Facing eSports

2020/01/20

"What is important for the success of an eSports team?" Recently, I have started receiving this question quite often. Thankfully, it seems the team "Rush Gaming" is beginning to be recognized as having achieved a certain level of success. However, I am at a loss... because those of us involved feel we are still far from success and only halfway through our journey.

Rush Gaming is a team for the shooting game "Call of Duty," which I launched in my fourth year of entrepreneurship along with two other co-founders. "Call of Duty" is actually a globally popular game series that has continued for over 10 years, and it is a leading series for home consoles that generates excitement with new releases almost every year. To give you an idea of its popularity, so-called "game streamers" who broadcast their gameplay on YouTube or Nico Nico Douga have enough influence to earn millions or even tens of millions of yen in advertising revenue linked to their viewership. Rush Gaming began its journey with four gamers who had been active in the "eSports" scene of this popular game since 2017, along with one highly popular streamer. Currently, the team consists of five players, four streamers (who are like professional talents primarily focused on broadcasting), and about five staff members. In addition to activities in game tournaments, we opened a pop-up shop at Laforet Harajuku for one week and sold over 1.5 million yen. Our focus on apparel and merchandise sales is also starting to attract attention. Depending on the player, some have individual earnings of around 10 million yen, making it a dream profession from certain perspectives.

Now, what is your impression of "eSports"? Some may have a strong impression of figures regarding the global market, such as "hundreds of millions of dollars in prize money" or "eSports team market capitalizations in the tens of billions of yen." On the other hand, many people likely hold a negative image, seeing it as an excuse for game addiction or neglecting academic studies. As eSports continues to develop, there is no doubt that it is extremely important for not only those involved but also those around them to have a more accurate understanding of what the eSports market is.

The history of eSports is short. It is particularly short in Japan, and if compared to sports, it might be close to minor sports genres like skateboarding or street dance. In any case, it is still difficult to make a living solely through this activity in Japanese society. The current situation is that players manage to get by through coaching, content creation, and PR activities in addition to their competitive play. Since a player's career span is relatively short and it is by no means a recommended career path, when people ask me, "I want to become a pro gamer, what do you think?" I make it a point to answer, "You definitely shouldn't. If you're looking for approval, you're not cut out for it." In eSports, success is undoubtedly a pipe dream unless you are a crazy pioneer. You cannot survive unless you are a person who can push past the opposition of those around you, think for yourself, act for yourself, and run while creating your own path—someone crazy enough to seize luck. Only a tiny fraction of those who fail over and over, get battered by setbacks, but never give up and keep trying have the possibility of being "lucky" enough to succeed.

Because it is such an industry, I cannot help but feel a great sense of unease regarding the idea of "wanting to study eSports professionally" or "wanting to teach it." Currently, I feel there is a mix of factions: those trying to expand the essential business value, such as revenue from entertainment, and those plotting to expand a fake eSports education market that uses children's dreams as bait. There is no doubt that eSports will continue to gain popularity among young people. That is precisely why I want it to lead in a better direction—for example, using an interest in eSports as a catalyst to go abroad to study, to devote oneself further to academics, or to touch easily accessible design software and streaming equipment to learn marketing and design for oneself. This is what I aim for. From a different perspective, eSports is a field that most easily connects to the "jitsugaku (science)" advocated by Yukichi Fukuzawa, and I sincerely hope this will receive more attention in the future.

Setting aside whether we are successful or not, I would like to conclude by sharing my thoughts on comparing professional eSports with professional sports. The important commonality is that their way of life—their narrative and story—is the essential value. It goes without saying that today's youth are already in the midst of an internationally competitive society even without realizing it, but it is also true that it is difficult for a sense of crisis to sprout within the middle-class society built by their parents' generation. On the other hand, for young people who have vague anxieties about the future but want to make a living doing what they find rewarding or what they love, the sight of pro gamers and teams of their own generation failing, having their dreams broken in harsh environments, or succeeding in those "things they love" is a reality that is larger and more raw than their parents' generation imagines. That is why I believe its value will only grow larger in the future.