電子競技風靡美國校園

Loc Tran is a big man on campus at San Jose State University in Northern California.

洛克·陳(Loc Tran)是北加州聖何塞州立大學(San Jose State University in Northern California)校園裏的名人。

“A lot of people stop me when I’m walking,” said Mr. Tran, a 19-year-old sophomore, who speaks in quick and confident bursts. “They congratulate me.”

“走在路上，好多人會攔住我，”洛克·陳說。他今年19歲，上大二，說話很快，話語間洋溢着自信。“他們會來祝賀我。”

But Mr. Tran is not a star on the football team, or a leader in student government. He is a top player on the school’s competitive video game team, helping San Jose State claw its way to victory in June over California State University, Fullerton, in a tournament watched online by nearly 90,000 people. When the new school year started this fall, classmates’ heads swiveled toward him when professors said his name during roll call.

不過，洛克·陳並非橄欖球隊的明星，或是學生會的領袖。他是學校電子競技隊的頂級玩家，今年6月幫助聖何塞州立一路過關斬將，最終擊敗加州州立大學富勒頓分校(California State University, Fullerton)，贏得了一項賽事的冠軍。這次比賽有近9萬人在網上觀戰。今年秋天新學年開學的時候，教授在課上點名，洛克·陳總能引起一幫同學側目。

“I thought that was pretty cool,” Mr. Tran said.

“我那時想，好酷啊，”洛克·陳說。

Video game competitions, also known as e-sports, have taken off on campuses across the country, including Harvard and Florida State University. More than 10,000 students now play in the biggest college league, 4,400 more than last year and 4,600 more than the number of men who play on Division I college basketball teams.

電子競技正在全美大學校園裏遍地開花，哈佛和佛羅里達州立大學(Florida State University)也不例外。在規模最大的大學聯盟電競賽事中，如今有上萬學生在打，比去年多了4400人，而且比在大學一級聯盟打籃球的隊員還多了4600人。

The stakes keep climbing, too: Winning a big tournament can sometimes earn players several years’ worth of tuition money. And in a possible sign of the future, the athletic department of Robert Morris University Illinois in Chicago created an official video game team this fall, offering the same sort of scholarships given to athletes playing soccer, football and ice hockey.

獎金金額也在不斷攀登：贏得一場重大比賽有時可以爲玩家賺取數年學費。一個可能預示未來走向的跡象是，今年秋天，位於芝加哥的伊利諾伊州羅伯特莫里斯大學(Robert Morris University Illinois)的體育部組建了一個官方電子遊戲團隊，爲其成員提供的獎學金種類和足球、橄欖球和冰球運動員相同。

While the college e-sports craze started as a grass-roots effort, game makers have quickly swooped in, propelling the sharp rise in interest. The companies now underwrite scholarship prizes, offer team banners and provide organizational support, sensing a possible breeding ground for a new generation of superfans — people who not only play games but also consider them a spectator sport.

雖然高校電子競技熱潮最初發源於草根，但遊戲廠商已經迅速跟進，推動着它大幅高漲。這些公司現在爲玩家提供獎學金獎勵、團隊旗幟，以及組織方面的支持，因爲他們覺得，這可能會培養出新一代的超級粉絲——這些粉絲不僅玩遊戲，而且認爲這是一種觀賞性運動。

“Game developers are really waking up to the publicity power of these communities,” said T. L. Taylor, an associate professor of comparative media studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who has studied e-sports.

“遊戲開發商確實意識到了這些社區在宣傳上的威力，”麻省理工學院從事比較媒體研究的副教授T·L·泰勒(T. L. Taylor)說。他對電子競技進行過研究。

Colleges, meanwhile, are often standing at arm’s length. While e-sports groups are often sanctioned clubs, receiving practice spaces from their schools, the leagues and competitions have few of the student regulations governing traditional college sports, like grade-point minimums or time limits on practicing.

