[Release Date: September 28, 2021] Esport is in some ways similar to traditional sport competitions, but in other ways is a totally new kind of enterprise. In this episode we chat with Dr. Matti Karhulati, who researches esports, about some of the unique concerns about fairness that arise in competitive gaming.
SHOW TRANSCRIPT
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Shlomo Sher: Alright Hello everybody, we are here joined today with a maddie Carl hootie God, let me, let me start that again i’m going to get i’m going to do better than this car gulati okay that’s.
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Shlomo Sher: A.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Good starter, you should just keep it.
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Shlomo Sher: You know the thing is, you know.
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Shlomo Sher: I live in La where we have people with exotic names from everywhere and I swear be doing this, my entire life and I don’t know if i’ve gotten better at you know.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay.
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Shlomo Sher: we’re joined here today with maddie car who lot.
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A Ashcraft: You know right that’s right.
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Shlomo Sher: header right car.
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Shlomo Sher: Car who powerful hottie car who’s to.
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Shlomo Sher: say one more time for me Oh, you know I I see I spelled it wrong appear her lottie.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay i’m looking at the way you have it on your cover lots were we’re joined here today with maddie cover lottie.
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Shlomo Sher: who’s a senior researcher at the University of Eva scalia working at the Center of excellence in game cultural studies he’s written a book about the esports phenomenology that’s out on bloomsbury.
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Shlomo Sher: And currently works mainly unhealth and psychological questions related to esports and gaming in general, welcome to the show matty.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Thanks for letting me very happy to hear.
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Shlomo Sher: You know many I want to start because we’re going to talk about fairness and and cheating, but I want to start actually by asking you.
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Shlomo Sher: In what ways, do you think esports is kind of its own unique phenomenon right let’s say different than traditional gaming or different than sports itself.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: yeah I think there’s two things if we compare these two sports that make it a little bit different The first thing is, if you look at the big macro structures, like.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: How esports operated all of these sports are owned by the so called executive owner so there’s always a big company behind each sport and they have more or less full control over the entire sport.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: And the other thing is, if we look at the players and professional players there’s kind of the professional scene, where we talk about competitions that happen in local area networks like.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Land parties and tournaments that are in physical spaces big stadiums.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: And then we have kind of the online virtual spaces, where we have public servers and people playing run games over there, so there’s kind of two different worlds of esports play I think these two things are kind of the key part in to find each person.
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Shlomo Sher: The first one is really interesting right for for people who don’t follow a sport right to think if someone if one company owned like you know professional basketball right how much that would change right how how weird that would be right or.
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A Ashcraft: But I mean.
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A Ashcraft: doesn’t doesn’t one company on major league basketball.
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Shlomo Sher: know you have you have owners who negotiates right own it, you have.
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A Ashcraft: owner yeah owners, the team owners right.
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Shlomo Sher: Right and that’s just in the United States right and.
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Shlomo Sher: Things are different right all over the world in terms of kind of different leagues you take something like.
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Shlomo Sher: You know, take something like professional you know professional a professional sports team that is placed in a in a city right.
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Shlomo Sher: You have this kind of connection between which is interesting if if how much of this happens in esports or not, and I kind of like to know maddie right right this allegiance, that the city has to sports teams.
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Shlomo Sher: In the United States.
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Shlomo Sher: Because that support team is owned by single owner.
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Shlomo Sher: The owner might decide to just sell the team to another city right, but in places like the UK you don’t do that the team belongs to the city.
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Shlomo Sher: Right and it’s not like you know it’s not like Real Madrid is going to be sold to like you know, a pump alone or something in Spain right.
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Shlomo Sher: That those those teams kind of stayed together and it, it shows that there’s kind of different relationships right and different kind of markets and and the way that’s kind of organized between teams and their fans.
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Shlomo Sher: that something like that happened, you know with with with the sport mandy would you say that.
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Shlomo Sher: Is a sport that kind of thing that’s global enough so there’s because it’s not physical that the the the fans aren’t this tied to the physical space of the teams.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: yeah I think we should first kind of acknowledge the diversity of esports there’s a lot of different types of esports and different companies on different esports titles and they also.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: regulate these esports differently, and if we compare, for instance, how right games controls the age of legends and the other titles, they have compared to how activision blizzard or volume controls counter strike and overwatch games like this.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: We see quite big differences and esports is still very young lot of things have happened over the.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: past years, and only reason to the franchising do.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: place and we have these kind of permanent leaks, where we have these spots for for teams to sell and buy so yeah things like that that just mentioned happen quite a bit, but.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: differently in different different.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay, so so don’t is right is that question itself about fairness and cheating in the sport.
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Shlomo Sher: itself too broad a question, because you have you know, maybe it’s like the same thing about fairness in sports but fairness in you know football might be very different and fairness and basketball, because the way those leagues brands are so different.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: I guess you can say that in this case each company defines their own rules for their esports So what is fair in one esports could be not for another because.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: each company defines the rules by themselves, and I guess that’s also like one of the key ethical question each brushing journal data, how do we know whether the company actually is playing a different game.
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Shlomo Sher: cool can we talk about an example, can you give me a kind of a Okay, can you give us a kind of you know here’s.
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Shlomo Sher: You know here’s one game with a company that controls it does this, and here’s another game with a company who controls the Stat and there’s a question about whether one of these are both of these are fair.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: um yeah there’s uh huh let’s start from a personal perspective so for an individual player, the company set rules, and you have to follow the rules, if you want to stay as a player in the game.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: There was a reason example, for instance in counter strike, we have a finished player young P, who is a counter strike player and I think he got.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: One of his accounts banned for cheating some years ago, but i’m not sure if that really was the case but.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: The kind of outcome was that his account was banned and the company has ruled that you can play in major tournaments if you have an account banned like that.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: So basically the player was not allowed to be a professional because.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Of this decision that didn’t really go through any court or any kind of open investigation, but the company just decided that, because of this instance you can’t be a professional player and he sued bala for this this.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: decision, but things didn’t really go well for him, so he switched to a different game on by a different company, and I think these are kind of on typical cases that happen all the time esports because the companies make the rules and the placements just simply polyphenols.
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Shlomo Sher: So are, and so is this is this one sort of issue, because it seems to me like usually you would have some sort of.
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Shlomo Sher: A kind of general authority that would take cases like this and right judge them to see if the if you know if the company acted in some sort of arbitrary way if this was fair is this one of the the kind of key issues here that can companies essentially that run esports act arbitrarily.
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Shlomo Sher: With no repercussions.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: yeah now they can, and I think that’s that’s a huge problem currently that nobody’s watching the watchers they they can make a decision, and nobody has the right to appeal, more or less unless you’re breaking some local law school or something like that.
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A Ashcraft: But, but let me, let me ask them to see because I feel like like, for example, FIFA if somebody gets red card from FIFA and gets banned for some you know for for a game or two or whatever the resulting is for for getting a you know, a red card band.
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A Ashcraft: that’s that’s done on the field and there’s no recourse to that as far as I understand right.
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A Ashcraft: I mean that’s that’s a referee just making a decision.
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A Ashcraft: And there’s and, again, there are lots of problems with that right, I mean FIFA is constantly under under under scrutiny, because of some referee who goes off the rails and does something but that’s the rules is the referees make the decisions and that’s it.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Right.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: But the thing is in foot ball, you would still be able to or soccer depending on recovery right, I still.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: switch to a different League, you can switch to a different team, you can become a coach or something like that in esports when you get the band from the company who owns the entire game.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: you’re out of.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: The entire sport, you have to choose you as a football player let’s say you would have to become hockey player, which would be a slightly more difficult.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: So I think that’s.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: The thing.
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Shlomo Sher: I mean, this is something i’ve dedicated years of your life to and arbitrarily and when I say ever truly i’m assuming that some esports do have some sort of recourse, where someone is essentially.
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Shlomo Sher: The company might have some sort of or you know, a special board for for the sport that evaluates these things but there’s no let’s say balancing with a player’s Union.
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Shlomo Sher: Right yeah like that would have in other sports.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: There are no strong players, unions, yet, and that would be kind of the future thing for esports that really people have been looking forward to whether we can have strong player unions to fight these things and I said.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: it’s sort of a black box when when the decision comes from a company in these cases so it’s not like.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: We don’t really know what was the evidence for this claim we don’t know if the player was really cheating, or if they did, how did they do that there’s just the decision coming out and we can read it from now with page.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: But that’s as far as it goes.
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A Ashcraft: So more transparency from the companies would make it would make it feel better right, it would make it feel more fair to see how their see how their process works.
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Shlomo Sher: And it just it would it would open well it’s because essentially because it opens up the conversation about about fairness right about whether they acted fairly and, of course, if you’re the company, you may not want that conversation open.
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Shlomo Sher: Right, you know, because that opens it to to you know to criticism, if no one knows what what you actually decided on, no one can call it unfair, they could just say it’s not transparent.
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A Ashcraft: right and it can also slow down the process quite a lot, so if, as a company, you see, you see, something that is a problem, and you want to.
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A Ashcraft: You want to fix the problem quickly opening it up to debate opening up to some sort of process could mean could mean that you don’t get a chance to fix that problem for some time.
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Shlomo Sher: So, so that seems like a really big deal manny so, are there any sports where there is movement on this where there’s some movement to to do something about the arbitrariness that might come with something like this.
