The Celebrity Millionaires of Competitive Gaming

Today, there are more people in the world who play League of Legends than there are people who live in France. We wanted to look inside this rapidly expanding world of competitive gaming, so VICE host Matt Shea flew to South Korea, a country Esports can either make you rich and famous or land you in rehab.

[SmallHalfBeard]

I don't understand why they let this guy cover this topic. He clearly knows next to nothing about the subject, has done little research, doesn't seem to make any genuine attempts to try and learn from a gamer's perspective and basically just tries to create a negative attitude towards gaming. Half the video isn't even about esports with focus on cosplaying and how games aren't as fun as other things like the 10 minute segment on clubbing. This wasn't really an insight into competitive gaming, rather it was more of a guy giving his opinion from an outside perspective and mostly just bashing on gaming culture

[LowkoTV]

Why is it that when a "traditional" media channel covers anything esports related it is always with a cynical undertone?

[genetix]

help, the passive aggressiveness is killing me

[Poblasai]

Imagine a journalist traveling to the other side of the world to make an hour long documentary on baseball, but the journalist doesn't bother to learn the difference between a ball and strike before hand. That's what you get here. At best a half-hearted look at the eSports culture, and at worst thinly-veiled and condescending disinterest with eSports culture.

There are segments that are interesting and informative, but these are starkly contrasted by segments where the host's almost willful ignorance of the subject and condescension over the culture are the only things to be learned.

Two moments of surprising unprofessionalism standout. First, while cover a group of gamers and their weekend routine, the host begins to pout about being left out when they start playing games. Then, instead of playing games with them -- an activity that would produce more insight into the culture -- he coerces the group to go to a traditional club with the purpose of getting them out of their comfort zone; their comfort zone being the thing he's making a documentary about. Second, the host takes a petty and pointless jab at a musical group, Imagine Dragons (1:00:26). I'm not a fan of Imagine Dragon and like the host I can't recall meeting people who are fans of them, but the obvious conclusion is that my social circle and I are not the target audience.

Speaking of target audiences, it's hard to tell who's the target audience of this documentary. Gamers will likely find the palpable moments of condescension off putting. Non-gamers will not gain any sincere knowledge of the culture as it's evident that the host himself is reluctant to delve into it and learn himself. Perhaps the target audience are people of other counter-cultures who want to dismissively, but not too dismissively, look at another counter culture while pretending to learn something about it.

[knighttitan]

It's like they send the one guy who doesnt know what the fuck is going on.

[KingBlueSlimss]

Vice, this was painful to watch. KSi is not an E-Sports star.... he's a youtuber. Oh, the

[konata]

Does anyone else feel like the only person in this video lacking in social skills, is the reporter himself.

[vishaansingh]

This reporter feels like the creepy guy who was never invited to parties in high school, but pretends he's a fratbro with a ton of friends when he gets to college.

[skatatataatje]

Was it that hard to find a reporter that has ever played a game?

[ripzdielegende]

"The Celebrity Millionaires of Competitive Gaming" and they interview ksi -.-

[Seannyoo]

His interactions with the dude from cloud9 are absolutely hilarious, its practically satirical

[Gonorrheagorgonzola]

Somehow I feel like in 30 years or so there will be a horror movie about this doctor.

[zellarsDD]

Vice does stories on some interesting topics, but they can't seem to actually hire professional journalists.

[denzelable]

Did this guy just make fun of imagine dragons lol

[as]

I did not like this "documentary" at all. I was disappointed that the host didn't really know what he was talking about. He seemed mocking to the topic and the people he was documenting instead of being objective and cordial. There are some really good VICE documentaries, but this is not one of them. I hope in the future that VICE takes these criticisms into account because this isn't really informing anyone... it's more alienating people.

[jacksaville]

Such an awkward interviewer. Anyone else think he took this as a holiday? The complaining around the 45:00 mark about them using the computers and not drinking with him is ridiculous. He's supposed to be documenting their lives, not influencing them.

[Monscent]

So...them having fun playing games with eachother is not really acceptable to the VICE reporter who'd rather they all go out to a loud nightclub and drink booze and not talk to eachother at all? :/

[isansimpson]

"there's someone sitting with the spiral-cats right now and...that's kind of my thing, sooo...." jesus christ man....

[yuya]

"They leave their bed rooms" lmao is this a jab at gamers or pro players?

[gustlightfall]

If this was about millionaires of competitive gaming, you should've included Dota 2 for more than 10m USD pot money for prize.