Monster Energy Supercross - The Official Videogame 2 is a game about hubris.
Esports is the bitcoin of video games.
I don't know if that statement is more insulting to esports or to bitcoin, but it is what it is. Both have complex software infrastructures that require skilled and experienced technicians to create. Both have low barriers to entry. Buy and trade some bitcoin, you are now a bitcoin trader. Buy a website and some shirts, you are now an esports team.
I'm not joking, Linkedin confirms this. Another commonality is that both the hustlers and the marks have no idea who is conned. Bitcoin is growing and makes a lot of money, esports is growing and makes a lot of money. You gotta get involved in them or you won't grow or make any money. How does bitcoin grow and make money? You need more bitcoin to do that. How does esports grow or make money, you need more esports to do that.
What is bitcoin, specifically? A decentralized banking system consisting of a digitally encrypted currency of different types. What is esports specifically? A software program that's ruleset allows it to be played with defined win-loss states. So how does anyone that did not develop the bitcoin or esports software grow or make money? Spend money now and wait ten years. The best cons live in systems where direct answers are not answers.
Both fields are populated by the type of people that play the lotto un-ironically, pitch ideas constantly with the hope that someone else makes the business plan, crunches the numbers, and wakes up at 4 in the morning to sit in on engineering meetings, and are convinced that you don't have to understand what you are doing to be successful at what you are doing.
They took Nike's motto super literally.
And I'm not just talking about the low-end esports people, I'm talking about all of them. Overwatch is in a lot of trouble right now because their hubris refuses to allow them to admit that esports is not enough to drive Overwatch, that the declining player numbers will not return thanks to Overwatch esports and that the franchise system is in dire jeopardy; they are 20+ mil apeice in the hole to some really large corps with no ten-year plan to save it. Activision might not have ten more years, let's be honest.
Enough money to run a theme park for ten-years means nothing if no one shows up today.
The biggest commonality between esports and bitcoin is that they are corny. No one wants to talk about it, but the product is marketed in the most unsubtle, obnoxious, blatant, dated, noisy, pandering, and the most insecure way they could possibly be presented. Faux "gamer cool" that was never cool in an hyper-competitive new media era where wack is more than wack, its sacrilege.
Both decentralized banking and competitive gaming have existed for decades. Sooner or later they will organically grow into what everyone knows they will be, a foundational aspect of the new digital infrastructure. It's the greed blinded validation addicted desperate punditry that is creating a narrative around themselves, against the product, and getting in the way.
Shout's info, rip TB rip TC rip Tall-T. Love is checking in on your Stardew Valley village just to see how they doin, hate is a wombo-combo from Mr. X with no green plants or save in the last hour. Get out there and do great things, we believe in you. Also Jerbz.
The Protoculture Mixtape: Issue : People : Particular
