By Jerry Yu ’19, Technology Reporter
2-10-19
As live streaming and eSports have been gaining traction in recent years and are becoming
widely accepted by society, FCS students are actively taking part in organizing events which allow groups of peers to enjoy these activities together. For this issue of GamingFocus, we talked with Naim Saleem, a senior at FCS, to learn about his current and future plans for creating a community of enthusiastic gamers at school to enjoy streaming and eSports together. Naim’s assemblage of peers, which he calls “Fyuri Smash Champs,” has been meeting on Friday afternoons in the Lecture Hall. Here is a reiteration of the thoughts he shared: “My goal is to raise money for charity,” Naim told GamingFocus. He added, “I also wish to prove that eSports can be enjoyable.” In order to make his dream a reality, Naim plans to improve the ways his content is delivered with his digital editing skills. Currently, he is “learning and exploring tournament systems” and “doing trail runs,” all the while perfecting his weekly tournaments. By implementing a full-fledged tournament system with two casters analyzing and commenting on live gameplay for viewers, Naim said he hopes to “improve professionalism in games.”
Naim and many others working with him believe that eSports are genuinely a kind of sport - akin to Chess and Math Modeling. According to Naim, “anything that requires practice, mental fortitude, and strenuous training is a sport.” When it comes to streaming platforms, Naim believes that live streams already have gained, and will continue to gain, more popularity. For example, Twitch.tv, the platform of Naim’s choice, has a user base focused on young players, and it is these players that have shaped the platform into what it is.
As of now, Naim’s tournament focuses on Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros Ultimate, a fast-paced action game, because it is “popular among peers,” is “enjoyable to play,” and has an “enthusiastic community.” Naim is also looking into other games like League of Legends or Hearthstone, but he told GamingFocus that he wants to perfect his Smash tournament before expanding.
During his interview with GamingFocus, Naim also shared a few big ideas about the gaming industry as a whole: “I hope more companies would implement streaming software into games,” as, with the technology currently available, he has to manually control the camera with external software. Additionally, whether to implement competitive play is the designers’ decision: “Not all games are suitable for esports. Most multiplayer games have good potential,” Naim explained. Commenting on game balancing, Naim believes that “the META (most effective tactics available) should be controlled by the player base, unless it goes against the company’s design philosophy.”
Currently, Naim’s tournament involves 16 competitors and is played in the FCC Lecture Hall every Friday at 3:30pm.
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