高校往往對此敬而遠之。雖然電子競技團隊往往是學校認可的俱樂部，學校也爲它們提供了活動空間，但與傳統高校體育項目不同的是，電子競技聯賽和比賽幾乎沒有學生管理方面的規定，比如最低成績要求、練習時間限制等。

The rise in e-sports has been so abrupt, many schools have not determined what to make of it. Carter Henderson, a spokesman for the University of Washington’s athletics program, said no one from the department was familiar enough with e-sports to discuss the topic. The National Collegiate Athletic Association, which oversees college athletics, said it had no comment about e-sports on campus.

電子競技的興起如此突然，很多學校尚未決定如何對待它。華盛頓大學(University of Washington)競技項目發言人卡特·漢德森(Carter Henderson)說，該部門沒有人熟悉電子競技，因此無法討論這個話題。負責監督高校體育活動的全美大學生體育協會(National Collegiate Athletic Association)表示，他們對校園電子競技活動無可置評。

Game companies say it is too early to predict how university administrations will become involved in e-sports.

遊戲公司說，現在預測大學管理部門將如何對待電子競技還爲時過早。

“This is just how basketball was in the 1940s,” said Christopher Wyatt, senior manager for North American publishing at Riot Games. “A lot of the structure and organization you see in more formal athletics, that groundwork is still being laid down here.”

“20世紀40年代時，籃球也處在這樣的狀況，” Riot Games公司負責北美髮行的高級經理克里斯托弗·華特(Christopher Wyatt)說。“更加正式的體育項目擁有的很多結構和組織，電子競技也有，它的基礎仍在奠定之中。”

But it is unclear whether becoming a more formal part of a school would help or harm the growth of college e-sports. The time commitment required for serious competitive gaming could lead to concerns about whether e-sports leave enough time for academic study. In addition, formal recognition could diminish the autonomy that companies and teams have on campuses, bringing about rules like Title IX, the gender equity law.

但目前還不清楚，在學校中變得更加正式，對於高校電子競技的發展來說究竟是利是弊。認真參與競技遊戲需要耗費不少時間，可能會令一些人擔憂，學生是否還有足夠的時間用於學業。此外，把它正式化可能會削弱公司和團隊在校園中的自主權，令其受到一些規定的約束，比如性別平等法律《教育法修正案第九條》(Title IX)等。

About the possibility of more official recognition, Dr. Taylor said, “I don’t think collegiate e-sports players are unified in any way that this is a good thing.”

關於官方是否可能給予電子競技更多認可，泰勒博士說，“對於這究竟是不是一件好事，我認爲高校電子競技選手的看法並不統一。”

For game developers, however, the lure of being on campus is simple.

但是，對於遊戲開發商來說，校園的誘惑相當直截了當。

“We think that’s where a lot of our players are,” said Michael Morhaime, the chief executive and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment, which develops and publishes entertainment software.

“我們的很多玩家都是高校學生，”邁克爾·莫懷米(Michael Morhaime)說。他是娛樂軟件開發和發行公司暴雪娛樂(Blizzard Entertainment)的首席執行官和聯合創始人。

In September, Blizzard flew eight finalists from the College of Staten Island, University of Massachusetts-Amherst and other colleges to Seattle to compete for $5,000 in scholarship money in a tournament of Hearthstone, a virtual card game from the company. Last year, Azubu, a games media company, sponsored a competition that awarded $40,000 in prize money to six students on a StarCraft II team from University of California, Berkeley.

今年9月，暴雪安排八名入圍者飛到西雅圖，參加虛擬卡牌對戰遊戲《爐石傳說》(Hearthstone)的決賽，爭奪5000美元的獎學金。這些入圍者來自史坦頓島大學(College of Staten)、馬薩諸塞大學安默斯特分校(University of Massachusetts, Amherst)等高校。去年，遊戲媒體公司Azubu贊助了一個比賽，加州大學伯克利分校(University of California, Berkeley)六名學生組成的一個打《星際爭霸II》(StarCraft II)的團隊贏得了4萬美元獎金。

Last February, Riot Games hosted its first North American Collegiate Championship, something like the Final Four for League of Legends, Riot’s popular online battle game. A team of five students from the University of Washington won in front of a roaring audience at an e-sports studio that Riot operates in Manhattan Beach, Calif., with 169,000 more people watching online at the tournament’s peak.

