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00:00:06,049 --> 00:00:08,051
[dragon snarling]
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00:00:10,845 --> 00:00:12,055
[roars]
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00:00:13,306 --> 00:00:16,059
[narrator]
Spoiler: this dragon isn't real,
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00:00:16,434 --> 00:00:18,436
but this stadium is.
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00:00:18,519 --> 00:00:22,523
This is the opening ceremony at the
League of Legends World Championship
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00:00:22,607 --> 00:00:24,067
in Beijing, China.
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00:00:24,817 --> 00:00:27,904
This is a Dota 2 tournament
in Seattle, Washington.
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00:00:28,571 --> 00:00:33,659
And this is the Counter-Strike Global
Offensive final held in Katowice, Poland.
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00:00:34,494 --> 00:00:38,247
-173,000 people went.
-[audience chanting indistinctly]
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00:00:38,706 --> 00:00:43,669
League of Legends, Dota 2, Counter-Strike,
these are all video games,
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the kind that, 20 years ago,
most people would just play at home.
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Today, eSports, that’s electronic sports,
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is a global phenomenon.
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00:00:53,596 --> 00:00:57,391
In 2017,
60 million people around the world
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00:00:57,475 --> 00:00:59,477
watched the League of Legends finals.
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00:00:59,769 --> 00:01:03,564
In 2018, Luxor, the Las Vegas casino,
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dedicated an entire new space
to eSports and gaming.
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All of this is for playing video games.
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00:01:11,072 --> 00:01:12,865
-[announcer shouts indistinctly]
-[cheering]
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[narrator] But where exactly
does eSports fit in?
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eSports players are nerds.
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If you don't break a sweat,
I don't consider it a sport.
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Let's talk about the 20 million people
who are watching the damn thing.
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They gotta be crazier than
the ones playing.
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[narrator]
So, how are these sports different?
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00:01:31,926 --> 00:01:35,638
And how did eSports become a phenomenon?
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[theme music plays]
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[crowd chanting indistinctly]
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[cheering]
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00:01:46,107 --> 00:01:48,442
[man] We're ready for some
Rocket League action, are you ready?
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00:01:48,526 --> 00:01:50,528
[cheering]
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00:01:50,611 --> 00:01:55,241
[man 2] There's too much! Too many!
There's no stopping Rogue now!
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00:01:55,992 --> 00:01:59,453
-[announcer shouts indistinctly]
-[loud cheering]
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[man]
I literally went from player to caster,
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based off a suggestion
of one of my teammates
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00:02:15,678 --> 00:02:17,597
because he thought me yelling at him
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was entertaining and good
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and that I should do commentary,
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and that was it.
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There's technically hundreds
of disciplines
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that exist in the world of eSports.
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But I think you can actually bucket them
into some very specific categories.
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First Person Shooters, or FPS,
would be the first one.
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00:02:36,991 --> 00:02:40,912
Real time strategy: that requires you
to have an incredible mind.
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00:02:40,995 --> 00:02:44,832
But also, it requires you to be
incredibly fast with your hands.
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00:02:45,291 --> 00:02:46,876
Then you've got MOBAs.
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00:02:46,959 --> 00:02:48,794
That is typically a team of five
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00:02:48,878 --> 00:02:51,756
that are getting together
to complete a certain goal.
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00:02:51,839 --> 00:02:55,927
Usually that goal is going into someone
else's house and completely destroying it.
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00:02:56,010 --> 00:02:58,930
And then you've got
sort of an emerging category,
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00:02:59,013 --> 00:03:01,807
which would be considered
the Battle Royale category.
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The idea is that 100 people drop in and
only one come out or one team comes out.
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[narrator]
Fighting Games are a force in tournaments.
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00:03:10,441 --> 00:03:13,069
And some games
are difficult to categorize,
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00:03:13,236 --> 00:03:14,403
like Rocket League,
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00:03:14,487 --> 00:03:19,659
which is best described as
"competitive soccer driving..."
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00:03:20,076 --> 00:03:25,414
Starcraft is like if chess and symphony
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were like, to get together
and Starcraft popped out.
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My favorite eSports game to play
is Dota 2,
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like basketball and chess,
but on steroids.
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League of Legends is kind of like soccer,
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except there's towers and dragons
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00:03:42,974 --> 00:03:45,101
and a forest and monsters.
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Yeah, it's nothing like soccer.
