Esports is one of the fastest growing sectors in the media industry, with a total revenue of $3.41 billion last year alone. The industry has been bolstered by new audiences in the wake of COVID-19, looking for a new avenue for entertainment and competition.
So, Blitz recently spoke to the UNSW Esports Society about the club. We also discussed the Esports scene at UNSW, misconceptions about gamers, the overrepresentation of men in the medium and the lack of recognition the university provides to the sport.
UNSW Esports Society offers support for teams and players that are representing UNSW in competitive Esports and outside-university Esports. They're also a community for casual games and have casual events for representative games in the esports community.
Getting into Esports at UNSW
Kevin: Esports and getting involved in it is widely an online-related medium. It’s so easy to get onto a computer and download a game and get straight into it, whereas with conventional sports there’s a lot of organisation, set-up and physical presence required. It’s very easy for us to grab a community and get started.
The easiest way to join the society is to get on our Discord server. A lot of gamers and competitive esports people would be familiar with the platform, and it’s just so easy to hop into a server and start playing games or connecting with other people who share your interests. That’s what we use as our main medium of communication for hosting events and delivering all of our social media stuff. We do have all the other platforms, but one way or another you’ll find your way to our Discord. That’s where most of our active community lie, and are able to hop into a call and start playing.
You can talk to the executives who are always on there and we’re happy to give information to people looking to get the casual view or competitive view on Esports.
Right now on our Discord we have over 1200 members; there’s a lot of members. Our active community (people that join our tournaments) is also quite large. The flagship event we run every term, ‘Casual League’, gets a lot of participants in that.
Natalie: Yeah, so we hold it every trimester and our latest ‘Casual League’ had 230 participants, and that doesn’t even include our broadcasting team, our viewers etc.
Kevin: That’s our main event, and it’s what most people come to our society for. It’s the highlight for us and our members each term. Aside from that, there’s weekly engagement we try and get through games nights and that attracts 10-20 people every week for each game. It’s a more casual way for people to play the games that they enjoy.
Kevin: In terms of games, we cater for what the most popular Esports titles. As of current, what we do mostly is CS:GO, Rocket League, Rainbow Six Siege and Valorant. Those are generally what we hold tournaments for within our club, and also what we actively look for in teams to represent UNSW in official inter-uni tournaments. Unfortunately some games do lack active player-bases within Australia, and it can be difficult to find tournaments outside of what we host.
Casual League and How You Can Get Involved
Natalie: ‘Casual League’ is our flagship event. It’s our in-house tournament that we run with our executive team and sub-committee that university students can enter into.
Like other tournaments we have a sign-up process at the beginning of the term where people can sign up as a team or solo looking for other team members. We hold the in-house tournaments for games like Valorant, CS:GO, Rocket League, Overwatch, Rainbow Six Siege and Team Fight Tactics. Once they’ve formed their teams, we allocate a tournament time that everyone comes together and play against each other.
UNSW's Esports Scene
Natalie: It’s still growing compared to other universities like RMIT, QUT and UTS. Their universities have given direct support to their societies where there’s club rooms, scholarships for their players, and livestreaming rooms. I think this is something UNSW can grow towards and hopefully the society can show the growth of Esports.
A Sense of Community
Eddie: Esports definitely creates a sense of community. It brings together people with the same passion. When I was in my first year at uni, I was walking around on the orientation day and saw the UNSW Esports stand, but was kind of unsure whether I wanted to join.
Eventually I went with my mate to see what it was about, and led to me connecting with a lot of people with the same interests as me. I made a lot of friends and joined the main UNSW esports team who had similar skills, where we could play together and compete in the uni vs uni AEL competition. That’s where we ended up reaching finals together and would’ve gotten flown out to Brisbane if COVID wasn’t a thing.
There’s so many active communities out there where you see people meet others, play together, and discuss their gaming interests.
Being in an Esports competition
Eddie: The experience of being in an Esports competition is really fun. You’re playing with teammates that you enjoy playing with, it makes the whole experience a lot better. You all have the same passion and goal, to climb leader boards, win games, and see the viewers cheer you on.
You play a tournament and then you check the livestream after, and you just see the chat go wild at some of the plays your teammates make. It just feels good.
I’ve competed in heaps of different tournaments, and all of them have been enjoyable. Although you have the moments where you reach the end of your run, with one too many losses, it’s part of the competition and it only motivates you to do better next time.