今年2月，Riot Games舉辦了其第一屆北美大學生錦標賽(North American Collegiate Championship)，它類似於該公司人氣對戰遊戲《英雄聯盟》(League of Legends)的四強決賽。比賽場地設在Riot Games在加州曼哈頓比奇經營的一個電子競技室，觀衆席上人聲鼎沸。華盛頓大學五名學生組成的一個團隊最終贏得了比賽。在高峯期，有16.9萬多人在線觀看了這場比賽。

The prize was $7,500 in scholarship money for each team member.

作爲獎金，團隊每個成員獲得了7500美元的獎學金。

Riot recently announced that first-place winnings at the next championship, to be held in the spring, would rise to $30,000, enough to pay for about three years of in-state tuition at the University of Washington.

Riot Games近日宣佈，在明年春季舉辦的下一屆錦標賽中，冠軍獎金將升至3萬美元，本州學生足以用它支付華盛頓大學大約三年的學費。

“A lot more people than I expected came forward and said, ‘I’d like to try out for the team,’ ” said Jackson Brown, the manager of the University of Washington’s team, the Purple Caster Minions.

“很多人找上門說‘我想來試一試，參加你們的團隊’，人數比我預想的多得多，”華盛頓大學電子競技團隊Purple Caster Minions的隊長傑克遜·布朗(Jackson Brown)說。

The growth of competitive gaming at colleges mirrors the broader rise of e-sports as entertainment. A thriving international professional e-sports circuit routinely draws tens of thousands of spectators to stadiums for competitions, with millions more viewers online. Top prizes for some events are now in the millions of dollars. Twitch, a video streaming service that made its name broadcasting e-sport matches, was acquired this year for close to $1 billion by Amazon.

高校競技遊戲的發展反映了電子競技作爲娛樂活動日益崛起的大環境。一項成功的國際專業電子競技賽事，往往能把數以萬計的觀衆吸引到體育館裏現場觀戰，外加數百萬名的網上觀衆。目前，有些賽事的最高獎金可達數百萬美元。今年，亞馬遜(Amazon)以將近10億美元的價格收購了成名於播放電子競技比賽的視頻流服務Twitch。

The college scene is largely organized around the Collegiate StarLeague, which started at Princeton in 2009 and is the biggest college league. The organization is now active at 450 schools, up from 260 last year, according to Duran Parsi, the head of the league. Many of those players also participate in matches organized by another collegiate league, IvyLoL. Large West Coast schools like the University of Washington and University of British Columbia tend to dominate the competitions.

高校電競圈的活動基本圍繞“大學星際聯盟”(Collegiate StarLeague)進行組織。它於2009年創建於普林斯頓，是目前最大的高校電競聯盟。負責人杜蘭·帕爾西(Duran Parsi)表示，聯盟目前在450所學校開展活動，去年則爲260所。這些玩家中有許多也會參加另一個大學聯盟“常春藤英雄聯盟”(IvyLoL)所組織的比賽。華盛頓大學和不列顛哥倫比亞大學(University of British Columbia)等西海岸的大型高校往往會在競賽中稱霸。

The money that game companies are pouring into the college scene has persuaded many students to become much more serious about e-sports. College scholarships from corporations, including Coca-Cola, Ford and Google, have been around for decades, usually to encourage students to enter a particular field, like engineering. The money that game companies are giving to students, in contrast, is meant to deepen the companies’ relationship with a whole generation of players, one that is inseparable from their products.

遊戲公司投入到高校電競圈中的資金已經說服許多學生要更嚴肅地對待電子競技。由可口可樂(Coca-Cola)、福特(Ford)和谷歌(Google)等企業贊助的大學獎學金已經存在了數十年之久，而這類獎學金通常用來鼓勵學生進入特定領域，比如工程學。不過，遊戲公司爲學生提供的資金則是爲了加深公司與一整代玩家之間的聯繫，而這種關係與他們的產品可謂密不可分。

Today, most professional players skip or delay college, because the college-age years are considered the prime period for players in the big leagues. Playing at the professional level requires far too much time for practice and travel to tournaments to allow them to also attend school.