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Shlomo Sher: And the finale of be banned from you know something that you’ve trained for for years.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: yeah there’s been.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: A couple of temps for player, unions and there are some.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: I think, for instance riot games they organized sort of our internal.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: body of representatives to to kind of oversee themselves, which is kind of bread X equals so so it doesn’t really work that way, but there have been a lot of public criticism towards these kinds of ways to operating these companies and and.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: To be honest, I don’t think we still have very good solutions, but, indeed, it would be.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Something that kind of takes time to develop, then, and of course we also have this challenge that these companies operating globally, so there are different.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Rules and different regulations in in Asia, Europe and the US and and other parts of the world, so having kind of one size fits all list of things to follow wouldn’t necessarily work so, so we need kind of a lot of work, work on this topic to.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: resolve it, but.
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yeah.
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Shlomo Sher: it’s easy, though, you know, an Oversight Board that you know our judicial board is something that you know, a company like right might have still seems like a like a pretty you know, first of all obvious.
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Shlomo Sher: And second but second of all big you know big step where at least you know, in order to maintain their credibility right you got to make a board like you know you got to give the board like that teeth.
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Shlomo Sher: You know the same thing is happening with Facebook and their Oversight Board as they’re trying to kind of give an internal Oversight Board, that the rest of the world is supposed to trust.
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A Ashcraft: Right and it’s it’s impossible to trust them if they’re not if they’re not independent right.
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A Ashcraft: And if they’re not transparent.
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Yes.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: yeah one of the one of the challenges in this this solution is that of course the companies are profit making companies, so they don’t really want kind of on if they have some crap going on behind the.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: scenes they don’t really might want to make it public, because it would be bad PR bad for the kind of company reputation and you kind of also benefit as a company to hide all these all these things behind the scenes, and then you just.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Roll it over with whatever.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: solution you come up with so.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: that’s kind of the conflict of interest with the companies here.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay, so we got we got one thing right, so what what’s another thing where where a sport is kind of really unique when it comes to cheating and fairness.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: um.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: I guess one thing really unique if we look at the professional i’m seeing and and the games that are being played they have a thing called changing metal, so the mental game is something that.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: All boards have, to some degree, there are strategies that are very efficient strategy that are less efficient and at sometimes some strategies are used more than others and.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Generally, the teams and players are very well aware, but because these Games are owned by the companies who really want people to remain as players, for a long time, they have to keep changing these games.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: And to keep the interesting for players who who kind of are the customers This also leads to a situation where.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: What is efficient change these really, really fast so in some games, it can be like every two weeks, you actually have a new game, or, if not a new game at least very radically different.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: And this can be very unfair or at least questionable to do some teams who, for instance, make a very huge investment on a player who is very skilled.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: In certain type of play and then suddenly the company decides to change the game, so that this type of plays no more beneficial and a company which has invested millions on a player.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: actually have to just bench the player because it’s no more useful, so I think this is a very unique thing.
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Shlomo Sher: That is really interesting read that the that the game has suddenly change in some dramatic way right that your skills aren’t really matching but it, why would you say it’s unfair.
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Shlomo Sher: But what about it would be unfair, I mean it’s it’s it’s unfortunate but I mean all the competitors have to kind of deal with this, or is this unfair in terms of the way that the people running the the league.
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Shlomo Sher: So the company are treating the people are participating in the league.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: yeah I would say it’s unfair for the teams and the players, because you don’t know how it’s going to change the next week.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: So as a player if you’re investing your skills on a certain as a team if you’re investing all your resources on a certain strategy and then it’s no more beneficial than next month or it’s.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Changing just arbitrarily that doesn’t really kind of support these kind of.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Long term strategic thinking that he’s part of many other sports, the way in which you think about your team synergy and and the players, working together, it brings a lot of randomness to this to this fiction and the randomness in any sport isn’t generally fair, I would say.
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A Ashcraft: yeah interesting yeah It is interesting because I would have I mean, even if you say all right.
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A Ashcraft: As a company we’re going to tell you two or three weeks in advance the changes we’re going we’re going to make changes once a month for the game to keep the game fresh.
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A Ashcraft: we’re going to tell you what the what the next changes are when we make these changes, say.
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A Ashcraft: So we know what because we know what we’re working towards, we know we know what what what we’re building towards.
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A Ashcraft: So everybody would know, but it would still only be you know it would just change the time frame right, it would only make it like you can only plan for a month, as opposed to planning for a week.
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A Ashcraft: Does that make it better, or is that just sort of kick the can down the road.
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Shlomo Sher: That doesn’t seem to touch anything you know that involves really you know.
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Shlomo Sher: everything takes you’re developing your skills over a very long time right, so you would think that a month, would not be you know, would not be very meaningful.
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Shlomo Sher: But at way but but don’t, let me just get this clear, so when they’re updating the game they’re updating the game itself right so now they’re not thinking about the esports people they’re thinking about you know.
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Shlomo Sher: You know my my son wants to go and play fortnight and fortnight does going to change the game every so often to make it interesting for for people like my son.
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Shlomo Sher: And then esports players also happened to be competing in fortnight.
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Shlomo Sher: Right and they’re having a kind of and if I was the company I would be primarily thinking of the of the the regular players so um.
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Shlomo Sher: I mean maddie it doesn’t seem to you that is this as simple as just a picking a picking a particular form of the game and using the and you know, having the esports league work on that particular version is would that be as simple as that or.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: yeah it’s I think these days to companies are very, very well aware of these implications on both kind of the amateur.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: casuals side of players and then, on the other hand, that the professional seem so they try to be really careful on how they balance balance balance the game and not make.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: For instance, when when world championships are going on on whichever game, I think the companies are kind of committed to not make major changes any more like a month before the games.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Right so there’s during the championships.
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A Ashcraft: How terrible would that be right.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: yeah so so like the whole champ world Champs German would be played with the same patch or there will be no changes during the during the games, but before these things have been quite radically.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: quite radical into like as an anecdote there was a case back in like some years back when when leaders logins was was not not as professional as it is today.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: There was a champion, which is one of the playable playable characters in the game called gangplank and they also had the story going on in the game.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: At the same time, with the with the professionals, so there was kind of a lower that they were kind of opening on the websites and kind of as a as a.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: entertainment for the players and in the story the gangplank died for for a couple of days for the players like fiction.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: But because of this this instance they decided to as a joke remove with the captain of the champion from the from the whole game for two days, and it was at those times when some players were playing kind of a finals in the.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: I don’t remember if it was a challenger serious or something where where people will basically competing for the for the last spots in the.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: In the big tournaments and some people who were who had invested thousands of dollars on becoming good gangplank players, they didn’t have this character anymore to play, because the story team decided to kill kill that one off so.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Right things like this used to happen more often, but nowadays, the company so more more kind of sensitive.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: To these things and and yeah.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay cool um yeah that’s that’s really interesting that’s definitely something that that that I haven’t I that I think is really unique as far as I know, to the esports.
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A Ashcraft: And this is something I think that that is it comes about, just because it’s so new right it’s so.
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A Ashcraft: we’re in that sort of Wild West nobody really knows how to and it shows that we’re trying we’re as an industry we’re figuring this out and we’re we’re starting to realize oh right there are some things we need to think about things that we weren’t thinking about before.
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A Ashcraft: that are now on people’s lists to think about every time they need to make a change to the game.
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But not just.
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Shlomo Sher: The idea of what the what the game is right and the assumption that we’re all competing in the game right, but if you know.
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Shlomo Sher: If I go out to you know to to the playground, and I, you know I jump into a five on five game of basketball, you know the rules may or may not be the similar to the nba right.
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Shlomo Sher: play ground rules, I play ground rules nba has these formal strict rules that will not change that everyone’s aware of, and you have the separation.
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Shlomo Sher: Right between casual gaming and it’s it’s really interesting that here there is there’s something really cool about not having the the you’re playing the exact same game right as the as the professionals as as a casual player.
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Shlomo Sher: But yeah, then you get these these additional kind of kind of challenges of trying to appease both pros and and casual players.
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A Ashcraft: Right, I wonder if there will be a time where.
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A Ashcraft: One of these, one of these sports esports companies decides to basically just spur off.
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A Ashcraft: they’re like this is perfect this this game, as it is right now is perfect for competitive play.
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A Ashcraft: we’re going to just branch that off and we’re going to keep that we’re going to you know, keep it running keep it running exactly this way well, let the will that the the commercial portion of the game continue to evolve.
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Shlomo Sher: You see that happening, it because I kind of don’t.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: know no I don’t think, so I think it’s part of the appeal of the game that that, firstly, like the casuals play exactly the same game so it’s going to feel that you’re in the same space with the professionals and you can.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: empathize empathize with their with their.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Actions in the game and outside of the game and at the same time, I think, actually, there are some attempts now I might be wrong, but if its apex that is doing it right now but they’re trying to build separate kind of a professional and and and a casual.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: game up, so to say.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: And I don’t know if it’s going to work because because again like it’s um it’s also when it comes to the experience of that that that professional player, they also like to see change like it if you’re playing 16 hours a day, you really get bored at some point so it’s like.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Sure, want to maintain that pace, you really enjoy little changes to come.
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Shlomo Sher: So so everybody wants to change, but too much change too fast, is unfair to those people who have committed so much invested so much and preparing for the game, as it is well that that is a tough thing to balance.
