How much skill do games really require?
But for all the talk about structured leagues and grueling training schedules, it’s difficult to shake the notion that esports require less skill than traditional sports. After all, when you’re comparing the impeccable execution of a complex series of gymnastics moves to hitting a target on-screen, it’s not difficult to see why this view exists.
Except there are people who claim otherwise. At a talk at this year’s Games Developers Conference, Yauheni Hladki told his audience that “esports far surpass traditional sports in terms of skill”. Hladki isn’t entirely making this up, and this claim is based on statistical analysis. He also boasts impressive credentials and experience, with a background in theoretical physics and political science and previous experience as the StarSeries commissioner at StarLadder.
That said, this is a bold statement to make, and one that will attract immense skepticism and scrutiny. According to Hladki, luck and skill are the two components that determine the outcome of any competitive game. This is an idea inspired by the work of Michael J. Maboussin, whose book The Success Equation sought to place conventional sports on a spectrum between pure luck and skill.
Obviously, some games involve more luck than others.
For example, luck factors more heavily in ice hockey than chess, and Hladki says the former is actually one of the most random professional sports. This also calls to mind a game like Hearthstone, which has received some ak for how random it can be. �
Hladki thinks the larger sample size in esports means that the luck factor becomes a lot less signi cant. “By the sheer amount of games, the sample size becomes so big that the possibility for randomness almost goes to infinity,” he explains. It’s not entirely clear how he arrived at this conclusion, given that the number of matches played at an esports tournament doesn’t seem to be a lot more than that played in a regular football season.
Nevertheless, it’s possible that he was including online ranking systems in this metric, where it’s more feasible for players to play a ton of matches a day in pursuit of the top ranks.
Furthermore, anyone who has invested any signi cant amount of time trying to get good at a game will tell you that it isn’t as good as it looks. In any game, the gulf between the best players and the merely average is huge, and success depends on a rare combination of mechanical skills, decision-making, and game awareness.
Games may not be as physically taxing as traditional sports, but they do still require huge amounts of talent and skill.
The burgeoning esports scene is also becoming too big to ignore. As developers such as Riot and Blizzard continue to build out pro leagues for their games and governments set up regulatory bodies, the infrastructure for truly mainstream acceptance is starting to fall into place.
The reach of esports is immense. It’s also capable of transcending geographical and cultural boundaries in a way that traditional sports cannot, so it seems only a matter of time before it becomes fully accepted as a proper sport.