The Wachowskis famed trilogy, “The Matrix” tells the story of the hacker Neo who had been born in a world built on shrewd facade and vivid lies. He, in turn, is the only one who can possibly lift the veil and show the world that “anything is possible.” In the same sense, the Trojan Horse was the key tactic in the Greek retake of Troy within the Trojan War. After the gigantic wooden statue was hauled inside the walls of Troy, the Greeks sprung their attack. The idea that someone has to be born within a system to become ultimately great and fully explore their potential is the topic today. Now, before we continue I do have to admit that I am not nearly clever enough to come up with half of that metaphor. Duncan “Thooorin” Shields in his three hour long interview with himself helped me immensely with this opening, here is a link to where the “Neo” metaphor begins. The credit goes to him for the creative footwork, but I wanted to repurpose the quote and use the comparison in a different light. One of the questions that that rotates around the bottom of Overwatch is whether or not we will have a truly “great player.” To fully explore this idea, I suppose we will have to define what I mean when I say “truly great.” A truly great player is someone who, for extended periods of time, dominates a game. A prime example would be someone like Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok or even the TaekBangLeeSsang from Starcraft: Brood War. These players came up within their games, just as Neo was born within the Matrix and came very close to completely mastering their respective craft. Now, Faker is the example that really sticks to Overwatch because they both are team centric games. Both League of Legends and Overwatch are played in and as a team; therefore, it holds the most water.

And this is where we jump off the diving board into my theory that it is not only possible, but plausible that we will see a “truly great” player in the next big esport, which quite possibly could  be Overwatch — and they might even be from the West.

Now, this same thought experiment could hold its own in other esports as well. Whatever the next big title that steps into the esports sphere could also be affected by the fact that we are on the cusp of the next generation. This means that we are starting to see children being raised within the realm of esports. Not just growing up with gaming, but being competitive in gaming.

With Turner Broadcasting expanding its reach into other games like Street Fighter and Overwatch, to the CW hosting a H1Z1 tournament, people that would never even had the chance to hear or even entertain the idea of “competitive video games” are starting to learn. Even if it is anecdotal, one of my first experiences with competitive gaming was when I woke up early one morning for school and caught the tail end of the MLG Pro Circuit presented by Boost Mobile on the USA Network in 2007.

Legendary Final Boss hoist their 1st place grand prize at MLG Las Vegas circa 2007.

We now leap ten years later and imagine whose imagination we’ve sparked. With games like League of Legends, Call of Duty, and Overwatch garnering huge audiences, just think about the sheer amount of people that esports could possibly reach. Now, take a small fraction of that magic number that you’ve got in your head — those are all children that are look up too and aspire to “make it” in esports. We are on the cusp of a generation that will have grown up potentially following modern esports. This allows some of the most profound story lines to affect them in a way that drives them to pursue a career in esports.

We have the players with the potential to become great, but who will foster that talent and allow it to grow? With all the talk of venture capital and non-endemic investors coming into the space it only seems logical that if this trend continues, esports organizations will receive more resources. This in turn, in my opinion, will be invested back into the organization by allowing support staff and other educational tools to be acquired. Player’s salaries, education, housing, food, travel, and careers could all be entirely more sustainable. This removes the restriction of age as a limit factor in a player’s esports career allowing them to pursue a stake within the organization itself, if found suitable.

We could repurpose some of the greatest minds in esports to help foster new talent, the same way that traditional sports do. For example, imagine if one of the greatest English speaking shot callers in League of Legend’s history, Hai "Hai" Du Lam had the ability to pursue a tenure with any organization in esports as a General Manager or Head Coach. He would have free reign on molding players that could benefit the organization. Or take a player like Cho "Mata" Se-hyeong who is also known for his incredible shot calling and leadership skills. To drive this back to Overwatch, we could possibly see players like Stefano "Verbo" Disalvo or Oliver "Vonethil" Lagerl pursue the same path, if they so chose to. If have these resources to give to these players they can remove any unnecessary mental stress on the current starting roster. This means the athletes themselves focus on their strong points and very rarely have to use their mental prowess to succeed if a coach is successful with micromanagement.

