Jesus is a LANer

Copyright (c) Noelle Adams. All Rights Reserved.

Competitive gaming is the key. LANs are going to elevate gaming into the pop culture mainstream.  

At least that’s what I hear every so often, however ineloquently put.

 The fact of the matter is that there are small group of gamers out there who believe that it is only through their sterling efforts at the latest large-scale LAN (multiple computers connected together on a Local Area Network) that non-gamers will be converted to their passion.

You can practically see them in Moses stance, Logitech MX1000 gaming mouse in hand, proclaiming, ‘Let my people game’.

Jonathan Wendel, Fatal1ty, arguably the world’s best competitive gamer, is one such prophet figure. Preaching about cyber athletes and electronic e-sports, Wendel foresees gaming as an Olympic sport. I can see it too, but only if competitors are handed machine guns and grenades and forced to fight suspended over a bottomless pit.

Wendell’s Jesus complex is unjustified. While prize money for competitive gaming is excellent, and events are ever-expanding, LANing will never assume the status of football or rugby. It doesn’t even sit alongside lethargic bar sports like pool and darts, which at least receive TV coverage.

And no, the professional sportsman status granted to StarCraft players in South Korea doesn’t count. Any nation in which people die after 70 hours straight in front of their PC, and get off to images of a green-skinned sci-fi succubus, does not register as a norm.

Competitive gaming remains a hard sell to the public. South Africans live in a country with year-round sunshine. Our favourite games are outdoors and physical. For all the mouse-tapping, LANing is decidedly unphysical. All action is virtual. No railgun spree can produce amazed spectator ‘wows’ like an extreme skateboard stunt can.

Then there’s the stench of anti-social behaviour polluting even the biggest events. Hundreds of players sit hunched over PCs alongside each other, glazed eyes on their screens, jaws clenched, and earphones blocking out the sounds of reality. If there is little talking, there is much swearing and whining about ‘camping’, ‘frag stealing’ and ‘rushing’.

Competitive gaming is chess without the MENSA backing.

Don’t get me wrong. I thoroughly enjoy setting up my PC at a friend’s house for a few days of rocket-jumping, and teleporting my paladin hero into battle. But that’s gaming away from the public realm. I make no grand statements about how my activities are ‘The Future’. The LANers who do fail to see that they are a minority within the PC gaming minority. They’re Star Wars fans who actually liked Episode I.

Gaming is going mainstream. Statistics show an annual increase in game-playing guys and girls worldwide. Gaming is gaining in respectability as a leisure activity. There are plenty of converts. But these disciples do not follow the leet. Instead of dutiful LAN practice, their worship involves a PS2 and the latest EA Sports title or Harry Potter movie tie-in.

Amen.