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A Ashcraft: Right and I and i’m still on the fence about whether or not it’s unfair for those people certainly it’s a bummer.
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A Ashcraft: Right right if the game changes out from under them when they’re when they’re planning for it to be a certain way.
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A Ashcraft: But I don’t i’m still on i’m still not convinced that that’s a that’s a question of fairness.
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Shlomo Sher: um yeah and and and I agree, though it’s it’s interesting if, like for me to think it’s more unfair would be like.
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Shlomo Sher: If the because they all know it’s it works this way, it seems like this is just kind of part of the way things are, as opposed to changes suddenly coming out of nowhere, and no one expecting changes ever to come.
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Shlomo Sher: Right.
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Shlomo Sher: Right yeah that seems to me to be kind of more unfair yeah.
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A Ashcraft: For sure.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: You could probably say that it’s like the team that manages to build a roster that has those players who are capable of adapting I think that would be an argument for.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: right out of this.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: fairness of the system that that you need to build the team that he’s capable of constant adoptions, but yeah at the same time, then.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Instances like well somebody was just very good at doing some little thing and.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: And then suddenly this little thing becomes kind of the hardest thing the most efficient wind strategy of all and sudden somebody who had no skills whatsoever in the in the current dominant Meta becomes highly.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Efficient just because of this kind of a lottery that that I was just hitting the right right place.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: That doesn’t feel like like fair to the to the extreme.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: One thing that I like to well or do you guys.
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Shlomo Sher: Know it’s interesting it’s interesting it’s It really is just the game is changing, by chance right there’s a certain randomness to it and you need to evolve in your team, the flexibility to deal with randomness versus the company controlling the game.
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Shlomo Sher: Changing in a particular way that might be unfair right again notice right that there’s something maybe about this.
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Shlomo Sher: that there might be a difference between simply changing the game and changing in a particular way that somehow undermines the efforts that have been taken by by players but i’m really i’m really not sure, because I think we would have to get into the weeds with specifics right.
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Shlomo Sher: about how.
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Shlomo Sher: How exactly things might be changed.
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A Ashcraft: Right, I can imagine here’s here’s kind of a specific situation that I can imagine, where a company sees that this one Meta strategy is been dominant for too long.
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A Ashcraft: And they’re they’re looking and they’re they decide to make a change in order to to keep this team.
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A Ashcraft: From the top of the basically say this team this team is at the top of the ranks for too long the tournament system is getting stale because this team is seems to be unbeatable we should change the game, so that team is now beatable.
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Shlomo Sher: that’s a great example right because notice from the leaks perspective right you want that competition to increase interest in revenue for the League But is that really fair to the team just happens to be good.
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Shlomo Sher: Right right, I mean that’s that’s a that’s a like it, I like it in and.
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Shlomo Sher: It got go ahead manny and then, and then I want to move on to actually like player to player or team to.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: team right.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Right yeah I was just thinking isn’t that kind of thing that happens, especially in the US sports leagues like when the worst team is allowed to take the first droopy and so on, so on, so we have these balancing act in in a lot of sports where those.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: kind of regulating that league consciously give a little bit of a benefit for the lower teams and little bit of disadvantage for the opportunities so.
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A Ashcraft: So, so that, since we could.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Say that it’s already happening and.
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A Ashcraft: that’s right.
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A Ashcraft: Go ahead, I was going to give an example of of exactly that, when and and baseball major league baseball has been trying to you know.
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A Ashcraft: has been has been tweaking the the rules on how people are recruited and how money is spent to prevent the Boston red SOx from just winning every single year.
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A Ashcraft: And right.
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Shlomo Sher: Right and yeah and matt he’s right this happens in a lot of leaks that are sent you.
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Shlomo Sher: Trying to make sure that you don’t have this system dominance but i’m thinking it’s different than like you know the game involves a you know there’s in basketball, the three point line is let’s say you know.
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Shlomo Sher: X feed or meters away and i’ve developed a roster of great three point shooters right, and then you suddenly change the rules on me right, and my roster is not that good, because now it’s like it’s another meter back and they can’t do it and I right.
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A Ashcraft: And if that was targeted at you specifically I.
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Shlomo Sher: mean specifically right for being too good.
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A Ashcraft: For bad to good right.
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Shlomo Sher: Not for having too much nc interesting right, not because the problem with place maybe teams like red SOx or Yankees right maybe they have too much money right right.
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Shlomo Sher: As opposed to too much skill right.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay.
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A Ashcraft: I let so I interrupted matty though and i’d like to get back to.
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A Ashcraft: What he was about to say.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Oh yeah i’m maybe we’re moving to this direction as well, but just related to these big mega changes that in some games happen quite frequently.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Thinking of the individual players it’s also a huge kind of a physical and mental stress for the players to kind of forced them to learn the new strategies, all the time and it’s very, very.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: time consuming and energy consuming to to keep on learning the new kind of changes that happen in the game, and it means, basically, you have to stay up long night to to kind of learn those new.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: abilities and items and equipments the you need to need to kind of learn to use, and as long as the game keeps changing such a rapid pace it’s also not healthy like even physically mentally to do the players to be forced in this COPs wheel that they’re running maybe slow basis.
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Shlomo Sher: So notice by even let’s say this is not an issue of fairness, you can still talk about as an issue of responsibility right to.
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Shlomo Sher: taking care of the professional players that have you know put so much, and you know and love so much you know the you know this game that you’ve created your you’re hurting them.
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Shlomo Sher: Literally right.
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A Ashcraft: Although I would, I would like to push back a little bit on the idea that these people are forced to to do anything at all.
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Shlomo Sher: that’s the competition right right.
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A Ashcraft: I mean, in order to stay competitive right there what you’re saying is they, they need to do this in order to stay competitive.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: yeah yeah, we could say that the.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Those people who spend that 16 hours per day, training, they would do that anyway so so I guess.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: yeah it’s a it’s a matter of perspective.
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Shlomo Sher: And let’s talk 16 hours a day, my God.
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Shlomo Sher: yeah.
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A Ashcraft: 10 hours a day, is too much anyway, people should not be playing any game for 16 hours a day.
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Shlomo Sher: Well, but this is this is kind of interesting so maybe we could talk about this as a kind of other other issue right um it seems to me that if this is the kind the.
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Shlomo Sher: If this is the amount of workout that you need a practice that you need to compete right um.
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Shlomo Sher: And you’ve got a league where, if you don’t do that, essentially, you know, everybody else will be is there is there anything that essentially.
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Shlomo Sher: Unfair about and notice i’m using the word unfair, but I don’t know if unfair is right here, right, I mean.
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Shlomo Sher: Essentially, what you’ve got here is competition and you might say, competition just kind of works that way until but competition can be destructive in this way right and maybe this isn’t exactly an issue of fairness, maybe this is an issue of.
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Shlomo Sher: You know, again thinking about the humanity, the responsibility that again might have, but it seems like this isn’t the kind of thing, where you can CAP, the competition, you know the kind of practice hours in any way.
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Shlomo Sher: Unless you’ve.
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Shlomo Sher: got a believes and unions.
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A Ashcraft: Right, how could you possibly even enforce that.
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Shlomo Sher: yeah that’s it now, mind you, I mean there’s always a way to enforce it right, I mean you have you know you have your teams which are official teams register somewhere with software that essentially you know monitors that’s all that would always be.
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A Ashcraft: Always yeah there’s always ways around that right.
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Shlomo Sher: Right, but at least you’ve got you know at least you’ve got something and i’m not saying this necessarily should be done, but you know, the idea of well I don’t know I mean look, I mean for some people being an athlete is just a dream come true, and if that means spending 16 hours a day.
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Shlomo Sher: Sitting you know in front of a computer or hopefully taking some physical breaks and working out because he’s still need to be in good physical shape for this right, maybe that’s their choice and that’s worth it.
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Shlomo Sher: I want to move on, because I want to move on to now things that would might be unfair between teams or let’s say between players, so now let’s talk about direct competition.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Right um direct competition between teams, I would say, like one big thing, also in sports is, as we already talked about this is the kind of the budget thing so there’s a lot of teams that are.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: They have huge resources and they can buy the best players, and that makes things much easier, but of course.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Then.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Those other themes, with less resources, you could say it’s an unfair advantage but.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: I guess that’s also.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: I don’t know if it’s unfair like if and if it happens in all other sports as well, and you can really control that except with these things that we already mentioned again it’s missing.
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A Ashcraft: right again, I think we can look at at like salary caps look at the at the way non esports you know physical sports.
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A Ashcraft: handle these things they put salary caps in place, you know you can’t you can’t just buy the best players right you can’t there’s you know within your your limited in some ways, and how you can spend money.
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A Ashcraft: But there, of course, plenty of other ways, where you’re you’re not limited and and if any of those give you even a slightest advantage, even the smallest advantage, it makes sense to do that right.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Now there’s been a big discussion in esports regarding the regional restrictions so players are in many esports regionally locked so if you’re.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: If you’re nationalities from certain country are allowed to play in that.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: region but otherwise you would count towards the the limit which depending on the Games it’s something and.
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Shlomo Sher: What why.
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A Ashcraft: I guess that’s not work.
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Shlomo Sher: And again.