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[narrator] They're all video games,
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but the rules and techniques involved
in playing them
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are as different
as basketball and croquet.
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So players usually specialize
and compete in tournaments and leagues
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specific to their game.
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That's why eSports is plural.
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00:04:03,160 --> 00:04:05,037
And while eSports is pretty new,
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competitive gaming isn't.
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00:04:07,707 --> 00:04:12,920
The American story in particular is a
microcosm for how all eSports developed
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00:04:13,504 --> 00:04:15,673
and how they're starting to change.
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The video game company Atari
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made this infomercial in 1982
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to try to convince people
that video arcades
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were wholesome fun.
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I think they're neat.
That's what I do in my spare time.
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00:04:33,983 --> 00:04:38,112
You could claim that Atari's
1972 invention of Pong started eSports.
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00:04:38,904 --> 00:04:40,364
That would be a dumb claim.
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00:04:40,865 --> 00:04:43,409
But as the first blockbuster video game,
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Pong was the start of a competitive
arcade culture.
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00:04:46,912 --> 00:04:51,083
In the early '80s, TV shows like Starcade
introduced competitive gaming
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00:04:51,459 --> 00:04:52,877
to a wider audience.
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00:04:53,669 --> 00:04:59,175
But a glut of home gaming consoles
caused the industry to crash in 1983,
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as gaming moved into people's homes.
88
00:05:02,928 --> 00:05:07,183
It took one influential genre
to keep the fighting spirit alive.
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[game chimes]
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00:05:09,310 --> 00:05:14,315
Fighting games, to me, will always have
that special place in my heart as
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"you're the real OGs."
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Some of the true early moments of eSports
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were hands down in
the fighting game community.
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This is legendary shit where so-and-so
from So Cal
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00:05:28,996 --> 00:05:32,166
heard about the skills of so-and-so
from Nor Cal,
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00:05:32,416 --> 00:05:35,711
and they arranged a meeting
to get together at Funland.
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00:05:40,257 --> 00:05:42,510
[man]
FGC stands for Fighting Game Community.
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00:05:42,885 --> 00:05:46,347
We were the first ones to the pool
on competitive gaming.
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00:05:47,306 --> 00:05:51,143
In the arcade days, there was definitely
something to be said about when
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00:05:51,352 --> 00:05:54,188
you would show up and you would see
black kids sitting next to Asian kids
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00:05:54,271 --> 00:05:56,023
sitting next to white kids
and Latino kids,
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just playing the same game,
all talking to each other.
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00:05:58,692 --> 00:06:02,154
Probably don't know each other's names,
but they know they play the same game.
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00:06:02,279 --> 00:06:04,323
And that was the common bond.
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[narrator] In 1997, there was
a turning point between arcade play
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and the future in online gaming.
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It happened when eSports found a legend.
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['80s electronic music playing]
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One of the best of them is the gamer named
"Thresh." His real name is Dennis Fong.
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-How you doing, Dennis?
-How you doing, Stewart?
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Thresh is a god.
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00:06:28,264 --> 00:06:30,474
[dramatic choral music playing]
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He is accurate.
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He would surprise you.
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He would know what you were going to do
before you could do it.
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You could be scared of this guy
by watching him play.
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My name is Dennis Fong
and I'm also known as Thresh.
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There was a period where this guy
was unbeatable.
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00:06:48,200 --> 00:06:50,161
I've basically never lost a tournament.
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He was the Michael Jordan.
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The one that everyone wanted to beat,
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that everyone wanted to be,
and that everyone looked up to.
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00:06:58,919 --> 00:07:04,633
I was, uh, on a 2400 baud modem
for most my Quake career.
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[dial-up screeching]
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00:07:06,343 --> 00:07:11,223
I was a modem player going up against
people that were playing on a network
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00:07:11,307 --> 00:07:12,475
and I was crushing them.
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[narrator] Thresh pulled moves
that people had never seen before.
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00:07:16,520 --> 00:07:19,732
His strategies are now standard
in first-person shooter games.
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00:07:20,483 --> 00:07:23,527
Other people just reacted to the game
and mashed buttons,
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00:07:23,611 --> 00:07:25,905
while Thresh controlled the field.
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Like here, where instead of just
chasing his opponent for a kill,
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he snags some armor to keep it from him.
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00:07:32,244 --> 00:07:34,455
[Thresh] If you have to use your reflexes,
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00:07:34,580 --> 00:07:36,916
you probably did something wrong
that led up to that.
