Competitive gaming in South Africa at a crossroads

The state of competitive gaming in South Africa finds itself at a crossroads. This is according to South African eSports team manager Ryan Boyes.

Boyes told MyGaming that competitive gaming is seeing increased prize-money from marketing companies for competitive gaming events.

There is also basic development done to improve the standard of eSports by organizations like the MSSA.

“However, while the prize-money offered may tempt many gamers, the prize-money does not improve standards, nor does it help to grow eSports as a sport,” said Boyes.

He explained that one just has to look at the performance of South Africa’s “professional teams” to see how woefully short they fall of international standards.

“On the other hand, the national teams who represent South Africa with pride are currently ranked by IeSF as being 12th in the world,” said Boyes.

Unless there is a general growth at grass-roots level, said Boyes, there will never be a sustainable growth in both numbers and standard in gaming in South Africa.

“Thus the growth in competitive gaming in official structures is improving on a year-to-year basis, whereas the standard among the non-accredited organisations seems to be floundering,” said Boyes.

South Africa versus global standards

Boyes said that, compared to the international scene, South Africa has a long way to go.

“Unfortunately, we are cut off from the rest of the world competitively, due to distance and ping,” Boyes said.

“This means it’s difficult for players to get experience from a wider pool of players, like in Europe for example.”

“We are in the situation where, in most games, we have isolated ourselves to local servers instead of international servers due to high pings.”

He said that countries like Sweden, Finland and Denmark are close enough that they can play against each other without latency concerns.

“This in turn fuels rivalry and competitiveness between countries and players, which pushes players to work harder. This means the skills of players are better,” he said.

Original source Mygaming