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Shlomo Sher: i’m highly digital and global is that I mean what what yeah what reason would they have for for doing that.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: um I think we have to go back to the very first things that that were mentioned, like the people want the cities and their teams to be Tom how local.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Basically, a.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Business perspective that they don’t want teams that are not not somehow local I don’t know if that’s the main argument, but he feels like it’s it’s a strategy for for business also there’s a lot of X men players in Asia and South Korea in China in particular and.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: I don’t know why that perhaps they’re afraid that that whole scene would be dominated by by players that are.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Not home right from your home city so.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: These things are.
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A Ashcraft: Right, so what they do is they, they lock people into their into regions so that so that other other regions can develop their own talent right.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Right, the talent development is a big big big thing and and kind of those.
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: subdivisions and leaks, where where talent is indeed devil that’s kind of the preferred model of creating a healthy healthy infrastructure, according to do some people.
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Shlomo Sher: So.
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Shlomo Sher: So who who’s who’s making these decisions, and this is this the so you know, is this an organization of teams that’s making the decision, or is this let’s say you know riot is making these decisions.
348
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: yeah the companies make this decision is just sorted by themselves, they have been formed by some yeah.
349
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Shlomo Sher: So it’s him so psoriasis thinking we want to play development all of the world, and this will help and right, as also thinking we want that seems to be local so they’ll have local fans and that’s overall better for us as a business.
350
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Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: yeah yeah I think.
351
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A Ashcraft: I haven’t heard anything about.
352
00:45:29.460 –> 00:45:37.320
A Ashcraft: The second part of that, but certainly the first part of that is true, where they would look at the they would look at the rankings and they would look at this and go.
353
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A Ashcraft: All right, these these handful of players are just going to stay at the top of the rankings unless we allow other players to develop in in you know in in other regions.
354
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Shlomo Sher: You know it’s interesting to be the think about you know.
355
00:45:57.210 –> 00:46:06.750
Shlomo Sher: If i’m one of these players and um let’s say the you know let’s say there’s five you know let’s say there’s a 50 players from the Shanghai region.
356
00:46:07.230 –> 00:46:17.940
Shlomo Sher: right that can make it that can really kind of make it thrive and i’m the 51st but i’m better than you know, a whole lot of people, you know down in like Sydney.
357
00:46:18.540 –> 00:46:29.550
Shlomo Sher: right that you know that, obviously, can also seem like it’s unfair that you’re excluding me from making use of my talents, simply because of where I live.
358
00:46:30.060 –> 00:46:42.360
Shlomo Sher: In order to make money right now notice in order to make money might itself be the wrong way to think about it, money might be a part of it, but you know spreading the love of the game right might be another part of it.
359
00:46:42.810 –> 00:46:59.130
Shlomo Sher: But right, you can see how this is this is in some sense a classic dilemma of figuring out what to do in these kinds of situations where you’re not going by strict meritocracy but you’re doing it to do, potentially further good you know, in the world.
360
00:46:59.730 –> 00:47:00.540
Shlomo Sher: And those.
361
00:47:00.600 –> 00:47:06.090
Shlomo Sher: That get shafted because their talents don’t get to be fully realized.
362
00:47:07.650 –> 00:47:10.770
Shlomo Sher: You know, do have a legitimate you know.
363
00:47:12.000 –> 00:47:19.020
Shlomo Sher: A legitimate arguments right that they’re being wrong, even though again the the policy in general might do some good.
364
00:47:19.860 –> 00:47:26.970
A Ashcraft: right for the for the larger Community yeah I think I think you also mentioned something that I would love maddie to comment on is.
365
00:47:28.080 –> 00:47:30.600
A Ashcraft: So we haven’t really talked about the money.
366
00:47:31.830 –> 00:47:39.270
A Ashcraft: And so you know they’re talking you’ve mentioned that you know some of these leagues might pay a million dollars for a player and then have that player not be useful.
367
00:47:39.630 –> 00:47:40.410
A Ashcraft: where’s that money.
368
00:47:40.590 –> 00:47:41.820
Shlomo Sher: Coming from teams.
369
00:47:42.120 –> 00:47:44.220
A Ashcraft: A team sorry, you have a team yes.
370
00:47:45.270 –> 00:47:50.370
A Ashcraft: where’s that money coming from and and how does that How does that play into this.
371
00:47:52.560 –> 00:47:54.930
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: yeah that’s a good question there’s been a long.
372
00:47:56.190 –> 00:48:02.370
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Discussion or, I guess, as long as the sport has existed for for 1020 years.
373
00:48:02.820 –> 00:48:11.490
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: it’s always been a bubble to some degree, that people say there’s a lot of investment, money that actually doesn’t really make any revenue, the companies are definitely doing well.
374
00:48:12.390 –> 00:48:22.410
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: But the teams that’s that’s kind of the big question mark did we don’t even know how how well the teams are doing obviously they have some sponsor money and.
375
00:48:23.130 –> 00:48:34.110
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: The fans are buying merchandise and things like this, but there’s definitely, especially in the US, a lot of esports are running by by investments done and we don’t know how the returns.
376
00:48:34.830 –> 00:48:52.500
A Ashcraft: Right sponsorship would be another good reason to have to have local, regional, you know competitions to right or and regional teams is because that’s the market for the product that you’re selling that you’re advertising basically by by buying a sponsorship right.
377
00:48:52.560 –> 00:49:02.730
Shlomo Sher: easiest way right to get set of fans is by attaching yourself to like a local right which is interesting because you know, a part of me is.
378
00:49:03.840 –> 00:49:14.940
Shlomo Sher: A part of me kind of wishes that that wasn’t remotely the case because here we have the possibility for global community, you know that essentially just focuses on talent alone.
379
00:49:15.270 –> 00:49:28.080
Shlomo Sher: You weren’t you know these kind of traditional rivalries and these you know these national boundaries that dividers can be gone and all we’re focusing is on you know the best player in you know, Kazakhstan.
380
00:49:28.440 –> 00:49:36.540
Shlomo Sher: right that happens to make it, you know it’s interesting I mean part of me is really disappointed by that another part of me is like oh yeah I could see I could see the point.
381
00:49:37.080 –> 00:49:45.480
A Ashcraft: Right, I mean it’s not that dissimilar from the Olympics, barring professional athletes, except when they you know, and of course that’s there was there have been.
382
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A Ashcraft: very controversial decisions where they have they have rescinded that and and and gone back on that and said all right, in this case in this sport it doesn’t make any sense.
383
00:49:56.910 –> 00:50:01.890
A Ashcraft: To bar these people, but just because they’re paid athletes and some other in some leak.
384
00:50:03.780 –> 00:50:04.170
Shlomo Sher: Okay.
385
00:50:06.330 –> 00:50:13.200
Shlomo Sher: Okay, so so going back to the money part right, so one thing that we found with the money is.
386
00:50:14.880 –> 00:50:26.730
Shlomo Sher: So Questions of transparency of who actually where’s the money coming from right um and we want to focus we’re still trying to focus on the competition as opposed to everything.
387
00:50:27.240 –> 00:50:45.540
Shlomo Sher: everything bad or ever sorry everything problematic about esports right, it would would take a few more episodes minimally right, we can do a whole podcast series on it, but if we’re looking for for for fairness right, obviously, the ability to buy players is is a big one right um.
388
00:50:47.100 –> 00:51:00.450
Shlomo Sher: Every other league or every other sport right has does something about that right is this the kind of thing that does this seem like just kind of an easy fix and esports we’re also you know the.
389
00:51:01.500 –> 00:51:09.660
Shlomo Sher: You know, again if we’re talking league of legends so riot essentially enact some sort of policy if you’re a team, you have to register, you have to be transparent about.
390
00:51:10.320 –> 00:51:26.700
Shlomo Sher: How much you’re paying your players there’s a maximum budget that you’re allowed to have we want to bring in you know it’s interesting because another thing that happens in traditional leagues is, you have a certain number of teams in a sport competitions.
391
00:51:27.870 –> 00:51:38.130
Shlomo Sher: I don’t think it works that way right you don’t have you also have a certain you have a certain number of qualified teams that make it into tournaments right from regional.
392
00:51:38.610 –> 00:51:45.450
Shlomo Sher: Right so it’s a different thing altogether so we’re in like a traditional league well let’s say I have like you know 12 teams.
393
00:51:45.750 –> 00:51:58.770
Shlomo Sher: I can say Okay, and the lowest ranked teams will get to spend more money this year, or something like that can you have something like that, because that’s supposed to make things more fair, can you have something like that, given the structure of esports.
394
00:52:00.750 –> 00:52:14.610
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: yeah so again have to remind that this so many different esports right regular differently so, for instance counter strike doesn’t have this franchise league structure so they have these major tournaments that are coming individual events and and they have their own.
395
00:52:15.120 –> 00:52:24.330
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: That also operated not all the tournament’s operated by by vault but by other independent organized it’s whereas, whereas.
396
00:52:24.780 –> 00:52:33.060
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: blizzard events and ride in it’s mostly mostly are by blizzard and right so so when it comes to these franchise leaks that they have.
397
00:52:33.810 –> 00:52:38.100
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Of course, like one of the big things and again similar to other sports is that, like.
398
00:52:38.310 –> 00:52:49.500
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: it’s okay to be the last team it’s okay to be the second last team you don’t really you don’t need to succeed you’re going to be okay anyway, because you will have your spot, which is highly expensive spot giving you a lot of.