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00:07:37,875 --> 00:07:41,545
[narrator] In 1997, Thresh was
already famous amongst gamers,
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but a big tournament took him mainstream.
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00:07:44,590 --> 00:07:47,843
There was a Ferrari
as the first-place prize,
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00:07:48,093 --> 00:07:52,515
and it was actually put up
by John Carmack, who created Quake.
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His Ferraris were not normal Ferraris.
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00:07:55,309 --> 00:07:58,938
He would invest hundreds of thousands
of dollars to soup them up.
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Under the hood,
it was basically like a rocket.
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00:08:02,066 --> 00:08:03,901
And I remember, at that moment,
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00:08:03,984 --> 00:08:06,737
when I had realized
I had the game locked up, I had won,
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00:08:07,029 --> 00:08:10,908
I remember looking in the monitor and
for the first time in the whole tournament
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00:08:11,033 --> 00:08:13,494
I actually noticed that the Ferrari
was sitting right behind me
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00:08:13,577 --> 00:08:15,246
in the reflection of the monitor.
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00:08:16,372 --> 00:08:18,165
I actually didn't know how to drive stick.
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00:08:18,916 --> 00:08:20,000
[chuckles]
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00:08:20,084 --> 00:08:23,921
No, I did learn in the first day
that I got it.
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00:08:24,171 --> 00:08:26,215
[narrator] That prize was a big deal
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00:08:26,298 --> 00:08:29,385
and put eSports on the front page
of The Wall Street Journal.
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Still, it was just
one developer's giveaway.
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But as broadband adoption increased
in the US and worldwide,
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faster connection speeds made it easier
to play and watch games,
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setting the stage for
a sustainable eSports industry.
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00:08:44,191 --> 00:08:46,569
[man speaks indistinctly to crowd]
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00:08:53,409 --> 00:08:54,535
[narrator] This game is part of
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00:08:54,618 --> 00:08:59,039
the North American League
Championship Series, or NALCS.
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00:08:59,540 --> 00:09:02,001
League of Legends,
one of the most popular eSports,
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00:09:02,209 --> 00:09:05,087
has its own league
that feels a lot like the NBA.
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00:09:06,088 --> 00:09:10,092
Across a range of leagues, players have
earned anything from tournament prizes
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00:09:10,175 --> 00:09:13,345
to millions a year in fees
and endorsements.
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00:09:13,637 --> 00:09:17,474
Throughout eSports, money is starting
to flow to companies and players.
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00:09:17,891 --> 00:09:18,726
This chart
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00:09:18,892 --> 00:09:23,105
shows the 25 biggest tournament
prize packages in eSports history.
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00:09:23,522 --> 00:09:24,732
That top right dot?
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00:09:25,149 --> 00:09:27,151
That’s almost $25 million.
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00:09:28,777 --> 00:09:32,740
Game makers like Riot and Blizzard
supplement tournaments with leagues.
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00:09:33,198 --> 00:09:37,119
And even the NBA has partnered to create
its own eSports league.
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00:09:38,203 --> 00:09:41,165
In a lot of leagues,
teams like Cloud9 are typical:
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00:09:41,624 --> 00:09:46,462
fielding separate squads in many different
types of games, all under the same name.
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00:09:47,171 --> 00:09:49,923
Imagine if the Lakers had a team
that played in the NBA,
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00:09:50,341 --> 00:09:53,761
and other teams that played hockey,
football, and poker and...
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00:09:54,011 --> 00:09:54,970
you get the idea.
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[intro music plays]
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[narrator] eSports seems different
from sports like basketball in one way:
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00:10:04,271 --> 00:10:06,273
they aren't as obviously physical.
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00:10:06,649 --> 00:10:08,901
But if physical exertion makes a sport,
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00:10:09,276 --> 00:10:10,194
what's the bar?
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00:10:11,070 --> 00:10:12,404
Is racing a sport?
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00:10:13,572 --> 00:10:14,865
Or is chess a sport?
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00:10:15,699 --> 00:10:17,409
The sports network ESPN broadcasts all of these.
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00:10:19,662 --> 00:10:23,123
The only thing everyone agrees on
is that a sport involves a challenge
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00:10:23,374 --> 00:10:24,625
with a score at the end.
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00:10:25,376 --> 00:10:28,003
For the sports industry,
the question "what is a sport"
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00:10:28,253 --> 00:10:29,630
isn't philosophical.
