Over the last 18 months or so, we’ve seen Twitch really open up more to traditional sports content. More athletes are streaming on the platform than ever before, there’s a whole category dedicated to sports, and workout streams are becoming more and more common. Twitch even held its own powerlifting competition. This embrace of traditional […]
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Opinion: How Esports Can Harness the Raw Potential of Speedrunning – The Esports Observer
There’s a universal moment many gamers have experienced. You’re the best in your little friend group at Super Smash Bros. Beating your buddies at the game isn’t even a challenge. You’re confident in having figured out the game well enough to challenge anyone. Then you play someone who actually understands spacing, grabs, punishes when you […]
Opinion: Rocket League Will Never Be a Tier One Esport, but it Can Dominate High School
In the esports industry, there is no esport with greater potential to penetrate popular culture than Rocket League. The game’s structure most closely mirrors a traditional sport without being a pure sports sim, it requires the least mechanical knowledge to follow mid-match, and creates some of the most stunning, skill-expressive highlights of any esport. So […]
Game Infarcer: Opinion – I Am Not Entertained
When Sony and Microsoft launched their next-gen consoles last fall, you foolishly assumed they were better. As you waited in online purchase queues, you said, “Oh, it’s totally okay that there are basically no new or exclusive games for these systems I am trying to pay hundreds of dollars for!” But as a gaming journalist, […]
Opinion: Why We Must Open the Doors for Young Women to Participate in Esports
In this opinion piece, CSL Esports Marketing and Social Media Manager Haleigh Durkin talks about the ongoing challenges of making esports more welcoming and safe for women and girls and what we can do about it as an industry. Have you grown into someone your younger self would have respected? The question lingers in my […]
Opinion: Women Are Steering This Ship We Call Esports
XSET co-owner, esports and gaming host, and PUMA Esports ambassador Erin Ashley Simon believes that while the esports industry has a lot of work to do, women are already driving the industry from the top. Women may not fully run the world (yet…), but we are surely running esports in ways that most fans don’t […]
Opinion: It’s Time for a Hollywood Sports Movie About Esports
One thing that has consistently held esports back is an overemphasis on the actual mechanical play of a game’s greatest players. So much energy and content has been invested, particularly by game publishers, in showing the advantages players of their game can glean from watching the pros do their thing. While helping to improve a […]
Opinion: Why The Olympics Should Create a Separate ‘Esports Games’
The “2020+5” agenda recently released by the International Olympic Committee made it clear that the organization has no interest in bringing esports such as League of Legends or Street Fighter into its official Summer or Winter Games anytime soon. Despite holding summits with esports figures and continuing to “foster relationships” with the gaming community, the […]
Opinion – Gaming Is An Important Social Connection Right Now, And We Should Make It A Good One
Nobody needs another place to dwell on the challenges facing the world in the face of a health epidemic, so I’ll skip right past the obvious. It’s enough to acknowledge that, while everyone reading this is likely united in a shared love of games, we also share a much broader connection right now, being forced […]