399
00:52:50.340 –> 00:53:00.180
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: sponsorship opportunities and so on, it doesn’t necessarily really make sense, even to try and win because you’re still doing fine so what’s the what’s what kind of that.
400
00:53:01.230 –> 00:53:18.240
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: worth doing that and previously before the franchise kick in they have this kind of system where challenger teams could always challenge the last one in the in the major League and then you would have the opportunity to kind of jump in.
401
00:53:19.800 –> 00:53:32.100
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: This is now gone and that’s that’s it’s a very big question, I think, also from those companies side like, how can they really.
402
00:53:33.510 –> 00:53:41.880
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: encouraged the worst teams to perform and, should they do that, or is it is it just okay to be not necessarily interested in competition that much.
403
00:53:42.270 –> 00:53:49.860
A Ashcraft: I would know yeah are you saying that basically you buy your spot into into one of these leagues and that’s and that’s it.
404
00:53:50.760 –> 00:54:00.810
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: That was basically so there was a there was a kind of a certain time, when the spots were for sale and then you have it permanently.
405
00:54:01.800 –> 00:54:15.870
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: And you can’t really drop off ever unless you can sell your your spot for like, as happened in Europe know, for instance, to the shock it do they have some financial trouble and they sold their spot I think they.
406
00:54:17.010 –> 00:54:24.870
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: They 10 million euros for it and they sold it for 30 million last month, or something for another owner so.
407
00:54:27.180 –> 00:54:37.140
A Ashcraft: Right that’s sort of the way the taxi systems in New York, work and Los Angeles work right you buy a token and it’s yours, for your life now.
408
00:54:37.410 –> 00:54:52.470
Shlomo Sher: And no one could get in without buying one of those tokens from you right so yeah you have these spots, which is interesting, so you know your talent is not going to be the issue, the issue is can your organization come up with the money to buy a spot.
409
00:54:54.120 –> 00:54:55.140
Right wow.
410
00:54:56.700 –> 00:55:12.600
Shlomo Sher: um I, I want to kind of go beyond this now too, because you know i’m I want to ask, besides let’s say pay for better players can money buy anything else here how else can money help essentially one team versus another.
411
00:55:17.100 –> 00:55:27.390
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Good question um there’s been a lot of attempts to buy a lot of things in esports that that would and might benefit the team and the players but.
412
00:55:28.020 –> 00:55:39.450
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: it’s very don’t really know if these things for like there are these boot camps where you move your team to, for instance, South Korea or China to train.
413
00:55:39.960 –> 00:55:51.060
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: They have one of the things we haven’t talked yet, but that is relevant is because the players are training against other professional teams, as well as kind of on on.
414
00:55:52.470 –> 00:56:10.290
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: on their own spare time in the evening playing the the ranked server China and Korea have a lot of good teams, so a lot of European and American teams fly to China and Korea, because of the technological restriction of of the Ping so it’s.
415
00:56:11.340 –> 00:56:14.190
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Just too much d like basically.
416
00:56:15.210 –> 00:56:28.380
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: For Chinese and and let’s say American teams to play, together with the distance, so you have to physically fly to another location to train, so I guess those teams that have the resources can have more this.
417
00:56:29.070 –> 00:56:32.550
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: But i’m not sure there’s any kind of evidence that this is.
418
00:56:33.270 –> 00:56:43.980
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: highly beneficial it’s a lot of physical stress and mental stress for the players to travel such long distances get used to the environment and things like this, so it comes, also with a cost.
419
00:56:44.880 –> 00:56:58.620
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Also, equipment and and kind of psychologist and dietary experts, all these things, of course, they’re the best teams have all these things but it’s unclear how much they really work.
420
00:56:59.160 –> 00:56:59.610
A Ashcraft: Right.
421
00:56:59.670 –> 00:57:10.320
Shlomo Sher: Though you would think that would make you think they would make a difference, I mean playing against better players is practice, something that just that itself just seems like a really big deal right.
422
00:57:11.220 –> 00:57:18.180
Shlomo Sher: But how it bounces out i’m sure it’s yeah it’s hard to pick out exactly you know how beneficial any of these practices are.
423
00:57:19.260 –> 00:57:31.680
Shlomo Sher: You know, which is interesting, by the way, when we’re talking about not localization but right restricting people by location, I was thinking at the time, right that the you know the the pink Is it the pink rate.
424
00:57:31.860 –> 00:57:32.790
Shlomo Sher: Is that how you would call it.
425
00:57:33.090 –> 00:57:46.710
Shlomo Sher: Right right would would be would be another kind of aspect to that right, that if i’m if i’m in Shanghai and i’m competing in you know Berlin right i’m going to have lag where more local players right are going to be faster.
426
00:57:47.820 –> 00:57:58.080
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: yeah yeah I think that’s that’s one of the kind of a key issues in esports in general, which goes kind of beyond beyond the competing teams, because the biggest tournaments are always.
427
00:57:58.620 –> 00:58:15.600
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: In a local area, so you wouldn’t ever have the issue of being when it comes to the professional tournaments but on an individual players kind of perspective, where let’s say Australia is have always had this you know challenges that because the location, not all the.
428
00:58:15.630 –> 00:58:23.790
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Time and he’s provide them really good servers yeah so they basically have been excluded from a lot of seeds for a long time, also.
429
00:58:24.330 –> 00:58:39.840
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Many, many countries just were not close to these these major servers they really suffer like they don’t technically even have a chance to compete seriously because they are too far, leaving too far from the from the servers to have a decent thing to play.
430
00:58:41.010 –> 00:58:49.950
A Ashcraft: Now isn’t it true that a lot of these these, especially the big money tournaments they bring the players all together into a single place right.
431
00:58:51.660 –> 00:58:52.230
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Right yeah.
432
00:58:53.130 –> 00:58:59.250
A Ashcraft: So to basically get rid of the and they also provide them all, with the same with the same hardware.
433
00:59:00.180 –> 00:59:14.370
A Ashcraft: to play on right so that’s another way that like they’re the the tournament’s themselves are trying to prevent cheating through having better hardware having better Ping rates obvious things hang on just a second.
434
00:59:15.030 –> 00:59:29.850
Shlomo Sher: So yeah so let me, let me, let me ask you about that is that the case so essentially for for most the esports that the hardware is not your own the hardware you’re coming in, is giving to so everybody is play so no one can get a an unfair advantage.
435
00:59:31.170 –> 00:59:33.720
Shlomo Sher: By using modified hardware.
436
00:59:35.310 –> 00:59:41.520
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: yeah on a professional level that will be the case, like you can have your own amounts of something like this that are really, really.
437
00:59:41.880 –> 00:59:51.510
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Critical for a lot of players but, but all the other stuff like when we talk about software hacks like like things that happened on a public servers like well hacks and things like this.
438
00:59:51.840 –> 01:00:07.080
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: This wouldn’t really happening any contemporary sport anymore to any notable degree, but, of course, these things are standing in the public servers so so there can be they can be these kinds of things happening now right then.
439
01:00:07.560 –> 01:00:15.090
Shlomo Sher: I was thinking even you know modified keyboards right so that your keyboard is more responsive right or your mouse is more responsive right.
440
01:00:16.470 –> 01:00:20.310
Shlomo Sher: They are this case if they’re playing with the same hardware right you don’t have that sort of issue.
441
01:00:21.840 –> 01:00:22.860
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Right right that.
442
01:00:25.320 –> 01:00:28.620
Shlomo Sher: um What about sorry Andy did you want to say something.
443
01:00:28.620 –> 01:00:35.520
A Ashcraft: No, no, I was just gonna I was gonna ask about like what other ways can can the casual players cheat against one another.
444
01:00:37.980 –> 01:00:42.450
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: i’m casual players Well, this is quite a few few things you can do.
445
01:00:43.920 –> 01:00:48.810
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Of course, I guess, something that is begin, like we’re unique to esports is is boosting.
446
01:00:50.010 –> 01:01:01.140
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: basically means that you have a friend player account and your friend who is a highly skilled player will will basically increase your rank and you’re just watching watching from the side.
447
01:01:02.520 –> 01:01:03.930
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: yeah it’s it’s.
448
01:01:03.990 –> 01:01:12.360
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Quite quite a huge business in a lot of lot of places so so you can you can just Google boosting services for esports and and the company’s also.
449
01:01:12.870 –> 01:01:30.420
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: And that is very interesting to me because I tried to figure out this this a lot like Why do the companies allow this like don’t they have a legal kind of hand that can go go and take them down, but they just don’t want to take them down because it’s it’s it’s a good business as well.
450
01:01:30.690 –> 01:01:35.220
A Ashcraft: For the symbol, it seems like it would be very, very hard to hard to enforce.
451
01:01:35.820 –> 01:01:36.870
A Ashcraft: How do I know.
452
01:01:38.490 –> 01:01:39.450
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: They they have the.
453
01:01:39.480 –> 01:01:45.870
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: They have the tools to detect so so they can see who is playing your account based on the IP address and things like this, so.
454
01:01:46.410 –> 01:02:00.540
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: It wouldn’t be a technical problem for them, but it’s more like Why would be put so much money and resources on killing, something that is actually bringing us more money, the more players and the more services, the players are provided the better.
