A lot of publishers are really starting to get behind Esports these days, with multimillion-dollar tournaments taking place all over the world. But esports isn’t something new, it has been around for a long time, but is only now starting to take the spotlight in a big way. At QuakeCon this year id Software Studio Director Tim Willits proclaimed, “QuakeCon is the place where esports began over 20 years ago and we are still going strong.”
While at QuakeCon, Stevivor spoke to Pete Hines, Senior Vice President of Bethesda, to find out if the publisher is going to be putting more focus into Esports with their titles.
“I wouldn’t say we are moving a lot more of our focus into Esports, because we’re not moving away from our other stuff,” Hines said.
“We’re going to continue to grow and evolve these things, and I think we want to do it at the right speed and the right way in both the case of Quake Champions and The Elder Scrolls: Legends. Our approach has been that we want to foster and grow at the grassroots – the lower level things that don’t require you to be one of the best players in the world. It’s just a fun thing that you might want to participate in. This is how it should be regardless of whether it is in game or the smaller cups that we do for Legends, or whether it is in this larger venue where you are seeing the more skilled players competing at a really high level.
“Quite honestly, watching those guys play their decks and make these really intricate plays makes me want to play Legends, because I just get excited about the complexity, the interesting choices, and these back and forth battles that you can have. Or even watching someone playing Quake Champions really skilfully, makes me want to jump in and try some crazy things I saw them do. Or learn the maps better so I know that when I see someone shooting rockets at random doors that it’s not really random – they know where the opponent was a moment ago and how long it would take for them to get to those doors, they are hedging their bets that this is where they think they are going. You have to appreciate that level of skill and then when you see it you are like, ‘Well hell, I want to try that too.’
“When I was younger watching the World Cup our favourite thing to do at half-time was we would go out the back and play soccer. We would watch a bunch of people be awesome, and I wanted to go out there and try do a bicycle kick. In a lot of ways esports is like that, you get to see high level play and that gives you ideas for things that you want to try or learn.”
Luke Lawrie traveled to Dallas, U.S.A as a guest of Bethesda at QuakeCon.
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