Hours and Addiction
Eddie: The hours I play vary between seasons. Obviously if uni stuff is peaking, it decreases a little bit. It can range between 3 to 6 hours a day – that includes casual play, outside of competition team-related stuff, or creating content with streaming games. In the past two weeks I’ve had about 80 hours logged on CS:GO.
Richard: Does playing for that many hours constitute an addiction?
Eddie: I’m sure a lot of people when they play aren’t really having fun, they’re just doing it to kill time or procrastinate – keep their mind busy. There’s that risk of being addicted to something and not being aware of it. It’s definitely possible that people can get addicted.
Natalie: I think so too. I guess if you’re able to find a career, if you are addicted to gaming, that might be a good thing? There are other things in life though.
If you were to play with friends, especially in team-based Esport games, it’d be a bit easier to not get addicted because you have your friends telling you to stop, or because you play together, when they stop playing you do too. I think there definitely is a fine line for it, but like a lot of things, it can be good or bad.
Eddie: People see other people putting a lot of time into games, but they also might put a crazy amount of time into entertainment like Netflix or TV. There’s still that similarity where people put their time into something just to kill the hours.
Esports Misconceptions
Kevin: I think a lot of the negative stigma that comes around Esports and video games in general, which has slowly been getting dismissed, is that playing games is for children or can instigate violence. But there’s these core values that you get from playing competitively that revolve around teamwork and creative thinking. They’re quite useful life skills if you take them in a positive light and don’t abuse playing games as maybe an escape. It’s similar to playing conventional sports – having that drive and competitive spirit – and using those talents or honing your craft. It’s something that can generate life skills or values that help you in the future.
Natalie: To add onto that, there’s this stereotype on what Esports actually is, other than just people who are gamers. There’s this whole community of coaches, casters, organisers, analysts and people who involved in the traditional sports. There’s this huge overlap. The stereotype that Esports is a completely different thing to “traditional sports” is something that needs to be broken down by boomers.
Is Esports dominated by male representation?
Natalie: Again with the stereotypes – whenever someone says ‘gamers’ or ‘esports’ you think of a male gamer. That’s slowly been changing over the years and there’s been a lot of initiatives out there to push and bring in female gamers. For example, tournaments, Lenovo Legion of Valkyries have an only women’s Valorant tournament. There’s an international Esports festival called Girl Gamer which creates opportunities for female gamers around the world. Because there is a growing community of support for women in Esports, there are organisations like Empress Gaming and a lot of streamers on Twitch, because of the growing number of support, there’s a greater emphasis on female gamers now.
In terms of what I’ve personally seen, there definitely are more gamers out there at our events and seen at university competitions. There’s a lot of support right now in the community, so over time hopefully the representation balances out.
Esports and the Olympics
Eddie: I think Esports definitely has a spot in the Olympics for the future. The level of competition and professionalism displayed for many years now has developed into something big. It’s continuing to grow more and be more exposed to the public eye. I’m sure it’d cause more discussion on what games would be chosen for the Olympics and stuff like that, but I would still say it has a place at the Olympics.
Kevin: Esports is ever-growing. Exponential growth in the last decade. It’s big enough to be considered as its own separate thing, similar to how there’s a Winter Olympics. There could be an Esports Olympics. The viewership and interest is definitely there, and the money is too. Some tournaments have millions of dollars in their prize pool, like DOTA 2, their biggest competition has over a million dollars in the prize pool for the winning team alone. Winning one of those tournaments could set you up for life.
The industry is definitely growing and catching up, and I think it’s honestly on par with conventional sports out there.
The Future of Esports Society
Kevin: A long term goal we have is just to get some support from the university itself and having Esports recognised as an independent and official sport that UNSW can support and get behind. What we’ve really been envying is other universities like RMIT, Monash and QUT that have official university-back programs that their students can back onto if they want to pursue Esports competitively and dedicate that time. It’s unfair that some people can get sports scholarships but those pursuing esports can’t get that same treatment because it’s not recognised.
Natalie: Yeah and that extends towards people who are looking to grow their talent for broadcasting, production, coaching and management. All aspects of Esports. As of right now, this is something that we’re trying to achieve, but we can only do so much as a student’s society. Having that university-backed support and having that recognition would allow us to achieve further what we’re trying to do now. Hopefully we can get to a place where other universities are, or surpass them in terms of Esports culture.
