It's not just a game

by Michal Blicharz

Original article on GGL.com


Each year, the ESWC serves a reminder of what esports is and where it belongs.

When you leave a football stadium after an enthralling game, your first memories will be those of the emotions that surged through you. It is only the second thoughts that turn to the score or images of the match.

It has been a full week since the medals were handed to the champions in Paris and I still look back at the event with a smile and a subtle sense of elation. This can only be understood by those who have been there and seen what I have seen.

A bottle shattered, pieces of it joining pieces of a dream on the floor, and the Quake player Ivo "forever" Lindhout walking away full of wrath. On the other side of the picture, Mikael "Purri" Tarvainen is celebrating the unexpected victory of an underdog.

The Swede's success brought great relief to Anton "Cooller" Singov who flinched and ground his teeth all the way though the game's thrilling ending. What a stark contrast with his sixteen-year-old self playing the ESWC 2003 grand final, when not once did a single muscle move on his face.

As the Russian lifted his check up in the air after this year's grand final, his expression spoke volumes about what was going through his mind. The smile was wistful. The check was for second place.

Cooller's girlfriend understood the pensive look in his eyes. She must have known what the tournament meant to him. After Cooller's final, she had tears in her eyes.

Around the same time the day before, I saw tears too. Those were of despair, not sorrow. SK's Alice "Alis" Lew found that her bag was stolen two hours before the deciding Counter-Strike game against the Chinese girls from Ehonor.

In the bag was a special edition Microsoft mouse that no other gamer in the tournament had. Alice borrowed a similar mouse from a fellow gamer to play the deciding match.

I can only imagine what it must have felt like for her to win it. No amount of money can buy you those emotions.

It takes the tumultuous noise of ten thousand feet stomping around you during an esports match to truly understand gaming. I was there. I heard the entire hall chant "NoA!!! NoA!!! NoA!!!" during the CS final as the Danish team clung on for their lives taking back round after round to beat PGS Gaming on the second map in double overtime.

Do not tell me gaming belongs in a television studio.

I felt the sweat of those people and I was among the mere twenty or so trying to outshout them. A Lybian player named Hannibal joined us in supporting PGS and waved the Polish flag during the third map. Our team won. How many times have you embraced a complete stranger?

It is not just a game. It is so much more than that.

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