The future is here. After months of pushing, there is finally an official highschool e-sports program in the Fargo-Moorhead area. E-sports stands for “electronic sports” and revolves around the competitive gaming industry. E-sports have grown immensely in popularity as we have become more intertwined with the world of technology\; in fact it’s so popular now that there are serious scholarship opportunities for those participating in e-sports. The three games offered in the highschool gaming program are MOBA’s “League of Legends” and “Smite” and car soccer game “Rocket League”. Because it is a school sponsored program, games involving guns or extreme violence are not allowed.
All computers provided for the program are stationed at South High’s computer lab and came at a huge price. The e-sports team has received some criticism from some people angry that the Fargo School system decided to put so much money into gaming when they could have spent it on sport utilities or facilities. However, the school system hit those people with an “okay boomer” and invested about $20,000 in the e-sports program which includes 11 $1,800 dollar computers which include headphones, keyboards, monitors, and mice. The Fargo Schools system hopes that this e-sports program will be the beginning of a permanent and prominent activity.
There are several students from North participating in the e-sports program, many of whom are playing “Rocket League”. Among these students is senior Dominik Hillstrom, who stated “I’m excited for the e-sports team. I play a lot of Rocket League in my free time, so playing competitively seemed like an easy choice for me.” In all, there are nine students from North participating on the team.
Competitive e-sports have enveloped universities and as it is a young and rather undeveloped sport, it’s a very easy outlet into cheap college. The amount of e-sport scholarships offered at colleges are at an all time high and to be honest, you don’t have to be that good to get some of them. Unfortunately, there are only three games offered right now and only two of them have scholarships at colleges. Hopefully in the future the e-sports program will add more games to their resume to appeal to a greater amount of people which will in turn add to their total participation. E-sports has a growing community and it’s becoming more apparent that it’s likely to stay for good. The appeal of competitive gaming is that it fosters mental competition with no risk of physical harm which attracts the non-athletic community. E-sports serves not only as an outlet for some people to put their competitive energy into, but also as a symbol of how much the world of technology has changed our lives in the last ten years.