eSports is an untapped well of creativity and storytelling. The competitive gaming scene is growing at an exponential rate, so where are the stories?

Video games have been the subject of countless novels and films over the years. Tron is an early standout that many are familiar with. The movie stars Jeff Bridges as a computer programmer who was zapped with a laser and transported into a digital world. Ever since the early successes of films like Tron and Wargames the gaming industry has had highs and lows in both film and print.

It was not until the millennial generation threw in their financial support and fandom that gaming brands saw real success in expanding to other mediums. Since the year 2000 there has been an explosion in gaming stories with franchises like Pokemon, Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Angry Birds, Minecraft, and many more taking over the entertainment markets. Riding on the back of the incredibly popular Warcraft gaming franchise, the recently released movie Warcraft: The Beginning is on track to be the highest grossing video game movie to date. Ready Player One is an original story written about a fictional gaming world and the upcoming film based upon the novel is receiving enough hype that it may even top Warcraft’s box office numbers. The video game industry has proven itself to be legitimate avenue of story creation and revenue.

It took decades of passionate people arguing for video games to be considered a true art form, for the stories and characters to garner the respect they deserved, and now games are evolving beyond a simple canvas for interactivity, beautiful graphics, and elaborate scripts. Video games are becoming more about the people who play them. Many thousands of fans pack into large arenas to watch eSports teams battle each other on digital warzones. Games like League of Legends, Defense of the Ancients, and Hearthstone are attracting millions of views every day on live Twitch streams and pre-recorded YouTube videos. People are watching eSports all-stars compete at professional levels similar to how the mainstream media has showcased sports like basketball and boxing over the years. The same viewers also tune in to watch charismatic individuals like Day[9], Grubby, and PewDiePie as they play games from their homes, much like watching a morning talk show.

These gamers have stories to tell. Documentaries like King of Kong, All Work All Play, and Free to Play demonstrate the passion some of these players have for their games. The history of eSports is ripe with underdog stories, struggle, strife, and conflict. ESPN has started profiling eSports stars and uncovering their real life stories, showing the humanity behind the usernames and on-screen personalities. But where is the creativity? Where is the fiction? I’ve had a difficult time finding much, though it is admittedly difficult to search for eSports fiction when there is a competitive team called Fiction eSports clogging up the search engines.

Ready Player One’s gaming world and competitive plot line is close to eSports fiction, but I would associate its story and setting more with an MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) like World of Warcraft than modern competitive eSports. I have found one YA novel called In Real Life by Lawrence Tabak which actually addresses the eSports scene. In Real Life is about a teenager who spends all of his free time honing his skills at a fictional competitive game called Starfare and hopes to get good (git gud) enough to travel to South Korea and compete with the true gaming professionals for money and fame. I’ve ordered my copy and cannot wait to read it. Most every other gaming story I can find focuses more on the role-playing element of video games. Competitive gaming seems to be all but ignored in the realm of fiction.

With ESPN recently recognizing eSports’ unexpected growth and TBS launching a new competitive gaming show called E-League, we writers really have an opportunity to explore this new avenue for creativity while it is still in its early stages. There are countless personal stories which can be told focusing around the players and the teams which compete in these grand tournaments. Real money is being put on the table at these events. Real people are making a living playing and broadcasting these games. Real emotions are being felt, everything from the tremendous joys of victory to the devastating heartaches of defeat.

I encourage you to watch some of these epic contests and unique personalities just to give yourself an idea of how large this scene is. I have found myself becoming a fan of certain competitive teams and devoted to individual streamers I connect with. The games are interesting and exciting, but it’s the people who keep me coming back. They have stories to tell. It is exciting to discover a new frontier of storytelling, a new setting for creativity.