the different games we currently host, as well as the try out periods and how each game hosts/hosted tryouts. A good short video for how tryouts for College E-Sports might be handled is linked here.

Overwatch

• Tryouts once per semester
• Held in custom games during which multiple players are switched in and out of teams/line ups to test skill, adaptability, and teamwork
• Main Roster (Varsity) selects 6-7 members
• Academy Roster (Junior Varsity) selects 7-8 members

League of Legends

• Tryouts once per year (Unless necessary)
• Held in custom games during which specific teams of varying ranked elo compete between their main and secondary roles
• Main Roster (Varsity) selects 5 members
• Academy Roster (Junior Varsity) selects 6 members

Rocket League

• Tryouts once per semester
• Held in custom games of 3v3 with prior set lineups that changes players each rotation.
• Main Roster (Varsity) 3 members
• Academy Roster (Junior Varsity) 4 members

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

• Tryouts once per year
• Held in custom games, teams periodically switch various players and play in a miniature round-robin tournament style
• Main Roster (Varsity) 5 members
• Academy Roster (Junior Varsity) 5 members

Tom Clancy’s: Rainbow Six Siege

• Tryouts once per year
• Held in custom games, teams switch players out between matches to determine specific teamwork qualities and individual skill
• Main Roster (Varsity) 7 members

School Year of 2018

During 2018 Texas State took a step toward future internet based competition with the official establishment of the E-Sports club!

School Year of 2019

As of 2019 the Texas State E-Sports club took 2 big steps forward.

• The first step we took was becoming identified as an ‘official‘ sports club. This offers a lot of opportunities and potential for the future.
  • With the establishment of the club as a ‘sports club’, not only do we get all the perks that come along with it such as dedicated rooming upon request we also get official funding!
  • Most importantly, we take a step forward towards one of the more alluring options as a sports club, we can begin looking at establishing university based scholarships for the program.

• Secondly, we not only competed in large competitions across Texas, we were also recognized and qualified for a program on Discord called the Hypesquad. This further cements the position of our organization and opens the potential for future sponsorship for the program, and the ability for more lucrative options for travel and competitions.

For those of you who are interested in joining the E-Sports club, or just interested in what its like, by downloading discord and following this link, you’ll be able to join our official club discord and stay up to date on social media, tryouts, and competition results! Link: https://discord.gg/txstesports

Press Play!

Hello everyone, my name is Luke Davis. I have an Associates degree in Communication Studies from ACC. I’m working on my Bachelor’s degree in Communication Studies with a persuasive focus and a Mass Comm. Minor. My goal for this blog is to take everyone along for the ride as well as some of the history behind E-Sports, and the E-Sports club we have here at Texas State. I presently compete in the Overwatch competitive team, of which we were previously ranked Top 10 in the State and in the top 75 for the country of collegiate teams.

Firstly, let me start by talking to you a bit about our E-Sports club. Our official website is located here. Texas State has had a semblance of a club for a few years, originating between 2016 and 2017. We became an official sports club last year, which is a big step up for the club as a whole as well as the school. If not for present school limitations in place against a large influx of people joining a sports club, the E-Sports club would be the largest sports club in the University. Listed below are the present games we compete in.

Current Games:

• Overwatch – Official Website
• League of Legends – Official Website
• Rocket League – Official Website
• Counter Strike: Global Offensive – Official Website
• Rainbow 6 Siege – Official Website
• Super Smash Bros. – Official Website

The official season for all of these games is in full swing and the objective of this blog is to not only explain the intricacies of e-sports and it’s history, but also to keep you up-to-date on the status of e-sports at Texas State University.

Go Bobcats!