如今，大多數專業玩家都會主動放棄或推遲進入大學，因爲念大學的那幾年被視作玩家參加大型賽事的黃金期。要達到專業水平，需要耗費大量時間來進行練習，並且要去各地參賽，實在沒法同時上學。

Conan Liu, a student at Berkeley, took a year off from school to play StarCraft II professionally after his school team won the Azubu championship. Mr. Liu returned to school this fall to focus on pre-med studies because he did not perform as well as he had hoped in the pros. While even bench warmers in the National Basketball Association make more than $500,000 a year, the same is not true of professional gamers.

伯克利學生柯南·劉(Conan Liu)在校隊贏得了Azubu組織的錦標賽冠軍後，爲了能專門進行《星際爭霸II》競技而休了一年學。柯南·劉今年秋季重返校園，將精力投入到醫學預科的學習，因爲他在專業比賽中的表現沒有預期的好。雖然美國職業籃球協會(National Basketball Association)的板凳球員每年能掙到逾50萬美元，但職業遊戲玩家卻拿不到這麼多。

“You have to really be at the top, top to make a nice living,” Mr. Liu said.

“你得成爲真正的頂級高手才能過上好日子，”柯南·劉說。

Game companies and collegiate league organizers predict that college e-sports could become a pipeline for the growing professional circuit. Game companies say they are awarding scholarship money at college tournaments, rather than unrestricted cash prizes, to give students an incentive to continue their studies.

遊戲公司及大學聯賽組織者預測，大學電子競技可能會成爲向不斷壯大的職業巡迴賽輸送人才的一個渠道。遊戲公司稱，他們更青睞爲高校電子競技提供獎學金，而不是不設上限的現金獎勵，以便鼓勵學生們完成學業。

“We really want e-sports to become as ingrained in the academic environment as anything else — speech competitions, football competitions,” said Tyler Rosen, president of the e-Sports Association, which helps organize college events with the financial support of Blizzard Entertainment.

電子競技協會(e-Sports Association)主席泰勒·羅森(Tyler Rosen)說，“我們真心希望電子競技能像演講比賽、橄欖球比賽等活動一樣，成爲校園裏不可或缺的組成部分。”該協會幫助組織賽事，資金由暴雪娛樂贊助。

A test of what happens when schools embrace e-sports started recently at Robert Morris University Illinois. The first 35 students to receive athletic scholarships under the school’s new e-sports program began training this fall in a room decked out with jet-black walls, mood lighting and leather gamer chairs with red piping.

伊利諾伊州羅伯特莫里斯大學最近啓動了一項試驗，看看學校接受電子競技活動後會出現什麼情況。首批35名學生接受了學校新設立的電子競技項目的體育獎學金。他們今年秋季開始在一所專門的房間裏進行訓練，那裏設有黑色的牆面、烘托遊戲環境的照明，以及帶有紅色縫線的玩家專用皮革座椅。

The students, all League of Legends players, are getting up to 50 percent of the price of tuition and room and board, which runs about $39,000 a year, according to Kurt Melcher, the university’s associate athletic director. Mr. Melcher said he had received more than half a dozen calls from athletic directors at other universities who are interested in incorporating e-sports into their programs.

據該校體育部副主任庫爾特·梅爾徹(Kurt Melcher)透露，這些學生都是《英雄聯盟》的玩家，他們已經獲得了最多相當於一半學費和食宿費——大約一年3.9萬美元——的獎學金。梅爾徹表示，他已經收到了六七通來自其他大學體育部主任的電話，有意將電子競技納入他們的項目。

The idea came to Mr. Melcher, a gamer, this year after he started reading about the Collegiate StarLeague. A conversation with his wife dispelled any doubts he had about awarding athletic scholarships to gamers.

梅爾徹是遊戲玩家，他在今年看了有關“大學星際聯盟”的報道後產生了這個想法。與妻子的一席話，讓他打消了爲遊戲玩家提供體育獎學金的疑慮。

Mr. Melcher said his wife asked, “Why should it only be given to some kid who can put a ball into a hole?”

梅爾徹稱，他的妻子問他，“爲什麼只爲那些能把球弄到一個洞裏的孩子提供獎學金呢？”