Managing an Elite eSport Team

An anonymous reader writes "Ever wondered what it takes to run a world class stable of pro-gamers? In a new profile, 4Kings general manager Jason Potter takes the time to explain his duties — they're remarkably like what's required of other sports managers. It's up to Potter to manage a team of FPS gamers scattered across the continent, getting them to events, arranging sponsorship, and even making sure they play nice together. 'It's a 24 hour job,' Potter says. 'If there is something that needs to be done, you do it.'"

Comments

I was born in the wrong era...

[GregC63]

I still find it difficult to believe someone can get paid for gaming...

Re:I was born in the wrong era...

[h4rr4r]

How do you feel about people getting paid for playing other games?

It seems people who are good at playing games is already common. There are leagues for all kinds of games. A lot of it is even aired on TV.

Re:I was born in the wrong era...

[Antipater]

People got paid to play chess even in your day. What's the difference?

Re:I was born in the wrong era...

[Baloroth]

The number of people who actually make a true living playing chess (and they still get paid today to do so) is really small.

So is the number of people who make a living for playing video games.

But I see a difference between getting paid to be good at a mentally challenging game and being good at playing a game where you "blow stuff up".

Why? FPS playing is a combination of physical and intellectual skill (mechanical skill at actually shooting the enemy, and intellectual at outplaying them by finding better positioning and out-maneuvering them). If anything, the fact that eSports is more heavily reliant on physical skills makes it vastly less surprising that they'd get paid for it, considering all the people who play conventional sports professionally.

Then tell me, exactly how many millions of dollars has IBM or a similar company invested to design a computer that can beat the best human players at what 4Kings plays?

None, for the same reason IBM hasn't invested millions in a baseball playing robot. Chess is an interesting mathematical problem, and the question of how much computer power is required to beat a human consistently is an interesting question in the area of intelligence and AI theory. The actual game in question is practically irrelevant. Chess was chosen because it's fairly popular and extremely thoroughly studied, which not being so complex as to overwhelm any current computer (unlike Go, for example).

Esport?

[Holi]

What the hell is an esport?

You mean gaming? Because gaming is not a sport no matter how you try and word it.

Re:Esport?

[TheNastyInThePasty]

Challenge accepted. Wikipedia entry on sports: Sport is generally recognised as activities based in physical athleticism or physical dexterity. Wikipedia entry on dexterity: the coordination of small muscle movements which occur in body parts such as the fingers, usually in coordination with the eyes. Moving a mouse, clicking a keyboard, and using a controller all require dexterity. Therefore, gaming can be considered a sport. You can also look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport#Definition

My rule

[Nidi62]

If you can drink while playing it/competing in it, it is not a sport. Sorry golf, curling, gaming, etc.