Above: Now you can play esports in high school with PlayVS.
GamesBeat: I interviewed Delane Parnell from PlayVS, and then the 17-year-old who runs the All Star Esports League. I thought they might run into resistance from high school administrators or teachers, just because this is about playing games instead of studying, but they were pointing out that high schools are welcoming them, because they’re giving opportunities to kids who don’t fit in with traditional sports. Traditional sports leave so many kids behind at that age.
Sitrin: I’d say the vast majority. In my high school at least, the people who actually played varsity sports were a minority of the school. All those benefits that come through team sports weren’t being shared by others.
But the other thing is that I think a lot of educators—we’ve seen this in many instances. They realize that if they’re going to connect with their student body, they need to find a way to connect with them through the things they’re passionate about. I know that there are schools that have used, for instance, Madden video games for things like math class, to learn principles of economics. If you’re doing Ultimate Team, one of the modes within all of our EA Sports games, you have to understand a lot of math to be able to do that.
Schools are embracing it, because when they sit there with a textbook and try to explain concepts, they find it kind of falling on deaf ears. When they use something that people are naturally gravitating toward, they find a lot of success. It’s been interesting to see. I’ve been in the industry for almost 25 years. To see the perception of video games and esports 20 years ago versus where it is now, it’s a completely different place.
June 5th: The AI Audit in NYC
Join us next week in NYC to engage with top executive leaders, delving into strategies for auditing AI models to ensure fairness, optimal performance, and ethical compliance across diverse organizations. Secure your attendance for this exclusive invite-only event.
GamesBeat: They add that it’s a path for those students to become more social. They seem to be happier.
Sitrin: Education isn’t just the class material. It’s also learning about social skills. It’s learning about how to work with other people. It’s about overcoming challenges. These are all things that have been associated with team sports for a long time. But also, joining the band in high school, that’s a social network. You have to perform. You have to learn how to play with other people nicely. Where video games are finally getting to—while I think the students have seen this for a while, now the educators are seeing it too. “This is pretty similar to all the other things we believe in and that we’ve promoted in schools for decades.”
GamesBeat: If that’s an opportunity, does EA have to do anything? Those people will just buy the game and play it.
Sitrin: In the case of esports, it’s helping. It’s facilitating. It’s giving them whatever guidance they need. We’ve work with some of the collegiate programs. They’re looking for some official accreditation. “Hey, we’re legit.” Sometimes they’re just looking for any type of support. In those cases, we’ve done those sorts of partnerships. I’ve had discussions with official collegiate leagues and associations that want to make more of an investment in that area.
That’s the way in which I think a publisher like EA can get involved. It’s good. For the overall competitive gaming division, we know that the vast majority of people—it’s no different than traditional sports. The number of people that play basketball and make it to the NBA is infinitesimally small, just like the number of people who make it to play in an Apex Legends competition.
Above: Esports can fill stadiums for big events — but is that enough?
GamesBeat: But it makes sense for the NBA to help those people become fans of the NBA.
Sitrin: Of course. It makes for great viewership, in the same way that historically the NFL has invested in youth football, and the MLS invests in youth soccer. In the same way, we want to help out in that part of the ecosystem as well. We look at it not as putting on a few events per year and it’s a big show piece sort of thing. We’re approaching it like — what does it take to build an ecosystem that’s healthy for decades?
When you think of it that way, well, what do the high schools need? What do even younger students need? What do colleges need? How do you build that entire ecosystem? We’re just at the start. But going back to the FIFA announcement, part of the journey over the last three years has been building out that ecosystem.
What’s great about FIFA is that EA gets to do it with some partners that are so important in their communities. If you think about how important the Premier League is in England, and the other football leagues around the world, when you’re dealing with that many people who are very interested in growing it, it opens up a lot of doors.
Again, if I compare it to the reaction three years ago when I was at Esports Bar and people were saying, “Why traditional sports?” they saw it as a detriment. Esports is about strategy games and shooters, right? Why would anybody do traditional sports? Well, here’s a good reason. In strategy games and fantasy games and all that, you have the publisher taking on the full burden of advancing the sport. In FIFA we have two or three dozen entities around the world besides EA that are pushing the growth of FIFA esports. That’s a huge advantage. That’s why we’re so excited. I think that’s why things have been growing so rapidly.
GamesBeat: I guess the only danger might be — if you put all this effort into high schools, it might be like boiling the ocean for a payoff that comes decades from now.
Sitrin: Well, you brought up the high schools. I didn’t bring it up.
GamesBeat: I am arguing with myself.
Sitrin: It’s on our road map, but it’s not our focal point. Our focal point is building out our community of players and building out a community of viewers, partnering with our league partners, partnering with others in the space who want to invest and create competitions.
We’re building out what we do inside of the game as well. Something like a third, or closer to 40 percent, of my team at EA spends their time working with our development teams to build out the right features to allow anybody, no matter their skill level, to find a competition. That’s how you get people engaged for a long period of time.
If you play in a competition and you’re playing people who are much better than you, you get frustrated and quit. If you play in a competition where you’re much better than everyone else, you get bored and quit. The key is, can we use competition and tailor it, no matter your skill level? That’s how you make a star of everyone. When you win, even if it’s at the local YMCA level—if I win with my little rec league, I feel like a champion. We want to bring that feeling to as many people as possible. That’s what our focus is on.
Disclosure: The organizers of Esports Bar Miami paid my way to Miami. Our coverage remains objective.
