Esports is massive... and growing

[Overdriven]

Yeah they periodically get the Chelsea players playing Fifa, COD ect to promote them as well. They do it with a lot of footballers now.

[IR_Kuoin]

How does Overwatch even have teams that good already such that multiple companies are bidding on them? I know it had beta tests in the past, but weren't those limited to a week each or so? These nerds have only been playing the game for like a month in total and already they're poised to make bank. Meanwhile I'm just sitting here at my normal job doing un-fun work things and making a small fraction of what they'll end up with...   

Actually a lot of TF2 pro players already got sponsored for Overwatch while it was still in beta, both games are pretty much equal in terms of the skill you need in both, so old TF2 teams are pretty much set, which is nice as the scene was dying rapidly, mainly due to Valve not caring about their scene.

[Vibe]

Computer gaming has some physical aspects apart from muscle memory and other non-conscious imprinted reflex responses.

Personal anecdote of the positive traits I gained from gaming:
Right hand: Improved short distance movement precision, index and middle finger mouse click speed is faster(thumb only slightly affected since I was a poor 3-button mouse owner in my early years)
Left hand: Button clicking speed which is quicker but less precise than the right hand's mouse clicking speed.

These are physical traits(muscle and nerve efficiency in the hands), it is not exclusively brain-wiring that fires neural impulses in a conditioned manner, there are real physical traits that has been trained on top of that.

My opinion on the whole E-Sports thing has much more to do with linguistics:
The S in Sports should not be capitalized, it is not a "Sport" of the type "e", it is a "sport" within "E"

IMO:

(click to show/hide)

Main category: Sport
Sub category: Electronic
Result: E-Sport or e-Sport

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Main category: Gaming(Interchange with "electronic" to get away from the reactionary cultural shaming of the term gaming)
Sub category: competitive(change to sport so it's not TL;DR TMS;DU for all the Americans)
Result: E-sport or e-sport

Well said and I think it is important to identify it like that because people get immediately upset when they hear (part of) the word 'sport' when it comes to gaming.

How does Overwatch even have teams that good already such that multiple companies are bidding on them? I know it had beta tests in the past, but weren't those limited to a week each or so? These nerds have only been playing the game for like a month in total and already they're poised to make bank. Meanwhile I'm just sitting here at my normal job doing un-fun work things and making a small fraction of what they'll end up with...   

Closed beta has been running for at least half a year without interruptions before a short pause before open beta. Yeah there have been a few weekend only events as well but some people have had uninterrupted access to the game for quite some time now.

[Leshma]

There are rumours saying that Valve is working on ranked play overhaul for TF2. Should bring game to life when done, especially because it is completely free unlike Overwatch.

[Vibe]

There are rumours saying that Valve is working on ranked play overhaul for TF2. Should bring game to life when done, especially because it is completely free unlike Overwatch.

There's no way TF2 competitive is going big if you ask me, not with Overwatch being out now. It's a little too late.

[Kafein]

Or maybe video games have made me better at shit IRL?

Individual marketable skills gained from Strategus:
- Spamming a group PM on crpg.net with goals and instructions Working with a team
- Making sure dots move across the map when and where we want them Micromanagement and coordination of a team
- Shittalking Bruttus until he quits the mod Effective communication at all levels
- Buying the most expensive armours for sexy looking Dwarven RP Data analysis, confident user of Microsoft Excel
- Convincing forum-users that we're the good guys so that we get a roster PR Experience
- Making sure faction-members don't quit when we get spawn raped Assures high team morale to ensure the continuing effectiveness of the team
- Telling someone else to sort out the trade cos i don't like it Delegation of tasks
- Being 'Kesh' in TeamSpeak and performing pre-battle prayers Leadership

I like to pretend my brain has benefited in some small way from years of attempting to strategize and coordinate shit.

You'd be surprised at how accurate that is. Most skills required for corporate work are called "soft skills" for a reason.

[Jona]

Closed beta has been running for at least half a year without interruptions before a short pause before open beta. Yeah there have been a few weekend only events as well but some people have had uninterrupted access to the game for quite some time now.

Ah, I didn't realize that they had a beta running almost constantly for several months now. I just thought they had one or two closed betas that lasted maybe a weekend or full week, and then the most recent open beta just a little while ago. Makes more sense that there are highly skilled teams now... even if they were good at tf2 before most of the skill required to be good in this game is just game knowledge and strategy which takes a some playing time for any level of gamer.