T w e n t y S i d e d

I have long been of the opinion that We Play Sports For a Reason. I’ve rambled about this in the past. Our fascination with contrived competitions isn’t caused by a desire to watch beer commercials and eat outrageously priced hot dogs. It’s part of our heritage as mammals.

Things being what they are on this planet (and maybe others, I dunno – I don’t get out much) creatures that don’t compete don’t get to survive. That’s kind of mean, but that’s nature for you. Some of us are more aggressive than others, but on the whole we’ve got a lot of homo sapiens running around who want to climb the mountain, lead the pack, be the biggest, run the fastest, kick the most ass, and generally assert their place at the top of the pecking order of the top species. It’s the old, old biological imperative: Go out and conquer something. And then maybe eat it.

Over the years this type of conquest-ing activity has made a few successful people incredibly happy and made just about everyone else miserable. Or dead.

But lately we’ve had pretty good luck finding ways to channel this desire for dominance into things that don’t result in war and murder. It’s not like we’ve transcended violence or anything, but we’re getting better. And the best salve for our inner barbaric spectator is something that feels like conquest without being, you know, too conquest-y. We let someone else do the fighting and we enjoy the winning and losing vicariously.

I’m talking about sports. Which includes things like Starcraft.

Shamus, videogames are not sports! Sports are physical activities. Videogames are just games.

When it comes to playing them, I’ll agree with you. On a purely physical basis, playing Starcraft is closer to filing your taxes than to rugby. But I’m not talking about the players. I’m talking about the audience. For the audience, watching football is physically indistinguishable from watching Starcraft: You sit in a chair and watch somebody else fight. And this is who we’re interested in right now, the people living vicariously through the competitors by choosing sides, building narratives, and lifting players up as heroes. The people in the stands always outnumber the people in the arena, and the arena exists for their benefit. The guys in the ring can fight in any dirty alley they like, but they fight in the arena because this is where we can get the best view of the metaphorical bloodshed.

With this in mind, I can’t escape the notion that Starcraft is – for the purpose of entertainment – the best sport-as-surrogate-conquest ever invented.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Starcraft 2: The Digital Colosseum”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.