455
01:02:01.650 –> 01:02:05.070
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: But that that’s that’s something really specific to esports where.
456
01:02:06.150 –> 01:02:07.380
Shlomo Sher: How, a lot of money.
457
01:02:08.550 –> 01:02:11.880
Shlomo Sher: Right so yeah so how’s that bringing the money and i’m curious.
458
01:02:13.050 –> 01:02:27.570
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Well there’s there’s whenever you are, for instance, selling accounts, you have to create a new account if you want to CAP that account let’s say into a very highly ranked account that you will, for instance, sell to somebody.
459
01:02:28.200 –> 01:02:32.280
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: You will actually have to play hundreds of hours, maybe 1000 hours, maybe.
460
01:02:32.310 –> 01:02:46.290
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Nice some money to boost your experience speed up your experience game things like this, so, in the long term, when these services are huge business it’s still the last three months extra money for the company so.
461
01:02:46.560 –> 01:02:47.280
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Why would they.
462
01:02:47.700 –> 01:02:52.680
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: actually pay money to take this out because it’s not harming the professionals in anything.
463
01:02:53.010 –> 01:02:59.190
A Ashcraft: I remember, I remember probably 15 years ago, or maybe longer with legal or not it was I guess.
464
01:02:59.370 –> 01:02:59.940
Shlomo Sher: The work that.
465
01:03:00.270 –> 01:03:03.390
A Ashcraft: we’re the world of warcraft and and and ever quests before that.
466
01:03:04.590 –> 01:03:10.050
A Ashcraft: Even like big tech companies where we’re giving potential recruits.
467
01:03:11.670 –> 01:03:22.500
A Ashcraft: High Level characters as part of their recruitment packages, so you know join join my company and you’ll get a 68th level barbarian.
468
01:03:23.550 –> 01:03:27.300
A Ashcraft: As as part of your as part of your signing bonus.
469
01:03:28.560 –> 01:03:32.910
Shlomo Sher: hmm yeah that’s that’s that’s interesting though I mean it’s you know it’s.
470
01:03:32.940 –> 01:03:36.150
Shlomo Sher: You know, so you so you can play the game right, so you can be competitive.
471
01:03:36.630 –> 01:03:42.630
A Ashcraft: right but, but not for but it wouldn’t be the company that made a request, it would be just.
472
01:03:42.690 –> 01:03:43.470
Shlomo Sher: Another random.
473
01:03:43.530 –> 01:03:44.340
Shlomo Sher: tech company.
474
01:03:44.640 –> 01:03:48.720
A Ashcraft: Because I knew that that these guys were playing lots of requests.
475
01:03:49.560 –> 01:03:58.860
Shlomo Sher: Interesting yeah you know, though it’s interesting because part of me is you know because I want to focus on the east port part of it and it’s interesting right on.
476
01:03:59.400 –> 01:04:06.330
Shlomo Sher: The boosting part because you’re looking to boost in the ranks right so to hide let’s say a better character right, I mean.
477
01:04:06.780 –> 01:04:19.440
Shlomo Sher: We can go back to you know selling characters on wow right and all that but what’s the point of me getting a better rank character right i’m higher in the rankings what do I get that in terms of the.
478
01:04:19.830 –> 01:04:30.930
Shlomo Sher: esports competition because I mean if I don’t have the skill to do that, I mean, can I, how would I, how can I acquire the skill without you know going actually up in the rankings.
479
01:04:32.760 –> 01:04:44.940
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: I guess there’s two things like one is just, of course, to show up like you wanna show your friends and you also like to gain access to like what it what it feels to play in a really high ranked tier.
480
01:04:46.050 –> 01:04:53.010
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: The only way, you can access, that is to actually have an account that that is such high so some people just want to have that experience.
481
01:04:53.280 –> 01:05:04.560
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: But the other thing is that not all these boosting services to take hundred percent of character of the of the journey, but you can actually hire somebody who plays with you so.
482
01:05:04.590 –> 01:05:15.570
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: You are playing, together with somebody who is really kind of a bow the account level, which gives you a really easy way up regardless of your own skill right.
483
01:05:15.600 –> 01:05:18.480
A Ashcraft: And I suspect sponsorships might make it valuable to.
484
01:05:19.470 –> 01:05:28.530
Shlomo Sher: yeah yeah that’s that that’s that’s interesting um one thing we haven’t talked about yet is drugs or any kind of.
485
01:05:29.550 –> 01:05:30.660
Shlomo Sher: You know enhancer.
486
01:05:31.920 –> 01:05:34.770
Shlomo Sher: How, how would these fit into into esports.
487
01:05:36.780 –> 01:05:37.920
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: yeah I think this is kind of the.
488
01:05:38.940 –> 01:05:47.070
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: biggest challenges are like biggest the most serious let’s say this is most serious topic in terms of fairness and cheating esports.
489
01:05:48.780 –> 01:06:01.200
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: it’s a big thing that nobody really hasn’t got a great bonnie at how to deal with it so technically esports good just you know.
490
01:06:01.680 –> 01:06:15.810
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Work with what are something and and and come up with a dopey burger and we’re certain things are not allowed in players would be tested like like other sports people, but then again like esports is some such a.
491
01:06:17.760 –> 01:06:24.270
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: relatively new new thing that isn’t isn’t really on on the Olympics training yet so so there’s a lot of.
492
01:06:25.530 –> 01:06:34.200
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: challenges related to having such a such a systematic testing and things like this people don’t really know what it what it really means and what it would.
493
01:06:34.950 –> 01:06:45.960
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: also mean for the contracts of players who are having a contract with the profit making companies, then I bet there are a lot of kind of these PR things again involved.
494
01:06:46.890 –> 01:06:47.910
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: But yeah.
495
01:06:49.830 –> 01:06:50.370
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Of course.
496
01:06:51.420 –> 01:07:02.850
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: The second thing is that, like do they really want to do that because, like to some degree, we were always like there’s a paper by arm Florence chin.
497
01:07:04.320 –> 01:07:20.700
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: And I wrote some some years ago, and we were speculating with the idea, why did these words going to the esports direction like you can also say it’s a it’s a it’s a performance it’s like entertainment perform, and then you kind of wouldn’t be.
498
01:07:22.080 –> 01:07:34.410
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: In the same class as a sports like it wouldn’t necessarily be following the same kind of ethics as as as this competition at the extent that you would just be an entertainer as a player and, in this case.
499
01:07:34.860 –> 01:07:43.320
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: You would kind of you wouldn’t have to worry about the doping park that much but, of course, how things went we can really go for that option.
500
01:07:44.760 –> 01:07:45.300
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: it’s.
501
01:07:45.390 –> 01:07:47.460
A Ashcraft: Well that’s interesting because there are other.
502
01:07:47.490 –> 01:07:55.320
A Ashcraft: There are other games now rising in popularity and we’re seeing things games like role playing games where it’s not competitive it’s cooperative.
503
01:07:56.790 –> 01:08:04.680
A Ashcraft: and become very popular things to watch on on you know, on YouTube but on on on on twitch.
504
01:08:05.880 –> 01:08:13.680
A Ashcraft: And these and these could be what you’re talking about where it’s more about you know entertainment performances.
505
01:08:14.550 –> 01:08:26.610
A Ashcraft: Right and they dress up in costumes and they do, and they they they it’s that’s more I think what you’re what you’re sort of getting out that like we could have gone that way it just we happen to go in this other direction, with the competitive super competitive gaming.
506
01:08:27.990 –> 01:08:31.950
A Ashcraft: But I think it might actually be doing both right now we might actually be saying.
507
01:08:33.030 –> 01:08:34.110
A Ashcraft: Both of these things happen.
508
01:08:34.710 –> 01:08:43.560
Shlomo Sher: You know, we don’t have when we think about sports, I mean we don’t have cooperative sports right, well, we have cooperation we call it a performance right.
509
01:08:44.400 –> 01:08:54.000
A Ashcraft: Right, I mean when we have when we have sporting events that are sort of done for entertainment, I mean all sporting events are are put on for entertainment right but.
510
01:08:54.390 –> 01:08:56.340
A Ashcraft: But then you think about the ones that are like.
511
01:08:56.520 –> 01:09:05.340
A Ashcraft: really meant that way you think about Harlem globetrotters or you know where you know it’s, it is the sport, but it’s also not really the sport.
512
01:09:05.820 –> 01:09:10.320
A Ashcraft: or wrestling where it is the sport, but it’s also kind of very performative.
513
01:09:10.890 –> 01:09:16.230
Shlomo Sher: Right, I would say both neither I would say, neither one of those are sports, you know or the Harlem globetrotters.
514
01:09:17.010 –> 01:09:19.080
A Ashcraft: fighters are very much playing basketball.
515
01:09:19.200 –> 01:09:22.590
Shlomo Sher: Right, but you know they’re entertainers that do it, you know.
516
01:09:22.740 –> 01:09:24.750
A Ashcraft: it’s not really being competitive.
517
01:09:24.750 –> 01:09:25.650
A Ashcraft: Right they’re just not.
518
01:09:26.070 –> 01:09:27.780
A Ashcraft: presenting themselves as a competitive.
519
01:09:27.780 –> 01:09:35.430
Shlomo Sher: thing right and wrestlers are not there to focus on wrestlers you know wrestling they’re there to entertain where, if you have like.
