Page 17 - MidWeek - Nov 9, 2022

17 MIDWEEK NOVEMBER 9, 2022
STORY BY
KAREN IWAMOTO
PHOTO BY
ANTHONY CONSILLIO
A t its most basic, esports are video games played com- petitively in front of spectators. Thirty years ago, that could have meant a gather- ing of friends at an arcade. Now it entails all the spectacle of a major sporting event — arenas, live music, laser lights and thou- sands of cheering fans. Today’s pro gamers play on stage for million-dollar prizes as tower- ing LED screens broadcast their
music industries combined. Many people don’t realize that. It’s a $200 billion industry glob- ally. (Esports) is much smaller than $200 billion but it’s some- thing that drives the video game industry heavily.”
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(Top) Sky Kauweloa gathers with his UH Esports varsity team members, from left, Dylan Kira, Tracy Lee, Kylin Daniel, Gabriel Harp and Zach Trebbien. (Above) UH Esports students help Overwatch League officials prep computers ahead of the league’s Midseason Madness tournament earlier this year. PHOTO COURTESY UH ESPORTS
moves to the crowd.
These tournaments are
“Esports sits in this kind of bizarre realm of tremendous popularity but unbelievability,” he says. “Like, what is this? How can this be popular? The kids who are involved in this are committed, but for the (general) audience it still remains a bizarre thing.”
streamed on YouTube and Twitch. Shoutcasters (the esports equivalent of sportscasters) de- liver play-by-plays for millions of fans tuning in from around the world.
Serious Contender
tionally ranked team and hosted tournaments for a professional esports league.
2000s, he moved to South Korea to teach English.
and surprising things in the coun-m try that would bring the worldc Gangnam Style and BTS, so he didn’t think too much about it. of
That’s a lot for some folks to wrap their minds around.
“Esports has transitioned into a media industry,” says Sky Kau- weloa, director of the Universi- ty of Hawai‘i Esports program. “The gaming industry is huge, bigger than the movie (and)
It’s Kauweloa’s job to get the broader public to take it serious- ly. Under his guidance UH Es- ports has gone from a fledgling club to a major contender in the college esports space — in just four years. It boasts an interna-
But before all that happened, Kauweloa had to take gaming seriously himself.
“When I came to South Ko- rea, I turned on the TV and saw a StarCraft match,” he says. “The match was in an arena and the players wore uniforms. There was cheering, the fans had thun- dersticks. That was surprising.”
It wasn’t until years later, whense he was back in the U.S. pursuingw a Ph.D. at UH, that he began tod take a closer look at the indus- try — and decided to make it thea
As a kid growing up in Hawai‘i and California in the ’90s, video games were a fun pastime he took for granted. Then, in the early
Still, he was seeing a lot of new
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Sky Kauweloa and University of Hawai‘i Esports are leveling up — and industry leaders are taking notice.