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00:10:30,673 --> 00:10:31,632
It's business.
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00:10:32,591 --> 00:10:36,387
Those are young, uh,
predominantly male consumers
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00:10:36,470 --> 00:10:40,057
and that's what matters to us,
and so we entered the business...
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00:10:40,140 --> 00:10:43,394
[narrator] But there is something
truly different about eSports.
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00:10:44,395 --> 00:10:46,397
A professional sport like basketball
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00:10:46,563 --> 00:10:48,399
has a lot of different stakeholders.
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00:10:49,149 --> 00:10:52,277
But some eSports are controlled by
just one company.
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00:10:53,112 --> 00:10:56,031
These are the true warriors of our team.
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00:10:56,198 --> 00:11:00,828
These are custom-made boxes that contain
all of the equipment that we need
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00:11:01,120 --> 00:11:03,956
to go and do a big show
anywhere in the globe.
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00:11:04,289 --> 00:11:06,291
LAX to Vancouver, right here.
198
00:11:06,875 --> 00:11:09,712
Boston to Wüjang.
I think that's a pretty common flight.
199
00:11:09,795 --> 00:11:12,715
Oh, I missed this. We have a sweet
Riot Games Brazil tag.
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00:11:13,799 --> 00:11:14,842
That's a cool tag.
201
00:11:15,175 --> 00:11:18,679
We are basketball, we are the NBA,
and we are ESPN a little bit.
202
00:11:18,762 --> 00:11:23,225
And so the role that Riot plays in the
development of League of Legends eSports
203
00:11:23,308 --> 00:11:24,351
is kind of unpreced--
204
00:11:24,601 --> 00:11:26,019
[narrator] Wait, let's go back.
205
00:11:26,270 --> 00:11:29,898
We are basketball, we are the NBA,
and we are ESPN a little bit.
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00:11:30,274 --> 00:11:31,734
[narrator] Gamemakers like Riot
207
00:11:31,900 --> 00:11:34,987
are building a cutting-edge model
for professional sports
208
00:11:35,070 --> 00:11:37,698
where they control
every aspect of the game.
209
00:11:37,781 --> 00:11:39,450
We're the ones producing the broadcast
210
00:11:39,533 --> 00:11:41,535
and we're the ones
shipping that broadcast out
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00:11:41,618 --> 00:11:44,455
to be consumed by the end viewer.
So we're also ESPN in that regard.
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00:11:45,456 --> 00:11:47,666
[man] My job is a shout caster
213
00:11:47,875 --> 00:11:51,295
and I am either
calling the action in the game
214
00:11:51,503 --> 00:11:54,006
or I'm the person
who's on the desk afterwards
215
00:11:54,089 --> 00:11:56,800
who's then explaining the game again,
but from further away.
216
00:11:57,634 --> 00:12:00,012
eSports storylines, I think,
in a lot of ways,
217
00:12:00,095 --> 00:12:02,181
are easier to craft
than sports storylines,
218
00:12:02,306 --> 00:12:07,936
because eSports personalities are much
more accessible than sports personalities.
219
00:12:08,187 --> 00:12:10,481
You look at an NFL game,
they play on the field with helmets
220
00:12:10,606 --> 00:12:13,567
and you maybe hear from two of them
in the post-game interview,
221
00:12:13,692 --> 00:12:17,446
whereas, eSports, you have all the guys
right in front of you on stage.
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00:12:17,654 --> 00:12:19,239
A lot of them stream online
223
00:12:19,406 --> 00:12:23,285
for hours after games, where they're just
interacting with the fans constantly.
224
00:12:23,494 --> 00:12:27,956
So their stories are way more present,
and storylines are super important.
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00:12:28,290 --> 00:12:31,293
[narrator] But game companies
don't just cover their own matches,
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00:12:31,376 --> 00:12:32,878
they organize them too.
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00:12:33,128 --> 00:12:35,839
You know, the NBA takes an
existing sport, basketball,
228
00:12:35,964 --> 00:12:37,758
and organizes the competitive play of it.
229
00:12:37,841 --> 00:12:40,219
And that's their whole responsibility.
They market against it.
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00:12:40,427 --> 00:12:41,261
We do that as well.
231
00:12:41,970 --> 00:12:44,807
The role models that we looked to
were the other major sports in the world.
