@syztem said:
Hm, browsing through there are some strange claims coming out here...
Physical attributes are irrelevant to success in gaming? Are we removing reflexes and reaction times from that category?
Some of the best gamers are female? Where are they? What tournaments are they winning?
Let me clarify by saying that there's no reason for eSports to be exclusionary, and in fact most of them are not. They should be (and for the most part they are) built around a meritocracy: the best players earn their spot and compete from there. But given the bulk of psychological and physiological evidence surrounding reflexes, we shouldn't be surprised that the field is generally dominated by 18-24 year old males, even as the competition continues to expand and the sample size continues to even out.
Age and gender are believed to be two of the biggest determinants of reflexes and reaction time. Looking at the League community is an interesting case study: professional League players are being replaced on teams as they hit their mid twenties at a startling rate. They continue to play and stream all day every day to bring in income, but they can't catch up to the 18 year old who replaced them. Very, very few professional gamers have been able to retain their ability to compete as they've aged. Doing well on Xbox Live is not a determinant of overall skill. There is no quality of competition there. The best gamers are the ones bringing in the dollars, and those always appear to be young men for now.
If you're one of the best FPS gamers on the planet, enter the tournaments and beat the guys. Prove everybody wrong. So far nobody has done that.
What evidence? Studies? You can have studies "prove" pretty much anything you want and different studies often have conflicting results.. Some studies have shown that men have a slight advantage in general with reflexes, one showed that the advantage has decreased in recent years, one study showed that women have better accuracy, etc... Basically what it comes down to is people trying to make up ways that they can claim superiority (in some way) over another group of people. We have seen this throughout history. This isn't any different then the idiotic studies from decades ago where people tried to "prove" that women weren't as smart as men, black people weren't as smart as whites, etc... Don't waste your time talking to me about this kind of nonsense. I can safely say that if men have better reflexes than me it really hasn't ever showed when I play FPS games with them. ;O) And it isn't just me. Envy and SexxyKate are two of the best snipers I have seen in gaming and have no problems with making the guys look bad. As a CQC Rusher myself, I can say they are a nightmare to play against on games if you try to fight them at a distance. And just on Planetside 2 alone we have a lot of female gamers who are some of the best players on the game.
No, the best gamers are not always those who bring in the dollars. The best gamers are the best gamers, period. One big problem is that you don't necessarily always see the best players at tournaments. You see the players who have the time to go tournaments. When I was a kid Fatal1ty was a great player who stayed at the top for a while but if you ask me if I think he was the best FPS gamer around at the time, I'd tell you to lay off the drugs. I have watched his game-play and I can safely say I have known players who would most likely have beaten him if they played but not everyone has time to go to all of those tournaments.
"If you're one of the best FPS gamers on the planet, enter the tournaments and beat the guys. Prove everybody wrong. So far nobody has done that."
Seriously? You haven't spent any time in the competitive FPS scene in PC gaming during the past several years have you? ;O)
I have spent years proving everyone wrong and I actually have played in tournaments, starting with the old X-Tribes tournament back when I was a kid in the Tribes series and up until my most recent tournament in the Modern Warfare 2 tourney on the MW2tournaments.com site, which was run by two successful e-sports teams, Area 51 and SorryNoobs. Oh and while we are on the topic of MW2, I beat the two best players (Strick3n and PBnJ) from the top clan (Team Elit3) from that tournament in one-on-one duels after the tourney was over during a public feud with them. I also had a 1 vs 4 clutch win against another one of the top teams on the game, Natural Enemies, after my teammates were eliminated. To put things in perspective, they had beaten Area 51 before. I also played in the HGN 1v1 Tournament for MW2 too but narrowly lost in the second round to Zeran, who was one of the other best players on the game. And if I hadn't played on my worst map, I'm pretty sure that could have ended differently.
I have also had a lot of success in countless leagues, ladders, etc... OGL, TWL, MLG's Game Battles, and many, many , many others. Its true that I haven't competed in an official MLG tournament but that is only because they haven't had many PC games that I actually WANTED to compete in on there... Most of the good games seem to go to console tournaments while we get stuck with crap like Starcraft 2. I thought I was finally going to get my chance when SOE announced that Planetside 2 would become an MLG game but that never really happened..... We're still waiting to see it.
Aside from the tournaments, leagues and ladders, I have proven it in countless other ways. Being in the top 5 on almost two dozen leaderboards (and for individual servers too) for a lot of different FPS games, maintaining a really high KDR and a high accuracy, being recruited by many of the top clans, beating most of the top players in one-on-one situations, etc...
My current main game is Planetside 2, where I am arguably the best infantry Rusher on the game. I have held the best single weapon accuracy in the game (slightly over 40% with the Orion and the highest was 41%), I have maintained an insanely high KDR (from 3.7 to 5.35) on ALL of my characters while spending most of my time rushing in CQC and not taking any shortcuts (vehicle farming), which is something about 99% of other players cannot do. I get accused of hacking daily, I have outplayed most of the other top players on the game during my two years on PS2, I have been heavily recruited by many of the top teams (plan to join Outfit X on one of my alts in a few weeks), the list just goes on and on and on... So when you tell me to prove I am one of the best FPS gamers around... Well, I have. LOL
If you think there is someone who can beat me, then by all means, send him or her my way. I'm always up for a challenge. And this isn't just bragging, its a statement of fact. I'm sure this post will break out the angry neckbeards with fragile psyches but oh well.... Deal with it. ;O)
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