We’ve heard it time and time again: gamers are lazy, unmotivated, and waste their lives away in front of a glowing screen. But if gamers are so lazy and unmotivated, why are universities paying top dollar to recruit them?
More and more, the booming e-sports industry is proving that the stereotypes are wrong: gamers aren’t lazy, they aren’t toxic, and they’re definitely not unmotivated. Colleges are starting to recognize that student gamers have a lot to offer, doling out e-sports scholarships to nurture talent on-screen while creating a strong educational foundation for future employment opportunities off-screen.
If you’re a parent, you should consider letting your kid play more video games. (And no, this isn’t written by your kid in disguise.)
Here’s why.
Support from parents breeds compromise.
For those that hope to play professionally, staying competitive with other top e-sports athletes requires up to 14 hours of training a day. It’s no shock that most aspiring e-sports players are generally forced to make a choice: stay in school or drop out to play full-time.
If parents can stop painting gaming in a negative light, they’ll end up creating a brighter future for their children. No one will argue playing video games until 3 a.m. on a school night is a good idea, but instead of getting furious, parents should instead encourage more healthy playing habits.
Gaming isn’t just a “bad habit” anymore, and kids that are into e-sports are suddenly becoming top picks at excellent colleges. Competitive gaming is still a young sport, and top universities are scrambling to establish successful programs before getting dominated by the competition.
For this reason, kids that get into gaming early are only becoming more desirable to both colleges and employers around the world. If you’re a parent and you want to set your kid up for success at university and for later employment opportunities, encouraging them to pick up a mouse and keyboard isn’t too bad of an idea.
When all else fails…
College has played an integral role in the success of athletes that don’t end up making it onto a professional team. The NCAA reports that Division I Men’s Basketball players have only a 1.1 percent chance of moving on to compete at the professional level.
While it’s sad not everyone gets to live their dream, fortunately for them, most employers’ eyes light up when they see a college degree in combination with experience on a top level sports team.
Now, slowly but surely, e-sports is starting to get the same kind of recognition. Colleges around the world are taking major steps to support e-sports by offering scholarships to student gamers to incubate their competitive ability while simultaneously advancing their academic career.
Supporting e-sports early on.
Following on the heels of UCI’s (University of California Irvine) construction of a brand new e-sports arena, in April, the University of Utah became the first of the “Power Five” universities to offer scholarships for their varsity e-sports team.
Both schools are part of a long list of prestigious colleges that offer their own varsity e-sports programs including Columbia College, Indiana Tech, Miami University, and many more.
The stereotypical gamer is starting to look a lot different. As professional players begin to develop reputations more akin to those of celebrity athletes, e-sports scholarships are going to change the way employers look at potential hires.
What gamers bring to the job market.
Like collegiate athletes from any other sport, e-sports players have ruthless work ethic, strong team communication skills, and the ability to think critically. The fact of the matter is, success in video games implies many traits that employers love to see.
In e-sports, the skill gap among top professional gamers is extremely low. Staying competitive means taking every opportunity to improve, even by the smallest margins.
Success in the e-sports world requires hours of reviewing, iterating, implementing, and practicing. If you want to get better as a gamer, you have to be ready to take criticism and self-improve–something employers from all industries hold high on their list of values.
As more universities expand their e-sports programs and start to offer larger scholarships, expect to see e-sports follow the same trend as most other college sports. Parents play a critical role in this: If they demonize gaming and punish kids for getting into e-sports, they can do lasting damage and cause children to miss out on incredible opportunities.
But if parents can take a more informed approach to e-sports and encourage healthy gaming habits through open discussion, they can open the door to a brighter future for their children-both on and off the screen.
And no matter what game you’re playing, that’s a good thing.
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.