Author: Ramil Aliyev (President of Azerbaijan Cybersport Federation)
It is common knowledge that the audience of cyber games’ fans grows every year. The profits of game developers have increased steadily despite the overall decline following the 2008 financial crisis and currently constitute approximately 65 billion dollars (http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/11/28/us-media-summit-videogames-idUKTRE7AR18E20111128). One could argue that both mass interest in cyber games and large profits should cause significant influx of people in e-sport but this not the case in world cyber sports. IeSF has already announced its activities that will aim at the popularization of the cyber sports as a social phenomenon. These activities include the establishment of uniform standards in relation to organizing and conducting the cyber sports events, refereeing, general rules for every discipline, and mainly addressing Sport Accord regarding the registration and acknowledgement of cyber sports as an official sports discipline. There are also other activities that will be brought to IeSF’s attention.
The stability of cyber disciplines on championships
Having conducted cyber sport events in my country I can state with confidence that the players’ principal concern is whether their particular discipline will be among the final ones included in the forthcoming championship. Certainty in a positive answer gives players sufficient motivation for timely and prolonged trainings, which in their turn produce a much more qualitative and advanced results. This aspect is of lesser importance for the professional cyber sportsmen and teams which potentially have a bigger chance of participating in various tournaments. It is suggested, that it is necessary to strive for a long-term planning in discipline selection and work organization with the publishers.
Prize-winning places
A rather negative tendency regarding the well-established disciplines is the decrease in prize money. The distribution of the prize money on WCG 2011 was a good example of that. The money prize for the 1st place in still popular Counter-Strike comprised USD 25.000 (in 2010), and the 2nd and 3rd place received USD 6.000 and USD 3.000 accordingly (against USD 10.000 and USD 5.000 in 2010). As the same time, the winner of Asphalt 6 (on mobile platform) received USD 40.000 for the 1st place. The publisher’s interest in the popularization of the new games is natural and the expansion of the number of official disciplines is to be commended. But the drawback is that the players lose interest in the old games due to the lack financial stimulation. This contributes to the above-mentioned lack of stability. The solution to this problem could become long-term sponsor contracts and contracts with the publisher regarding the guaranteed prize money.
Popularization of cyber sports and the role of mass media
It is hard to overestimate the ubiquity of mass media and their influence on the modern society. It is suggested that mass media should get more involved in covering e-sport events. Mass media should also be used to make the population aware of the fact that e-sport is a popular trend in the modern age of information technologies and is one of the components of a healthy way of life.
