Gauteng thumped the less experienced Mpumalanga team, but for competitive gamers the importance of these competitions go beyond winning or losing.
The teams competed in two gaming titles that Collin Webster, general secretary of organising body Mind Sports South Africa (MSSA), describes as relatively new to the competitive gaming environment in South Africa: Counter Strike: Go and Defence of the Ancients 2 (DotA 2).
Webster explained eSports as “competitively engaging in video gaming on either a computer or gaming console. Inter-Provincial competition has been fascilitated by MSSA for a while,” said Webster. “But this was the first time these two teams came together to compete and the first time these two games were used in the competition.”
MSSA is the only body of its kind in South Africa, regulating the competitive play of sports using the mind, such as card gaming and board games. eSports are a big part of what the organisation does.
Webster feels that these inter-provincial competitions are crucial to the development of competitive video gaming in South Africa. “We have some unique problems here [in South Africa]. The sheer distance between us and places like Europe and America makes sending our gamers overseas very difficult.
“The internet doesn’t help either, as our gamers experience significant lag [slow internet speeds] both because of the distance and because of our infrastructure,” he said.
Gauteng beat Mpumalanga 16/6 to 16/5 in Counter Strike: Go and 53/19 to 40/11 in DotA 2.
Webster said video gaming is far more than just recreation. “Gaming can be a career…if you treat it like any other true sport, commitment is key.”
Most important for Webster is the wider application of skills gained from competitive video gaming. “Playing video games improves electronic literacy (sic); receiving colours from MSSA also puts gamers in line for bursaries at university and other kickbacks.”
