Can’t get into eSports? Maybe you’re looking in the wrong place. Many of the scene’s bigger draws are laden with technical jargon that can be off-putting to newcomers, so you might be better off starting with something like Smash Bros.
That’s what Ian Danskin did, and he makes a pretty compelling argument for it in this video, in which he recounts how he went from curious, oblivious onlooker to Smash Bros. lunatic, all because as an outsider the game made sense to him in an abstract way, which other fighting games (or eSports titles) did not.
He also makes a great point about how while eSports and sports can be similar in a lot of ways, there’s a key difference between the fundamentals of the two that might explain why so many gamers are into eSports, and why so many sports fans (like myself) often struggle with the appeal.
Top image by Sean Cantrell