some of you have asked us can a game
which includes randomness ever really
work as an eSport the simple answer is
yes we just have to think about how we
set up our tournaments differently the
longer answer is the rest of the episode
I guess okay so people ask this question
because the stakes for the eSports
community are actually pretty high on
the one hand you have the integrity of
skill based play the more randomness
there isn't a game the more opportunity
there is for the better player to lose
and if the better player loses is your
game really a test of skill or merely a
game of luck but on the other hand you
have the inclusion or exclusion of a ton
of games at stake since it's even easier
to include random elements into a game's
design in the digital world than in the
physical one because you can have a CPU
do all the calculating many of our
favorite video games include randomness
to some degree so that's the standard
formulation of the problem but viewing
it this way sort of sets up a false
opposition almost every game that exists
includes some random elements I mean
we've all seen games of League or dota
or a critical hit at just the right
moment could have turned a teamfight but
the dice just didn't come up right that
time or how about Go Go is considered
one of the most symmetrical most
skill-based competitive games in the
world and yet for years having the first
turn was considered such an advantage
the one professional player even quipped
that all he needed to be assured victory
was to pull the black stone even in
physical sports we see things that are
functionally random effect play all the
time did a gust of wind at the wrong
moment turn an easy-out into an error
and an infield homerun did the star
player choose the wrong dish at the
sushi restaurant last night and he's now
sitting out of the key game laid up by
food poisoning clearly it's not a matter
of whether or not there is randomness in
a game that makes it a good sport but
rather how we address that randomness in
order to make sure we highlight skill
rather than simply chance and for this
we should look to poker few people in
the eSports community would deny that
poker is a sport that it has a
completely legitimate and vibrant
competitive scene that the most skilled
players in the poker world rise to the
top and that there is a real difference
between the folks who compete in the
world championship of Poker and the fish
sitting at your local card game and yet
poker is perhaps one of the most random
games out there on any given hand it's
completely possible that the worst
player at your local poker night beats
out one of the all-stars but that's not
how you play poker and therein lies the
problem of how we're thinking about
eSports
you see most objections to the idea of a
game with
and the melons being considered a sport
are still rooted in the any given hand
type of thinking they're a little bit
stuck in the mindset that an individual
match is how you determine skill but
that's not true for games with random
elements a poker game isn't a chess
match because of the randomness inherent
in the game the results of a single hand
in poker tell you far less about a
player skill than a single game of chess
instead in poker you have to look at a
much larger sampling in a poker
tournament players may well play
thousands of hands on any given hand the
cards may turn against them and the
opponent may find a Lucky River or pull
a 5% out but over a thousand games all
that randomness evens out they are just
as likely to find that luck as their
opponents and their skill at the game
means that they know what risks to take
and how to capitalize on them this
translates into how much a player wins
and how often they take home the pot and
so in the end the players with the most
skill clearly shine through this is
because poker is a game of Eevee or
expected value unlike in chess poker
players can't be sure of the absolute
value of any move but the best players
find all the tiny ways to up their win
percentage and this is even more true in
games like hearthstone
a player who can really think through
the cards in their deck and what their
opponent might have rather than simply
playing against what's on the board will
make all sorts of minor adjustments to
their play to maximize their chance of
winning and herein lies the skill to the
game the difference between a player
who's stuck at rank five and one who is
in the top 16 in the world is simply the
difference between a player who's
consistently winning 50% of the time and
one who's consistently winning 80% of
the time but eking out that extra 30%
takes a world of skill so there can be
plenty of skill in games that include
randomness the question is simply how to
highlight this in our tournaments the
first thing we have to do is move away
from single elimination when I see
hearthstone tournaments where a player
is eliminated after losing two hands I
sort of just have to chuckle and agree
with all the detractors because that's
well within variance it's very possible
that the better player drew poorly twice
and that skill didn't win out at all
instead these tournaments should be
around robin style each player should
play every other player in the
tournament and the player with the
highest win percentage should be
declared the victor better still if you
want to ensure that these games focus on
skill play them as leagues with play
taking place over the course of months
where dozens if not hundreds of games
get to play out so that the randomness
shrinks from being a dice roll to being
a calculable estimation what the right
tournament style is or how exactly we
should structure our competitions may
vary from game to game but in the end
there are plenty of ways to change our
tournament structure to ensure that
victory is a demonstration of skill
rather than the luck of the draw even in
games that feature randomness is an
element of play most importantly though
if we want eSports to continue to grow
and thrive
we shouldn't simply throw out all these
incredible competitive games that happen
to use randomness simply because we're
looking at competition to narrowly and
with that I say good luck and believe in
the heart of the cards I'll see you next
week