520
01:09:35.730 –> 01:09:44.550
Shlomo Sher: You know if you got the professional basketball game they’re here to you know test their mettle right there there to compete, and you know we’re here to watch.
521
01:09:44.880 –> 01:09:45.720
Shlomo Sher: entertainment is.
522
01:09:45.750 –> 01:09:47.760
Shlomo Sher: them competing and then seem to be.
523
01:09:48.150 –> 01:09:49.560
Shlomo Sher: really clear priority there.
524
01:09:49.680 –> 01:09:56.220
A Ashcraft: We tend to think about that right, we tend to we tend to think that if it’s not fully competitive it’s not really a sport.
525
01:09:59.280 –> 01:10:08.250
Shlomo Sher: yeah which is, which is kind of interesting Okay, but that that’s kind of interesting just in its own way right where where does the game become a sport and all that.
526
01:10:09.630 –> 01:10:26.430
Shlomo Sher: But I still want to keep us on track with the with with with the fairness for a suppose because again there’s so many things we could ask about esports in general, I still want to go back to to the drugs obsesses I feel like we haven’t talked about what is the concern and so.
527
01:10:28.470 –> 01:10:30.690
Shlomo Sher: You know, when it comes to doping.
528
01:10:31.860 –> 01:10:37.470
Shlomo Sher: You know, it seems that you know your traditional concern is essentially.
529
01:10:39.000 –> 01:10:58.830
Shlomo Sher: twofold number one the fairness issue, and you know which is, if you know i’m you know if if i’m getting an unfair advantage by using some sort of enhancer and the idea, there is the enhancer is inappropriate because it’s.
530
01:10:59.880 –> 01:11:13.350
Shlomo Sher: And then you got your rationale right, you know, maybe because it’s against the rules, but of course why the why those rules, maybe because it’s not natural and this is supposed to be a natural competition.
531
01:11:14.460 –> 01:11:31.680
Shlomo Sher: Maybe you know, for what it or maybe because it’s going to lead to harm right and we’re trying to protect the all the competitors from runaway competition and this restricts it to a way where we could all do it without essentially getting hurt How do people see the you know.
532
01:11:33.480 –> 01:11:42.660
Shlomo Sher: A drug in any kind of enhancement and fairness in esports is it is it like this traditional perspective, or is it somewhat different.
533
01:11:45.030 –> 01:12:03.000
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: And that that’s a good question because, again, like the companies make your own rules and some of the companies do have clear rules that arm I don’t i’m not sure if they actually have a list of things that you’re not supposed to take, but i’m sure they they might have some.
534
01:12:04.230 –> 01:12:09.510
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: guidelines that implicitly say that don’t take riddling when you’re when you’re playing things like this.
535
01:12:10.560 –> 01:12:18.300
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: So in this sense, like if you’re using stuff like that, then you would be playing on a fairly against the rules.
536
01:12:18.660 –> 01:12:26.640
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: But in many scenarios, these are not the rules so so a lot of tournaments and companies don’t have such restrictions so, then you would.
537
01:12:27.150 –> 01:12:41.550
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Only be kind of on that, on the health side of things that it would be unethical to encourage young players to use stuff that improve their performance, with the whole book reaching some big price My instinct is like this, so.
538
01:12:42.180 –> 01:12:42.810
A Ashcraft: yeah it’s.
539
01:12:43.620 –> 01:12:50.970
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: it’s a tough question and I guess it ultimately goes always kind of down to their to their health things there’s an excellent.
540
01:12:52.620 –> 01:13:02.340
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: One one from comic by the X key CD not sure if you know that regarding kind of the survivorship bias and.
541
01:13:03.720 –> 01:13:19.410
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: it’s it’s like this person on it on a podium with a lot of money, money on around around them and saying that just keep believing in yourself and buy lottery tickets by more water tickets and you will you will make a dime a live improved, but so it’s like.
542
01:13:20.610 –> 01:13:31.860
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: To believe that these companies like in terms of like ethics of running an esports company and I don’t know if this is actually the responsibility of the companies or if it’s a bigger thing that we need to tackle that.
543
01:13:32.370 –> 01:13:42.930
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: The idea that the young people who see these rock stars playing playing whatever esports, it is becoming millionaires and kind of building these iconic images of.
544
01:13:43.890 –> 01:14:01.980
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: just keep training 16 hours a day and and and just eat whatever doping, you might be allowed to, and you will make it one day it’s not necessarily what we want young people to to kind of see so so that’s I guess very closely tied to the stoppage.
545
01:14:03.150 –> 01:14:04.170
A Ashcraft: yeah very much so.
546
01:14:04.860 –> 01:14:14.190
Shlomo Sher: So in this case, so it seems that to me, then, that the the general idea is pretty much the same as in traditional sports, even though the.
547
01:14:15.450 –> 01:14:24.090
Shlomo Sher: The drugs themselves might be different right so and then I mean God, I mean focus enhancing drugs can do so much for your play.
548
01:14:24.810 –> 01:14:34.230
Shlomo Sher: right but you’ve got these kind of concerns of what it’s going to do to the League in the long run, what it’s going to do to its image what it’s going to do to its fans what it’s going to do to the players.
549
01:14:34.530 –> 01:14:40.260
Shlomo Sher: Right, and you know that can be said for any kind of other enhancers and any other any other kind of sports.
550
01:14:41.310 –> 01:14:43.890
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: yeah right and there’s also the physical thing.
551
01:14:44.970 –> 01:14:50.160
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Which is kind of interesting like if you have any traditional physical sport, you probably.
552
01:14:51.420 –> 01:15:05.580
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: can only practice let’s say two or four hours a day that’s pretty much maximum for anyone if you’re let’s say you’re running can really run more than four hours a day, depending on what you do it might be beneficial just do like one or two hours a day or something like that, then.
553
01:15:06.030 –> 01:15:07.080
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: You can do all kinds of.
554
01:15:07.290 –> 01:15:18.300
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: kind of exercises and stretching and things like this, but that’s pretty much the maximum you can put this kind of organic CAP for what I can do you know, or to be the best you can.
555
01:15:18.660 –> 01:15:30.090
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: But even in sports, because the physical element is so different it’s all about this accuracy and kind of focus and things like this, you can actually do that 16 hours and you need to do that.
556
01:15:30.720 –> 01:15:35.700
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: to some degree, of course, there are a lot of good players who are doing much less like like.
557
01:15:36.330 –> 01:15:46.440
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: We have some evidence of teams doing four to six hours per day and they’re still doing very well, but but, considering that a lot of top players do that 16 hours.
558
01:15:47.190 –> 01:16:03.270
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: that’s that’s something kind of specific to do esports and and also some similar sports that kind of allow that extreme practice from day to day without getting yourself necessarily heard of course again like we have these rich problems and back problems things like this.
559
01:16:03.300 –> 01:16:22.590
Shlomo Sher: And how do you do that without adderall is you know continually right, I mean is is kind of the question, if you set the level of competition, you know it’s it’s interesting that this that this is a problem that the limits of the physical body, mostly well plus drug testing, you know.
560
01:16:23.070 –> 01:16:24.690
Shlomo Sher: Right up in regular sports.
561
01:16:24.720 –> 01:16:29.580
A Ashcraft: But don’t you feel like like our physical limits are just we know them better.
562
01:16:30.600 –> 01:16:34.260
A Ashcraft: Our psychological and our mental limits are just not as well understood.
563
01:16:34.500 –> 01:16:47.040
A Ashcraft: And it might be the case that that four to six hours is is all you can really do, and this kind of thing too, but we just don’t know it, yet we just don’t have that that that scientific data to back it up.
564
01:16:48.090 –> 01:17:00.570
Shlomo Sher: yeah interesting and we also have you know we have data that shows us that you know many, many, many people play video games for 12 hours a day, with no problem as far as they they’re concerned.
565
01:17:00.750 –> 01:17:01.890
Shlomo Sher: Right, so no.
566
01:17:02.070 –> 01:17:03.630
Shlomo Sher: Again, no, but this is.
567
01:17:03.690 –> 01:17:06.360
A Ashcraft: Different than then gain right.
568
01:17:06.780 –> 01:17:17.430
A Ashcraft: Right, it might be there might be a real cap on how much gain, you can get and then at that point you’re just spending time and it might not be actually very, very useful at all.
569
01:17:18.180 –> 01:17:31.650
Shlomo Sher: Though notice that’s a matter, all this is a matter of efficiency right, not necessarily fairness, though, you know it to me it’s really interesting kind of how do you keep things fair, while also keeping things safe.
570
01:17:32.730 –> 01:17:33.900
Shlomo Sher: You know, is is.
571
01:17:33.960 –> 01:17:37.830
A Ashcraft: is great and that’s that’s the that’s the ethical question right it’s it’s.
572
01:17:38.400 –> 01:17:47.670
A Ashcraft: it’s it’s balancing like the the the moment to moment fairness to the long term health of not only the players, but of the industry.
573
01:17:48.300 –> 01:17:49.110
A Ashcraft: Right right.
574
01:17:49.170 –> 01:17:51.120
A Ashcraft: and your fan base and everything else.
575
01:17:51.630 –> 01:17:57.840
Shlomo Sher: Right, and you know, once you get into stuff like this, where I be you also get into, of course, the people who.
