Sport and Competition Involved With Starcraft

Starcraft as a Game and as a Sport in Comparison to Dog Fight

If asked to name a sport, a computer game may not be the first activity mentioned. The Oxford English Dictionary notes that a game is an amusement, delight, and fun. This is what a computer program like Starcraft is – a game. It can also start out as, or over time it may evolve into a sport. In Dog Fight, by Michael Swanwick and William Gibson, Deke decides to pick up the game of flying virtual planes. He steals the pieces to try it out. Over time, he gets more and more competitive. The game that he picks up becomes a sport to him. This essay shows that a computer game, Starcraft, by Blizzard Entertainment, is also a sport. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a sport is a pleasant pastime; entertainment or amusement; recreation, diversion. Although the definition of a sport is similar to game, the difference is the degree of competitive nature instilled with the play. Games lack the amount of competition that sports have.

Intensity of Game Night


Games are approached differently once they become a sport. People take in different aspects of a sport to get that edge above the opponent. At my dorm we have an official Game Night once a week in a set location. Last semester, it started as a bunch of games for most of us. It was once a week, and only a few people came with a really competitive nature, taking it as a sport. This semester the number of people who attend has grown and most of the people who attend approach game night with a more competitive nature. It is an opportunity for doing many things, including taking risks, but now there is more glory that comes with winning. Just as the simulation of planes started out as a game for Deke and then morphed in to an addiction, Game Night has become a key aspect of many students’ week. Games have a larger role in people’s lives. To most of the people at the event, this has become more of a Sport Night. Though there is only one night set out for Game Night, a person could find someone and a game just about any night, now. The Game Nights become game days, sometimes. One night went until twelve o’clock noon the next day. One of the more intense games is played mainly on Game night, though. Starcraft consists of around five to eight people connecting their computers together and competing. The people who play often get so involved their game that some don’t respond to others who talk while the game is going. All of their focus is devoted to the game. The people who play this game have gotten so good at it that some of the moves are not understandable to someone watching. A spectator commented that it was like they were having “a series of epileptic seizures”. Moving faster is better in this game, where as being able to barely move at all was better in Deke’s game. Despite the contrast, both are a status that players strive to achieve. There is another difference between the story of the people at Game Night and Deke’s; when someone wins, the person at Game Night still has friends. Deke pushed everyone away in his quest to become the best at his sport. After a game, we still have each other.

Nimu and Starcraft

Nimu is one person at game night that took the game even further as a sport. After completing his freshman year of college, he took a year off of school for it. He had a sponsor that paid him $6,000 every six months, paid monthly and he would compete about one a week. Nimu spent hours just mastering one move – to the point that he could do it with his eyes closed. Finally, he got to a point that both he and his sponsor decided that he couldn’t get any better and he stopped playing for his sponsor. He says some of it was the love of competition. He says that it was comparable to being able to fight without getting in trouble. He took the game of Starcraft beyond just an activity for fun – he played it competitively as a sport.

Death from playing Starcraft

Competition can be dangerous and even lethal. While talking about Starcraft, Professor Mark Griffiths says, “They are the types of games that completely engross the player. They are not games that you can play for [twenty] minutes and stop” Those people who were unaware of the others around them are one example of being engrossed by the game. People get distracted by these games and they may lose track of time. The desire to get better and the competitive drive get people to spend hours in games like this. A man, referred to as Lee and only twenty-eight years old, died while playing Starcraft. BBC News stated that the South Korean man had died after reportedly playing an online computer game for fifty hours with few breaks. He took short breaks only to go to the toilet and for short spurts of sleep. He collapsed and presumably died from heart failure. The intense need to be the best led to the death of this man. His intense desire to win led to the loss of his life. Deke lost everything in his life; Lee lost his life. Is the need for competition and to win really all that drives these players, or is there more to it? What is it that allows some players to stop sooner then others, that allow them to stop for necessary things like food and rest, and what is missing when people, like Lee, don’t stop at all?