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00:12:45,766 --> 00:12:49,269
So I actually downloaded
the operating manuals or the rule books
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00:12:49,436 --> 00:12:51,021
for the top 50 sports in the world.
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00:12:51,480 --> 00:12:55,526
Everything from cricket to darts
to the UFC to the World Series of Poker,
235
00:12:55,609 --> 00:12:59,279
to the traditional sports: soccer,
basketball, baseball, football, hockey,
236
00:12:59,488 --> 00:13:00,823
and read them all.
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00:13:01,406 --> 00:13:03,742
[narrator]
Now, Riot has stuff like a penalty index,
238
00:13:03,867 --> 00:13:07,579
with a $500 fine for removing
your headset too quickly.
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But the biggest difference between
traditional sports and eSports
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is that a company actually owns the game.
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And it can change the rules
with just a click.
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Imagine this basketball player could shift
from six feet tall to eight.
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Imagine the hoop itself could change,
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or if there were suddenly
a second basketball.
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And imagine how that would change the
strategy and the way the game is played.
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In eSports, adapting to changes
is key to the game.
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I'm in charge, ultimately, of game design,
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so whether we make a bad champion
or the game is not balanced,
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it's ultimately my fault.
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[narrator]
Designers use data and issue patches
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to completely change characters and rules.
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If a certain character
or a certain strategy
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has become too dominant or has fallen off,
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we make adjustments to that character
to kind of keep them relevant.
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We refer to buffing and nerfing
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as changing the stats in the game.
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So if you have a champion you like
and we nerf that champion,
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we’re making it weaker,
lowering their power.
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And buffing is the opposite.
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"Nerfing" originally came from
the idea of Nerf guns, like,
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the champion is so weak now
that it can’t do real damage,
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it’s firing Nerf weapons
instead of actual weapons.
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[narrator] Riot even designs
the characters to play differently
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for players with different skill levels.
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Among the stats we look at, one of
the most important stats is win rate.
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Like, win rate for Garen starts at, say,
something like 52% at the lower tiers.
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[narrator] New players
have a good win rate with Garen.
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They win in a lot of fights, usually
because they're playing other new players.
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When they start playing better players,
his tricks don't work, and he fails.
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As a new league player, you learn
that you can hide in the plants
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where no one can see you,
then you jump out, spin your sword around,
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and you can get a lot of kills that way.
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Any experienced player knows that trick
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and won’t fall for it and knows
how to stop Garen in his tracks.
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You compare that to a champion
like Twisted Fate,
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you can see his win rate starts out
much lower than Garen’s,
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but at high tiers of play,
he can really start to come into his own.
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[narrator] So, players have to adapt
as they get better at playing
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and as the game itself gets tweaked.
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In League of Legends,
all that happens every two weeks.
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People say that
"eSports is just pressing buttons."
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eSports is just pressing buttons in the
same way that chess is just a board game
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or soccer is just kicking a ball around.
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If you think about what your favorite
parts of sports, is the spectatorship
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and the competition
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and the ability to be able to cheer
and how it gets your heart pumping
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and like how it's entertaining to watch.
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So eSports has all of that.
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The best moment in an eSports game
is the clutch moment.
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It's one guy on one team
and four guys on the other.
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And it's this...
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insanely tense moment.
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No one's breathing, no one's moving.
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Everyone's just watching,
trying to see what this guy does.
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[Fields] It's a whole generation of people
after generation of people
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getting together
and enjoying fake violence.
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Now, when you say it like that
it sounds weird as hell, right?
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Like a cult or something.
But it's no different than, like,
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MMA and soccer and basketball.
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The only difference is that you can play
fighting games forever.
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Gotta stop playing soccer eventually
'cause your knees'll go out.
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[narrator] By 2020, 300 million people
will watch eSports online.
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As more game makers realize eSports
is key to their success,
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more stakeholders see an opportunity
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and more players turn into fans.
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Almost definitely,
it's going to be in the Olympics.
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I think as a professional sport,
it'll probably be...
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the second biggest sport in the world
behind soccer. I do come from an era where
there wasn't regular work,
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there wasn't big payouts and streaming,
sponsors weren't necessarily buying in.
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I don't get salty when I think about now
people are playing for $18 million purses.
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I'm fucking happy.
I am so stoked because we made it.
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[cheering]
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It's so awesome that it continues to grow.
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The future is bright,
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and all of that time spent
was worth every second.