STACK #188 June 2020

FEATURE GAMING

LAN vs online Qualifying

BARRIERS OF ENTRY Outside of age classification, the main requirements for finding success online are meeting platform and bandwidth requirements. Games that are played on consoles like PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch ( Splatoon , specifically) or mobile devices, have a lower barrier of entry because they have standardised performance care of the platforms.

rounds for big- ticket esports titles tend to happen online. This is also the place where budding esports stars can make a name for themselves by climbing the leaderboards. Rising through the ranks is one of the best ways to determine whether a player has what it takes to go pro. Major events, though, tend to happen at ‘LAN’: an abbreviation for the dry enough to be used as kindling ‘local area network’. LANs are designed to draw a crowd, have all players together, and create the most competitively fair experience for teams that don’t have to worry about things like lag, internet dropouts or potential cheats.

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Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

That’s because esports

PLAYING THE GAME The main requirement of entry for pursuing a path as a professional player is, understandably, excellence at a particular game. While skills are certainly transferable within game genres – players, for instance, shift from shooters like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive ( CSGO ) to Rainbow Six Siege – it’s advisable to focus on one particular game, and a popular one at that. Top esports games Rocket League is the most popular esports game in Australia, with Overwatch not far behind, when judging by the number of teams. In terms of individual players, Overwatch , StarCraft II and CSGO attract the most individuals, but Dota 2 has the most individual player earnings.

games are born out of demand for competition from within

Splatoon

a game’s community. While developers and publishers might include tools and systems in the hopes that their latest release will become the next big-bucks esports sensation, it’s always the gaming community that determines what they want to play, what they want to compete on, and what they want to watch. The good news is there are a variety of games across popular genres to suit gaming tastes. Multiplayer online battle arenas (MOBAs) are some of the most popular ( League of Legends ,

For PC games, though – which is the majority of big-name competitive titles – meeting the minimum hardware requirements for a game is a starting point, but players should be gunning for recommended specs at the very least. This means investing in PC innards and connected peripherals that can offer a viable competitive edge: gaming headsets, mechanical keyboards, gaming mice, and high- refresh-rate monitors (in that order) start to become essential. In terms of bandwidth, mobile internet isn’t going to cut the mustard unless you’re using a 5G connection. This is because low latency is critical for a responsive experience in online tournaments, which means a fixed- line NBN connection is preferable from an ISP like Telstra, Exetel or Optus that consistently score the lowest-latency results on the ACCC comparisons. While many pro esports wannabes may have dollar signs in their eyes, there are many proven perks to playing, too – reaction times, multitasking and communication skills are all bolstered – which makes competitive gaming a worthy pursuit beyond chasing a possible career pathway.

League of Legends

LOL and Dota 2 ). Shooters have a showing with CSGO , Siege , Overwatch , Fortnite , and there’s no doubt that Riot Games, the creators of LOL , will have a new contender with its CSGO -meets- Overwatch shooter Valorant , which is playable in pre-release form and already popular.

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Carded considerations It’s worth noting that the Classification Board guidelines are a great place to start when weighing up the viability of a particular esports title. For instance, popular games like CSGO and Siege have MA15+ ratings, while Overwatch and Fortnite are rated M, even though all four games are in the same shooter genre. Still, even the G-rated GT Sport has eligibility requirements for the competitive LAN circuit. If in doubt, read the eligibility fine print for any particular esports games of interest.

GT Sport

Overwatch

Starcraft II

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