The term “esports” can still set off debates about whether competitive gaming ever can or should be referred to as a sport in the traditional sense, but there’s no denying that the industry is rapidly growing, with an expanding number of professional leagues and teams.
Popular online games like “Overwatch” and “League of Legends” have professional leagues devoted to them, complete with city-based teams and big-name corporate sponsors. Traditional sports industries are also getting involved by developing esports counterparts for their leagues — Blazer5 Gaming, for example, serves as the esports counterpart to the Portland Trail Blazers, competing in NBA 2K tournaments.
There are also a growing number of esports organizations aimed at younger gamers, with organizations like Super League and High School Esports League operating tournaments for teenagers and college-aged gamers.
But there’s one age demographic where the industry seems to be falling short, according to Camas resident Eric Preisz: elementary school-age gamers. Most large youth esports organizations tend to be geared toward teenagers even though plenty of kids start playing video games at much younger ages. One of the few major exceptions, Super League, operates “Minecraft” tournaments with no minimum age, but the organization doesn’t have a branch in the Portland area.
Preisz has two sons, ages 9 and 5, both of whom share their father’s interest in video games. But when he began looking for an organized gaming group for them to join, Preisz says he was surprised to be unable to find any local options, and eventually resolved to create one, which he calls Gamer League.
“I was seeking something I could do with my kids,” he says. “College (esports) is getting pretty organized, and high school is just starting, but there’s nothing for third to sixth grade.”
How to approach gaming
The goal of the Gamer League is to fill the gap with an organization for elementary school gamers and serve as a counterpart to high school and college esports leagues, Preisz says, but its rules and structure also draw inspiration from groups like Little League baseball and Scouting organizations.
Preisz currently works as an operating partner for a technology investment firm, but he has a lifelong enthusiasm for video games and a long history with industry, including previous work as a video game development teacher at Full Sail University. And he says he’s been able to draw on his experience and business contacts to create a unique league structure for younger kids.
The organization is designed to stay fun while putting the greatest emphasis on things that parents are likely to appreciate, Preisz says, such as sportsmanship, teamwork, career skills and finding a balance between gaming and life.
“It’s more than just the sport part — it’s about digital lifestyles too,” he says. “From the gamer side of me, I’m trying to help build gamer communities that are less toxic.”
The gaming industry has been noted to have problems with issues like player toxicity — a catch-all term for what could generally be described as poor sportsmanship. But top-level pro esports players tend to defy some of the traditional gamer stereotypes, Preisz says, because they’re coached to avoid things that would put them at a disadvantage such as a lack of sleep, poor diet or emotional outbursts when losing.
Preisz says that by emulating that formula, he hopes Gamer League can serve as a healthy experience not only for younger gamers, but also for parents who often find themselves in the role of policing screen time.
“Parents and kids go head-to-head on gaming a lot — it’s kind of a negative thing right now, but we’re trying to make it positive,” he says. “You can either ignore it and not teach anything — which is what we do now — or you can build a culture.”
Drawing inspiration from Scouting groups, Preisz created a system of “achievement badges” for the league players to earn, often through actions that tie into the organization’s positive goals, such as attending a trip or playing a game with their parents.
The game selection is chosen with the league’s age range in mind, with a lineup limited to games that have been rated Everyone or Everyone 10 and up by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board. That means the Teen-rated game “Fortnite” doesn’t appear in the league’s lineup, Preisz says, despite its current popularity with younger gamers.
The league’s primary game so far has been “Splatoon,” a Nintendo Switch game that tasks players on opposing teams with trying to capture as much territory as possible using colorful ink-loaded squirt guns. Potential future league play additions include “Rocket League” (like soccer, but with cars) and the upcoming Switch version of Nintendo’s popular fighting game “Super Smash Bros.”
The league is currently still a very small organization, but parents of kids in the league say they’ve appreciated Preisz’s approach.
“As a parent who struggles to find balance when it comes to electronics, I was thrilled to come across the Gamer League,” says Lisa Daley, mother of league gamer David Daley. “(Preisz) has merged gaming fun with responsibility, plus exposing kids to real-world opportunities in STEM and computer programming, which are skills that will benefit them in the future.”
Developing the league
The group started at a small scale in the spring, operating as more of an after-school club than an esports organization. Preisz’s older son, Grant, and some of his friends formed the initial group of attendees. In keeping with the idea of game-life balance, Preisz scheduled the meetups to last 90 minutes, with 20-minute breaks for a round of dodgeball.
Over the course of the year, Preisz began adding other activities to the lineup, including a trip to Seattle to visit the headquarters of Microsoft and DigiPen, a private university focused on game development.
He and Grant also created a club at Woodburn Elementary in Camas focused specifically on Nintendo Labo — a Switch accessory that lets kids create cardboard constructions that connect to the game system — in order to try to connect more kids with the league.
The most recent activity was a reading-focused challenge called Reading for Games, in which the league kids could earn $5 Nintendo gift cards by presenting a report to the group about a book relating to topics like esports, the gaming industry and online safety.
The league’s roster is still small, consisting of slightly more than a dozen kids, but Preisz says they’re ready to begin more active recruiting. Later this month, the league will get its first taste of organized esports when it sends a four-person team to a “Splatoon” tournament at Don’t Park and on the Grass 2018, a gaming event hosted at the University of Washington.
Then in January, the league will kick off a new season of meetings with a more direct focus on esports, including mini-tournaments for “Splatoon” and “Rocket League.” Preisz says the next big step will be to form teams and start league play, mimicking the kinds of features seen in mainstream competitive organizations.
“The lights, the stage, the commentators, the whole thing,” he says.
The long-term goal is to turn the league into a nonprofit that can help facilitate the organization of other leagues outside of the Vancouver-Portland region, he says.
Preisz says his background in gaming appears to make him something of an outlier among league parents. No parents so far have directly sought out the league, he says — most of the league’s members found the group on their own and roped their parents in later — but Preisz says he thinks it’s only a matter of time until a generation of gamer parents emerges and begins looking for healthier gaming outlets for young children.
And even for the initial group of parents, the league appears to have been a positive experience.
“The Gamer League allows these young boys a chance to do something they love in an environment that promotes social interaction, friendship, respect and kindness,” said Lindsay Jaques, mother of league player Keaton Jaques. “On top of relationship building and character development, the boys have been exposed to the business and creative side of video games, opening their eyes to the process and effort behind the scenes.”
