Tapping Into
E-Sports
A Profile about Sean
Langhi By Hunter Coffman
T
he rapid tapping of rubber and plastic keys on a handheld controller, in almost a rhythmic pattern, cause characters in a game titled Project M to fight: throwing punches, flinging kicks, and pummeling enemies until victory. Our eyes focus on the screen for the four minutes our match lasts, emotion void from our faces as we invest every brain cell into making the proper move at the right time. Sean commands his character to sprint immedi-
ately at me, both of our characters nearing death. Gracefully he lunges and throws his character’s knee directly into the chest of my own, sending me immediately flying off the stage. As our emotionless faces turn to smiles I congratulate him on his victory and he offers a few pointers. I ask to start the interview and he gleefully accepts. Once I set up, I ask Sean the initial question, one that digs into the roots of his passion: “What got you into
gaming as a form of entertainment?� He nonchalantly lays back on his bed, I can sense a story coming. Sean depicts the scene in vivid detail, although he was only three at the time it occurred: the image of the once-titan company Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI) - the same company his father currently worked for. SGI worked directly with Nintendo in the production of the Nintendo 64, arguably one of the most revolutionary consoles of all time.
“I held this mysterious,
alien, plastic
controller. The buttons felt like magic”.
“In every rec room of the company was an N64. One day [my father] thought it would be fun to take me by the hand tottling onto the SGI campus and into the rec hall and onto a purple couch... I held this mysterious, alien, plastic controller. The buttons felt like magic”(Langhi). Within a few seconds Sean heard a loud “kaching” noise and the picture of a character who would define an industry showed up: Mario. As Sean returns to the present, he mentions a feeling
that I also felt at one point during my youth: an insatiable hunger for video games. Recently, video games have started to garner views as both a legitimate sport and a professional career. DOTA 2, an online game where two teams of five compete to destroy the enemy’s base, is one of the forerunners in respect to the E-sports community. Playing even one match in-
volves dedication, as individual matches can range from forty five minutes to as long as an hour. According to Owen S. Good, a writer for Polygon, the DOTA 2 2014 International Championship offered a prize pool of $10,887,235 and the winning team alone would net $5,008,128; after divvying it all up, each player earned $1,001,625. Needless to say, these professional gamers are not poor by any means. Despite the success of these professional gamers, many people still adamantly believe that video games are not a career and don’t deserve to be seen as sports. While the stereotype of an overweight male living in a basement playing games all day persists, it is being thwarted by the efforts of people like Sean and other tourney-goers who challenge and hope to destroy this perpetuated stereotype. Sean sees the opportunity in this ever-growing community and hopes to lead it in a positive direction with his company’s
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influence. Though Sean very much believes in the future success of E-sports, he often stresses that very few will ever become professionals. Of course, you can still have a great time and make friends at social events such as tournaments. The long-standing community for the game Sean plays, Super Smash Brothers, has been in competitive existence for about fourteen years. Its first prominent feature was in the Major League Gaming in 2006. The series is already approaching its fourth iteration, but Sean has been a competitive player since the second game, Melee. Through hours of practicing basic maneuvers all the way up to the advanced mind games, he’s truly become a force to to be reckoned with in the Northern California Smash community. In early 2014, Sean envisioned an event of massive scale for a community that often goes unnoticed, resulting in the event known as Smash@
Google. In only four days Sean was able to coordinate all the logistics for an entire one hundred sixty-person tourna-
success, but this was only the beginning. After seeing the potential for success in his tournament, he thirsted for more. I stepped onto Google’s campus and instantly knew where the Super Smash Brothers tournament was. As I walked in, I saw the tournament was already underway. Right outside the venue, a whiteboard was adorned with the large type “Smash@Google 2.0”. Inside, every television was matched with two or more players, all with large grins across their faces. As I found my way up to the front of the venue, I saw Sean and his peer performing ment, while obtaining a venue a sacred duty at gaming tourat Google’s headquarters. This was a huge undertaking, to say naments: shoutcasting. The the least. In this miniscule nine- two of them were watching ty-six hour window, Sean found live matches being held at the a full group of tournament offi- tournament and adding live cials to commentate and judge commentary to be added to an online stream of the tournamatches. At the end of the tourment. The two players chose nament, many attendees avidly their characters and the round thanked Sean for his effort in began. Almost immediately a conducting such a huge event. large “FIGHT!” flashed onto the Sean was pleased with his screen and the two characters
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were throwing punches and kicks at each other, rapidly moving in order to predict the enemy’s movements. Even more amazingly, however, were what Sean and his partner were doing: stringing together technical terms while intertwining interesting, engaging commentary even those who had seldom played the game could understand. There was a fire in Sean’s eyes, a burning excitement for the unpredictable ending to every intense match-up. At that very second, Sean knew his original visions of Super Smash Brothers as a competitive sport had come to life. As ardent fans joined both online and in-person to watch him shoutcast these matches, the competitive spirit flew throughout the venue. While he was exiting the shoutcasting area, many people thanked him for giving them such an exhilarating experience. As the competition
continued and the fans got hyped up, Sean knew that this was only the beginning of the recognition of E-sports as legitimate sports. As I walk into Sean’s apartment, I see a new face: Sean’s roommate, Erik. I greet him and turn my head towards the large monitor showing Sean’s recently won Super Smash Bros. match against his roommate. I acknowledge Sean’s victory and he responds with a large smile across his face. Little did I know, he has been training Erik for the past days and Erik has made immense progress. After what I assume to be about fifteen matches, each ending with Sean’s victory, the two start up once more as I watch in anticipation of the next match in which Sean will lay down some stylish combos and teach us a thing or two about the game. The game starts
up and almost immediately Erik flings his character at Sean’s and performs a stellar knock out. While Sean’s character flies off the screen, Erik sneaks a peek back at me with a huge grin. The two duel it out for the next four minutes and finally, in a test of pure reactions, Erik bests Sean. As “Defeat!” banner is hung next to Sean’s character, I expect a little bit of anger or resentment in his loss to his own protegee. To my surprise, Sean immediately jumps up and starts dissecting all the great things Erik did to take the match for his own. Sean explores Erik’s many combos and mental games, demonstrating his sheer appreciation for all the nuances of the game. Any doubts I had of Sean’s attitude as a coach were dissolved almost
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instantly through his serious yet friendly friendly attitude, an essential characteristic of all
competitive athletes. Sean still has a lot of work ahead of him. With the current construction of his new company Breakout!, he hopes to revolutionize the world of E-sports as a whole. By making the community a more public, open society, Sean hopes to legitimize video games as both a form of art and a competitive sport. Moreover, he hopes to remove terms such as E-sports and video games entirely and instead introduce terms like “rec. soft”, or recreational software, in order to remove the negative stereotypes that are often
binded to videogames as a whole (Langhi). Currently, Sean’s in the process of creating a tournament that’s all about “money matches,” or single match sets that give the victor double what they put in. For his tournaments,
Sean isn’t satisfied with his attendees only having a fantastic time. He also wants to give back to the community, which he plans to donate a large sum of the cash from sources like entrance fees to local charities. While he won’t be able to donate thousands of dollars after the first tournament, creating connections and finding individuals willing to sponsor large-scale E-sport events will only help the the community grow, maybe even one day reaching the acclaimed title of sport.
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