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WCG Tournament Director Admits Drugs In E-Sports
SlappingOysters writes "In the lead up to the World Cyber Games finals in Germany, Gameplayer has an incredible interview with Tournament Director Alex Walker in which he freely admits knowledge of participants taking illegal drugs to enhance their performance. The interview came in response to a previous article by the site in which they examined whether there was a need to bring drug testing into professional gaming events to ensure a level playing field. Walker said, 'I've seen a number of players at national tournaments who came in "baked" (that's stoned for the uninformed) purely so they could play better. In most cases they did, although obviously they couldn't just pull out another joint midway through. In one WCG, a player I knew took amphetamines an hour before his match to boost his reflexes.'"
'I've seen a number of players at national tournaments who came in "baked" (that's stoned for the uninformed) purely so they could play better. In most cases they did ...
Um, I'm not a regular drug user but how are the effects of Cannabis beneficial to gaming?
Acute effects while under the influence include euphoria, increased appetite, anxiety, short-term memory loss, and circulation effects which may increase risks of heart attacks.
I understand how drugs that affect your nervous system -- like uppers -- can increase your reaction time and muscle twitching for those games involving twitch skills. And nobody can shred on a guitar like an coked up hair band ... but how does a drug that made my college roommate double up in laughter and fail at communication make someone better at video games?
My work here is dung.
They didn't come in baked so they could play better - they came in baked because they're stoners. If they were at home watching tv, they'd be just as baked (and it's not so that they could watch tv better though I'm sure being stoned makes some of the crap on tv seem better...).
There's no 'should' about it. Illicit drugs are banned by definition - that's what 'illicit' means. Legalise all drugs and suddenly there's no such thing as an illicit drug.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
because now it is not a display of human mastery, now it is a display of biochemical mastery
this is not some subtle philosophical point, because the followup point is that the emotional connection with the competitors is what drives audience attention, and that emotional connection is lost as people will tune out when they think it is the drug performing, rather than the athlete
any sport that openly accept drug enhancement is a sport that will see its ratings drop.
of course there will always be cheating, of course this means we must wage constant war, constant arms race, forever, on drugs in sports. this is simply the price you pay to retain interest in the sport
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I was more annoyed at the clumsy parenthetical aside explaining what it meant.
It gives you the munchies, makes you paranoid, and makes you giggle every time someone says "420" but it doesn't make you better at HaloDo you know what you are saying here? That black people love fried chicken and will steal my TV, that Mexicans will steal my job and eat lots of tacos, and that all Gays use Macs.
It is a sweeping blanket statement that comes from uninformed bigotry. I've never had the munchies, I've never gotten paranoid, and I certainly don't giggle. Neither has anyone else that I have had a smoking experience with. These are horribly inaccurate stereotypes thrown out there to make it seem like Marijuana being illegal is less ridiculous than it really is.
Sure, it has its undesirable side effects. So does drinking too much coffee. And to say that there can't possibly be any good effects from pot are only spoken by the sheep. The problem ultimately is, only the people who smoke will know what they are... because people like you have your mind made up, and nothing in the world can change it.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Dear sir, as I read your comment I thought of several well reasoned arguments as to why your first sentence was flawed. As opposed to firing back blindly I continued until the end, which made up my mind that rant or not, I had to reply immediately. By the time I had "Reply"'d I had totally forgotten my original arguments and decided to go get some timbits, coffee and have a smoke. While outside I was totally freaked out by the guy moving things to a truck, who kept nodding to me every time he passed despite my saying good morning to him once. Inside again I was refilling the sugar jar for my coffee when a variation in the bag's opening caused some to spill over my hand, I immediately burst into gales of laughter while thinking to myself it was a damn good thing I do the pouring over the kitchen sink. Man I'm so stoned!
I have been smoking marijuana since I was 12, am now 36, and work for one of the top hardware/software companies in the world running other people's Wintel backends. Today in my home office I'm building several servers remotely, attending meetings, and taking emergency calls. For further reference, see the excellent Penn and Teller show Bullshit!, episode The War on Drugs, especially the sections on the stock trader who works on the NYSE floor. He smokes several joints daily, all of which are provided by the US Federal Government for his possibly fatal bone spurs. There really are professionals out in the world who smoke quite regularly, even as often as several times a day.
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I am always curious why drugs are considered bad because they enhance the bodyâ(TM)s natural abilities but things like glasses, earring aides, whatever are ok. Glasses allow someone whose natural ability to not see well to see just as well (or even better) then someone with normal vision. Is using LASIEK bad? Same thing. Either you are competing with what you were born and how hard you train or we use a variety of mechanical, biological, chemical techniques to be come better at something. Since we already do mechanical (glasses, better fabrics for clothes, swimsuits, etc) and we do some biological (or is it chemical) when athletes train in sealed rooms with more oxygen to raise their red blood cell count, why do we as a society draw the line with drugs?
I don't know about you, but the majority of us simply aren't built to compete in sports any more. How can I compete with Michael Phelps's body, that's designed for swimming? Sure, training helps, but the current top-level competitions are accessible only to those genetically suited for them. The Olympics might have had some relevance back in the Greek days, when you could look at the athletes and say "well, if I trained hard, I could run as fast as these guys". These days, there is no amount of training that can let me swim as fast as Phelps or run as fast as Bolt. So what's the point? All these athletes are necessarily "freaks" now, and the only way to beat them is to become a bigger freak.
While I think illicit drugs should definitely be banned
Why?
I think drugs should be outlawed
Why?
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Illicit drugs should be legalized, at which point the gamers association will have nothing to prohibit. Problem solved.
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I hoping the pro-gaming won't "start getting some real ad dollars behind it" any time soon then. I love playing stoned and I love doing it at tournaments. And I don't even care what my opponents are taking. No drug is able to perform instead of you.
You hit the nail on the head my friend.
I have been smoking everyday from about age 19. I am now 27. I graduated from RPI with a degree in software engineering and now hold a 6 figure software development job.
I HATE it when I get grouped in with the "stoners" who have no direction and no ambition in life, who use weed as an excuse for their lifestyle. Face it people, these individuals would have turned out like this with or without weed.
Why? Because that's all he's ever known. It's only natural that he can't imagine a world where free choice is tolerated, let alone respected and cherished as it should be -- regardless of whether that choice has a positive or negative effect on the chooser.
As an experiment, try explaining to an average person how drug prohibition causes the violent crime rate to skyrocket by creating lucrative black markets and all the reckless injustice they bring. He will look at you as if you're a nutcase, and for good reason: all his life he's been taught that it is the lack of drug prohibition that causes violence, and you just came along and told him he's fallen for a load of bullshit.
Certain drugs certainly do need to be illegal.. If you can't see that then your blinded by your selfish interest for wanting the drug of your choice to be legal. Just as you have seatbelt laws to protect people from themselves, you have to make some of these drugs illegal to keep people from fucking themselves up.. Perhaps your too stoned to care about someone doing permanent brain damage on themselves and swimming through the world like they have MS until they reach a point where they are non functional and a burden on they rest of society.. It's no skin off your nose until maybe it's somebody you care about that does this to themselves.
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For what it's worth, this is analogous to a well known psychological effect known as state-dependent recall.
The effect specifically refers to the improved retrieval from long term memory experienced when the memory retrieval takes place in the same mind-state (in this example, of drug influence) that the memory was deposited in....
But my own experience of gaming while stoned will attest to a very similar (and strikingly simple) revelation, not strictly limited to memory retrieval: When you learn to play a game stoned, you play that game better while stoned.
In a skill based game, your chances of winning aren't 1/2... Unless WC3 is what you call flipping a coin... War Coin III!
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