More and more psychologists, better coaching — the list is endless with what you could do with more money for an esports organization. The idea here is that, within the very near future, teams will start to see this growth and this future might not seem as farfetched as it sounds. Once the current organizations start to garner more resources, the teams themselves can invest into the players allowing for a much more sustainable market. This in turn will help to push out streaming as a secondary source of income and marketing allowing players to focus on mastering the game, while also complying with contractual obligations to appearances and fan interaction.

Now that we have the player base and the funds, what comes next? If we look at Korea, a large reason why they tend to excel at their games is because of how the community in Seoul is structured. Allow me to explain to the best of my ability:

Seoul, South Korea is a small city only stretching 233.7 square miles. For perspective, Los Angeles is around 503 square miles. With some of the best esports players in the world all living within one small city, the ecosystem literally and continually compounds on itself and breeds talent. If we return to my theory, now that we have large monetary investments starting to trickle its way into the scene, we could start to see brick-and-mortar locations start to pop up nation wide. I imagine that these facilities would be backed by major esports organizations and would allow for casual and competitive gamers alike to use as a hub to share their passion for games. This in turn would allow for these major esports organizations to take note of local players and could possibly aid in the scouting process for new talent, not only as players but as coaches, business partners, etc. Creating an over glorified LAN cafe is only my idea; teams like Immortals have already mulled over the idea of constructing a huge campus for their team that allow a similar vision. This idea is not to create our own “mini-Seoul”, but to allow for the talent to interact and compete with lesser players to start the chemical reaction that allows for the overall talent pool to start to compound and stack.

Blizzard Entertainment’s first “esports arena” is finished last March in Taiwan.

Could we see more of these arenas in the future?

Returning to Overwatch, we don’t have the third step in my vision. We have, however, seen the first two start to take place. We are seeing players who have grown up within the era of esports, start to tackle Overwatch. We have seen a career in esports start to become more sustainable with the overall increase of player salary and expansion into new titles. But with the Overwatch League still on the horizon, we are halted.

The biggest limiting factor that my hypothesis leans on is the success of Blizzard’s Overwatch League. I don’t necessarily mean immediate success, but in the long run, the Overwatch League has to be a success for esports to “explode.” Even if it does ultimately result in failure — which I don’t believe it will, but if it did — it would only hamstring the speed at which this would occur.

Video games as a whole don’t seem to be going anywhere, and neither is esports as an idea. But if the Overwatch League is a smashing success, then the wheels are set in motion. More players, more money, more support, more reach, and not only for one specific esport, but for all esports.

This would usher in another “golden age” for esports with Overwatch at the head. This means that Overwatch could compete with Counter Strike, League of Legends, and Dota 2 in terms of viewership and reach. The problem, if we double-back to my original point, is that Overwatch is a team game. The game itself is six versus six, which means it would be incredibly hard for a team to dominate, let alone one specific player.

If we look at the reach that modern esports has right now, the player bases for specific games, the viewership on popular streaming platforms, we can come to one conclusion; people are watching games; therefore, with such a huge ocean, is it so hard to imagine another Faker coming along and performing to the lengths that he has in his respective game?

For an analogy, look to the Drake Equation. It serves as a mathematical argument to explore the possibilities of extraterrestrial life in the Milky Way. Briefly explained, the Drake Equation tries to take into account the sheer scope of our galaxy, with all the known habitable planets and it gives you a percentage chance that we could be currently co-existing with intelligent life. This is a reach, I’ll given the critics that, but if we boil that same idea down into our small little pond in esports, is it so hard to imagine a “truly great” player emerging in the next 5-10 years in Overwatch? A player who is born within the lifespan of a game, that is touched by the storylines of esports, and that transcends all other players on their way to the top of the mountain. I ask again, is it so hard to imagine a “truly great” player in any new esport?  

I don’t think so.

Joseph “Volamel” Franco has followed esports since the MLG’s of 2006. He started out primarily following Starcraft 2, Halo 3, and Super Smash Bros. Melee. He has transitioned from viewer to journalist and writes freelance primarily about Overwatch and League of Legends. If you would like to know more or follow his thoughts on esports you can follow him at @Volamel.

Images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment and Major League Gaming.