Is the Generation Gap Slowing eSports Development ?

by Louis "Guichex" Lemeillet

“Hey son, shouldn't you go find some activity or join a sports club while you're searching for a job ? I know it's not your kind of thing but you could meet new people there !” “Dad, I'm already meeting new people quite often with my online games, and I have many friends I play with regularly” “Yeah, but that's not the same”. I bet I'm not the only one who went through a similar discussion with his parents. And in my opinion that last phrase is one of the best highlight of what is going on when you talk about “gap generation.” Our parents are having trouble figuring out what's going on within the digital age - where their children spend a lot of time playing video games or using social medias, because they don't understand where we're finding our fulfillment doing or watching such things.

For explaining this, the intelligentsia often refers to the introduction of “digital technology” and separates people born during or after the 2000s from those born before. Of course, it's not that strict and most generally includes people who grew up surrounded by those technologies. These generations are called the digital natives - versus the non-digital natives.

           

        A digi-what ?

            A digital native is a person “born during or after the general introduction of digital technologies”. It concerns every person who grew up with the technology, so every one between their late teens and early 30s. And to be even more clear : it is a person who can intuitively use any kind of digital device like smartphones, tablets, motion-control or such. Our parents don't know, at least intuitively, how to use such things; and they have to learn through a different process as they didn't grew up surrounded by this technology. For them, a similar situation would have been the introduction of the television, versus our grandparents who didn't knew that technology.

            Our parents had a similar way of life, except that it was not in front of the same technological device. They ate in front of their TV like we eat in front of our computers, they discover a new way to inform themselves, so did we. They saw the introduction of tape recorders, the all-new possibility to record and see something later, as we saw the introduction of the Cloud where you don't even have to record to see something you wanted to see. Both generations had their newfangled technology but they didn't grew up with the same, forever creating a gap between their behavior.

            Nevertheless, our parents perfectly understood the introduction of video games. They bought for us (well not all of us, some always see virtual games as “the devil”) Nintendos, Ataris, Playstations, etc. They understood it was something we liked and enjoyed as it was something completely new and dreamy. They even got into it at some point to share some time with their children. In the end, it was only like a board game that you were playing on your TV with “some technological device.” Where they lost us is with the introduction of the Internet and the possibility to interact with millions of people instantly and all over the world.

            They understood why we would play with our friends in our living room, but they couldn't understand why we would play with our friends each in our respective houses. Not seeing each other while we are playing is something totally abstract to a lot of our parents, but absolutely normal for us. This subject is extremely wide though and a lot of other things are coming in the way to explain this phenomenon like the birth and development of virtual identities, etc. If you wanted my point of view, here it is in its simplified version: Internet allows us to be whoever we want online and we can loosen up a lot more than our parents in real life. We're being more and more honest in our real lives because we can express all our bad sides on the “virtual” one, and we so create a generation gap.

        Digital Natives Rule eSports

            Now, let's look at the eSports stats we are beginning to harvest. Worldwide viewership for professional games tournaments exploded from 8.4 million in 2010 to over 70 million last year, with the lion's share made up of a demographic of men between their late teens to early thirties. Men over thirty are not a really big demographic in eSports; and you see here a real first difference regarding eSports audience. Viewers are digital natives & non-viewers are non-digital natives. Pretty manichean.      

           

            If we compare the audience of eSports, and what we discussed before about the digital natives, we can see a clear similitude between the two. eSports fans are digital natives who grew up surrounded by video games and Internet. It feels quite logical that people fond of virtual sports would be familiar with new technologies, even if they're not addict to it, but it also proves that non-digital natives wouldn't understand what we're seeing in all this. Somewhere along the road we lost our parents, the non-digital natives, and they can't come back now that we're becoming more and more connected by live, real life events, team bonding, sportsmanship or other values they could understand.

            Where I am going with this is: People playing and more importantly, watching video games are mostly between 12 & 30 years-old, people running eSports companies are also quite in their early 30's top. But the executive heads in charge of big mainstream industries are much older than that and belong to the non-digital natives generations.

        Are eSports Really Mainstream ?

            As much as they pretend to understand youngsters by showing how they love their smartphones or their Macbook (yes Dad, I'm looking at you), our parents generation won't see immediately what eSports is all about, how does it works, why do people enjoy that and most importantly where are the perks of all that. They can't see as easily as youngsters where can profit be made because they didn't grew up surrounded by digital technologies, Internet and its inter-connectivity, and don't understand as fast as us what are the perks, what are the drawbacks.
            And, naturally, if you don't see clearly where you can benefit from all this, then you won't take risks by investing in such a new industry. If you can't understand it, you'll fear it. Not like “Oh my god, nerds are taking over the world !” but more like “This is just a trend, it'll not last, no point in investing for a bunch of young utopists”.

            Of course, experienced strategists in huge companies will always see some potential in new industries, and will help their companies make a move towards eSports like Coca-cola did. But one believing in something won't make it popular, we need many. We can see that we're still far from the “mainstream” when you're looking at medias talking about eSports : even if its slightly changing with time, every report I saw was like a report on “wild life” where a specific kind of “humans” were enjoying watching other people playing video games. Ever saw that little smile and nod of a journalist listening to a report on eSports? It will necessarily change when it'll become mainstream, but for now we can just wait and believe that someday you'll smile and nod in front of this journalist like he did when he's forced to acknowledge eSports.

        Better Safe Than Sorry

            But we are also facing something more : because you are a digital native doesn't mean you understand eSports. In my opinion, you'll be more able to understand why it's working and how you create something which will result in profits for everyone ; but that is all. If you truly want to understand eSports, you have to drown yourself into it and live the thing : eSport is truly a subculture on his own. It means non-digital natives would have to understand a culture where people are using technologies they're not familiar with and share something that is not “real” to them. And by “real” I mean that we share something “virtual,” as a video game is taking place in a “virtual world.” Non-digital natives are really facing trouble deeply understanding that. It's not that they can't understand, it's that you'll never have the same approach towards it if you were raised surrounded by “virtuality”.

           
            These facts created invisible barriers which are hard to break for a lot of people, and eSports will have to take its time to become something “mainstream” and acknowledged by everyone. We have already forced it a lot, and it would be “delicate” to go further without taking others in consideration. But times are changing and Nintendo, for example, is now dedicating part of its efforts towards eSports while they tried to deny the EVO's crew to stream their Super Smash Bros Melee tournament just last year.

            Coca-cola invested this year into the Challenger Series of League of Legends with their brand Coke Zero : an ultimate proof that, despite companies are starting to understand the potential of eSports, they're just dipping their toes. Some companies could have gone all-in but many prefer to see where this is going; mainly because it's a whole new world they can't understand fast enough.

            Nevertheless, it's also a proof that mainstream companies are starting to see what is going on, and will seek advice towards the young generations to understand this new “thing”. Knowledge and feelings will be shared between eSports and mainstream companies to create something big and profitable for both parts. I often think that this cautiousness might be a good thing. For once, rushing things and injecting tons of money will not happen, and will not ruin our beloved virtual sport.