576
01:17:59.250 –> 01:18:10.320
Shlomo Sher: You know, unlike traditional sports right, the people who have prescriptions for adderall now most people have prescriptions for admirals you know are bullshit and you know, at least in American colleges.
577
01:18:11.790 –> 01:18:30.570
Shlomo Sher: Right, but certainly there’s people who obviously really need adderall and add rock and help them a whole lot and other another kind of stuff like that, and of course that itself makes it very hard to there’s not too many you know people that need steroids right.
578
01:18:31.710 –> 01:18:33.480
Shlomo Sher: Right in this kind of same sense.
579
01:18:34.500 –> 01:18:44.190
Shlomo Sher: Where with adderall it seems that it’s very hard to kind of decide what do you do with with people who have authentic need authentic prescriptions for it.
580
01:18:45.270 –> 01:18:51.480
Shlomo Sher: You know doesn’t this give them an advantage and unfair advantage right how, how can they how, how can you deal with that.
581
01:18:52.920 –> 01:18:55.380
Shlomo Sher: i’m gonna go ahead and it and.
582
01:18:55.980 –> 01:18:58.710
Shlomo Sher: Then I want to wrap it up and ask you one final question.
583
01:18:58.800 –> 01:19:00.510
Shlomo Sher: Because I think we’re over an hour at this point.
584
01:19:00.600 –> 01:19:03.330
A Ashcraft: And yeah and i’ve got one one final question as well.
585
01:19:03.720 –> 01:19:14.250
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Okay yeah I was just thinking about traditional sports like isn’t an accident that half of the runners long distance runners have asked them so that they can have those those medications so it’s.
586
01:19:14.280 –> 01:19:14.610
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: it’s I.
587
01:19:14.640 –> 01:19:23.490
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: think in the long term, we can also see in esports when we have got a very clear evidence that that these things are on really.
588
01:19:23.820 –> 01:19:34.950
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: improve your performance they keep on getting these these recipes and we can’t just like can, unfortunately, it seems like it’s impossible to change this, the history has stopped for my response.
589
01:19:35.130 –> 01:19:45.240
Shlomo Sher: that’s interesting though, you would think that because the examples a great example alright, so you would think that you could have people from the League that essentially.
590
01:19:45.720 –> 01:20:02.700
Shlomo Sher: would say this is suspicious one we run them through our own medical experts, of course, that’s that costs money right, but you know in leagues, where you have a lot of money right that’s not an issue right and there’s already a you know.
591
01:20:04.230 –> 01:20:04.530
Shlomo Sher: there’s.
592
01:20:04.560 –> 01:20:14.490
A Ashcraft: there’s an issue of medical privacy to that we’re we’re very we’re very conscious of of who gets to know what our bodies are are doing.
593
01:20:15.150 –> 01:20:22.170
Shlomo Sher: yeah you know that’s interesting, but you would think that this might be less the case if you’re submitting yourself to a competition.
594
01:20:22.800 –> 01:20:35.100
Shlomo Sher: Voluntarily right i’m not forcing you to give me, you know private medical information, but if you want to join my competition, this is one of the criteria that you might need to subject yourself to.
595
01:20:35.190 –> 01:20:37.770
A Ashcraft: But if this is my career, and this is the way that I make a living.
596
01:20:38.970 –> 01:20:40.680
A Ashcraft: And isn’t that unfair as well.
597
01:20:42.240 –> 01:20:51.030
Shlomo Sher: um you know if the way you’re making a living might be unfair to other players right because you might be cheating right so.
598
01:20:51.090 –> 01:20:52.200
A Ashcraft: yeah you’re right, I mean I.
599
01:20:52.440 –> 01:20:58.470
Shlomo Sher: I think we got I think we need to balance both both of those things, of course, ideally, in order to even begin your career.
600
01:20:58.950 –> 01:21:07.380
Shlomo Sher: You would have had to potentially gone through my medical screening let’s say so you knew it ahead of time right so it’s not like you know.
601
01:21:07.980 –> 01:21:19.170
Shlomo Sher: it’s very rare for sports to do what maddie told us, you know the Indies esports professional face right this sudden change right mostly you kind of knew what the rules were when you got it.
602
01:21:19.650 –> 01:21:30.870
A Ashcraft: yeah they’re they’re constantly tinkering tinkering I mean the rule book for for American football is like it’s like this thick they’re constantly adding and changing and tinkering with the rules, but they’re usually tinkering with the rules.
603
01:21:31.290 –> 01:21:38.940
A Ashcraft: Around the outside and they’re going to do it between the seasons they’re not going to do it in the middle of the season, you know there’s there’s sort of ways of doing it.
604
01:21:39.870 –> 01:21:42.510
Shlomo Sher: Because you’re not because you’re not affecting casual players.
605
01:21:42.690 –> 01:21:44.370
A Ashcraft: Right So yes, you.
606
01:21:44.550 –> 01:21:48.030
A Ashcraft: So so sheila you have one last question for him, and then I have one last question for him.
607
01:21:48.450 –> 01:21:49.890
Shlomo Sher: Okay, I want to know.
608
01:21:51.180 –> 01:22:01.980
Shlomo Sher: You know briefly because we’re we’re we’re you know we’ve we’ve gone pretty long, are there any specific changes or additions that you haven’t mentioned that you think esports.
609
01:22:02.790 –> 01:22:11.280
Shlomo Sher: really should undergo in order to make it more fair and I realized to say it is already kind of begging the question because.
610
01:22:11.970 –> 01:22:19.860
Shlomo Sher: it’s them and it’s lots of different very different leagues, but I already kind of general things that that you think would need to happen to make it sports more fair.
611
01:22:21.660 –> 01:22:28.680
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: yeah I might have mentioned this already earlier, but I think like the companies need to have somebody to watch the watchers they.
612
01:22:29.190 –> 01:22:38.250
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: We need sort of a third parties that look at the decisions made by made by the companies when it comes to, especially the individual players and also also teams.
613
01:22:38.850 –> 01:22:49.950
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: These things need more transparency and also kind of third third party assessment so that would be something that that each sport that would be considered.
614
01:22:51.900 –> 01:23:00.060
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: A significant significant player in the field, they they would need to have a sort of a party that looks after them, but of course coming up with that that kind of an.
615
01:23:01.440 –> 01:23:18.030
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Oregon be would be already a challenge again how, how do these big profit making companies get along and kind of can agree on a party that would be equal for everyone, what does it do to the business I don’t know if it’s if it’s possible in practice I would think you know.
616
01:23:18.300 –> 01:23:25.590
Shlomo Sher: Any I would think that lots of things like that would be driven by fan fan demand, you know or or competitive demand.
617
01:23:26.610 –> 01:23:30.360
A Ashcraft: I always want game designers to be involved in it, but you know that’s me.
618
01:23:33.300 –> 01:23:35.910
A Ashcraft: So so maddie all right My final question to you.
619
01:23:37.620 –> 01:23:38.640
A Ashcraft: Is this.
620
01:23:40.050 –> 01:23:53.430
A Ashcraft: How did you how did you get to how did you decide to focus on on this on on talking on like on your esports and I know that you, you wrote you wrote a book about esports play and.
621
01:23:54.240 –> 01:24:04.710
A Ashcraft: And I well I definitely want to have you back at some point to talk about psycho psycho ludic development because that’s just that that word itself is probably worth an hour’s worth of discussion.
622
01:24:06.360 –> 01:24:09.930
A Ashcraft: But how did you what inspired you to do this, how did you get here.
623
01:24:12.270 –> 01:24:23.190
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: um I guess it’s it’s I have this background, as a as a writer like like a more than a decade ago I did some marathon running and and when i’ve been.
624
01:24:23.970 –> 01:24:33.840
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Working with games, for a long time, and when when esports started to like these big esports game started to emerge and and I saw what was happening in them.
625
01:24:34.350 –> 01:24:46.140
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: I thought it was exactly the same as happened with the with traditional sports, I felt it was very exciting to see how the same thing is is not just taking new format and how it has these.
626
01:24:47.190 –> 01:24:50.400
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: Like there are these interesting restaurant like how to say that, like.
627
01:24:51.990 –> 01:25:03.450
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: connection points, but at the same time, really unique things that you never thought would actually be a question and also related to kind of this cycle of development, hard work where.
628
01:25:04.890 –> 01:25:20.130
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: We have these these kind of mental health questions and on the other hand, like like in both positive and negative and something that is neither sense that people people grow into them and then they move on and.
629
01:25:21.450 –> 01:25:31.320
Veli-Matti Karhulahti JYU: yeah I guess that’s that’s sort of a personal personally interest growing up over the years, seeing seeing esports developers part of our other other culture.
630
01:25:32.880 –> 01:25:33.420
A Ashcraft: that’s great.
631
01:25:34.830 –> 01:25:52.710
Shlomo Sher: All right, um i’m going to i’m going to end it yeah because i’m looking i’m looking at the clock yeah all right maddy Thank you so much for coming on our show that there’s so much more for us, obviously, to say about esports and we need to further episodes to look into this stuff um.
632
01:25:53.730 –> 01:25:57.090
Shlomo Sher: Alright, everybody sorry, let me, let me do this again.
633
01:25:58.680 –> 01:26:00.150
Shlomo Sher: All right, good podcast guys.
634
01:26:01.320 –> 01:26:02.100
Shlomo Sher: play nice everyone.
