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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.'"
While I think illicit drugs should definitely be banned, as always we have to ask what extent does this go to?
I can get in there and hook up a coffee/Red Bull IV, and do almost as much damage to my body as taking dexedrine. So they ban caffeine, which means no moutain dew, and we know mountain dew is one of the nectars of the gods.
As soon as you start eliminating caffeine, we get to the point that they can't take cold medicine before a tourney as it will show up as a drug.
As soon as money and egos get involved, people will look for any advantage they can get. I think drugs should be outlawed, but that the organizers need to be realistic, and understand that anything in excess can be harmful, and that a well rounded approach is necesary
Yep, it's called state-dependent learning.
I'm a past stoner. I still toke up every once in a while.
When people think of twitch gaming, they usually think of frantic gaming. Top players know that this isn't the case. A noob CounterStrike player shoots wildly. If cross hairs aren't over an enemy, why shoot? The noob ends up just missing and missing because whenever his cross hairs happen to cross an enemy, his gun is in between shots.
Top players know that it is better to wait a split second for the enemy to float across the cross hairs before pulling the trigger. For truly great gaming performance, the player must be in a "zen" like state, not a frantic twitch state.
Toking up can help a player reach this zen state, become immersed in the game, and oblivious to outside distractions. Of course non-potheads would probably be "ZOMG So high!" but for someone who smokes daily getting high is a calming state.
Well, I think of cannabis like a performance equalizing drug - not performance enhancement.
Consider Ross Rebagliati from the Winter Olympics in Nagano who won gold in snowboarding (giant slalom) and was then disqualified for smoking weed. There is absolutly no way what so ever that cannabis will have made him a BETTER athlete during the games - all it could have done was make the other athletes relatively better (compared to him). Hence performance equalizing drug.
The fact that he could outperform the non-stoned athletes while being stoned himself is quite impressive. They should have given him a second medal (give him gold AND silver) instead of taking gold away. To be fair they did overturn that decision, but the point still stands.
Yes, it's an illegal drug in most places, and I suppose they should crack down on that to force the athletes to be "positive rolemodels", but I can't help but wonder what would happen if the same thing were to happen in a championship taking place in Holland. In that case you can't just disqualify on the grounds that the drug is illegal (because it's not), and it's obviously (well, maybe not scientificly) not a performance enhancing drug ... so what grounds would be used? "It's bad for you"?
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.