In Brazil's Favelas, Esports Is an Unlikely Source of Hope (wired.com) 30
The country's poorer communities often lack access to tech equipment. Teams that recruit low-income players are providing another path to economic mobility. From a report: On the outskirts of the most diverse cities in Brazil lie neighborhoods that climb steep hills and stretch for miles. These neighborhoods often have a precarious structure -- houses built side by side, with no apparent order, and only small corridors that are poorly lit. It is in these favelas that thousands of Brazil's youth dedicate hours and hours of their days to esports, with the dream of making it big in the industry. Projections point to a market that, in 2023, should surpass $1.5 billion, and in Brazil even traditional football teams such as Vasco da Gama and Flamengo have begun to assemble esports teams in games such as League of Legends and Pro Evolution Soccer. The top athletes win millions of dollars in prizes, while the average salary of a professional League of Legends player exceeds $400,000 per year.
Brazil is an extremely unequal country with an immense social abyss -- about 25 percent of the Brazilian population is considered poor, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. Social inequality in Brazil, according to the Gini index (used by the World Bank to measure inequality among countries or groups of people), has increased in recent years. In regions like the northeast, almost half the population lives in extreme poverty on less than $1.90 a day. This inequality is also reflected in the country's esports industry. The basic items an esports athlete or streamer needs -- access to the internet and quality equipment -- is not always available for those living in the favelas. In an extremely competitive environment where fractions of a second can make all the difference and lead to a victory, slow internet and outdated equipment can be fatal to success. There are immense differences between those living in the favela and those in the "asphalt" -- that is, people living outside poor communities, who have access to better schools, health services, and greater purchasing power, and who often frown upon those from the favela.
Brazil is an extremely unequal country with an immense social abyss -- about 25 percent of the Brazilian population is considered poor, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. Social inequality in Brazil, according to the Gini index (used by the World Bank to measure inequality among countries or groups of people), has increased in recent years. In regions like the northeast, almost half the population lives in extreme poverty on less than $1.90 a day. This inequality is also reflected in the country's esports industry. The basic items an esports athlete or streamer needs -- access to the internet and quality equipment -- is not always available for those living in the favelas. In an extremely competitive environment where fractions of a second can make all the difference and lead to a victory, slow internet and outdated equipment can be fatal to success. There are immense differences between those living in the favela and those in the "asphalt" -- that is, people living outside poor communities, who have access to better schools, health services, and greater purchasing power, and who often frown upon those from the favela.
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You're not wrong and I heard that SP just went into lockdown (again). Manaus has been ravaged by that Covid variant from the Amazon, etc. But they also were only getting that crappy Chinese vaccine that doesn't offer much protection compared to Moderna / Pfizer, last I heard. They do have a good vaccination system, though, so once they have enough vaccine they should be able to get people vaccinated.
Back to the story, though, you don't need to be from a favela for this and, honestly, most of the favelas
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The Coronavac vaccine is nowhere near crappy, it prevented 100% of severe cases during testing. Brazil is using AstraZeneca and Coronavac and the later is leading 10:1 in number of doses.
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300k is quite a lot (4 times the number of murders) but it's not even close to actually annihilate brazil, a country that spawns close to 3 million people per year.
Also presidents don't actually lead countries, it's a pretty complex system where many people have influence and the supposed leader have to cater for em, or in many cases is just unable to stop em.
No (Score:2)
No, only the select few are signed with major esports organizations and earn these crazy salaries and only few people are popular enough to live off streaming in e.g. Twitch.
Thousands if not millions of other players don't earn a penny while PC gaming in 2021 has become a luxury due to the GPU shortage [theverge.com].
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GPU shortages don't affect those that already have one. Plus those two games don't require the latest and greatest which most of the shortages are about.
This is neither news or intersting (Score:3)
Just look at the NCAA in the US and their fight to minimize the education that high school athletes receive.
I also will refer you to Rudo y Cursi.
The only new variable with esports is when the players will die of a heart attack.
One interesting sentence (Score:1)
I found ONE sentence in the summary interesting.
"almost half the population lives in poverty on less than $1.90 a day."
$1.90 a day. Half the population.
Here on Slashdot I keep being told that earning $1.90 in FIFTEEN MINUTES is poverty.
You mean all the people whining here make as much in 15 minutes as a lot of people make for an entire day of work?
Re:One interesting sentence (Score:5, Interesting)
Poverty has always been relative. Someone will trivialize this by saying, as I saw on Reddit the other day, that this means that someone is saying that we're better because some past king didn't have a microwave, but even the poorest now live better than the poorest of the past.
The favelas are truly awful, though--and I have family who grew up in one. But inasmuch as socialists promise answers to that, one should point out that Brazil was ruled by them for over a decade with no improvement on that front. Instead, they only managed to bankrupt the state-run oil company then convince the SDF that they never should've been investigated for that. Yay, progress?
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> Poverty has always been relative.
Yeah, Hillary Banks complains she only had a BMW, while the neighbor had a Bentley.
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The backstory is that the focus on landowners meant most of the population was starving. In Colombia this lead to decades of war against the landowner. Over decades, policies such as taxing wealth, health care, and focus on social equity, leads to a country where landowners cannot just say pay what we want or starve, but have an incentive to rent or s
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That'd be like buying Greenland... (Score:2)
Brazil considers the Amazon a strategic resource, I don't think that buying the state of Amazonas would go over very well, even if it's relatively poor now due to the invention of synthetic rubber.
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Brazil considers the Amazon a strategic resource,
Yeah, and their strategy is to burn it down so they can grow crops there.
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That's mostly some small-time subsistence farmers doing that, not "Brazil" as such. That their government is crazy, corrupt, and inept and basically incapable of enforcing most laws doesn't really help things as most who have set foot into a cartório or had a good look at Brasilia can attest.
Also, Manaus got screwed by the invention of synthetic rubber and ended up decaying sort of like what happened to Detroit.
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How about this, arsehat. Two crusts of bread is twice as much as one crust of bread, do you actually really halve poverty with a second crust of bread. Because one is deeper into poverty does not take others not as deeply impoverished, out of poverty.
At the bottom form times as much is not that much extra, not like at the top. $2 a day versus $8 dollars a day is not that much different. Not like the arseholes at the top, who demand more go into poverty, so they can turn 1 Billion dollars for themselves as a
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Just FYI, something I learned. So long as we keep living in the "I need more" mentality, you will never, ever have enough. Happiness is never found that way no matter how much you have.
Happiness is found when we say say "wow, $1.90 a day?! I can give them a month's wages ($50) and not even really notice it!". And then you do exactly that.
The American version of the "more" mentality is based mostly on "that guy has more, so I need more" - in a conversation about people living on $1.90, you immediately start
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The opportunities of the undereducated in any country are limited, and entertainment, sports, whatever, has a low barrier to entry, the ability to replace the players like cogs, and huge potential to extract profits.
It's also one of those feel-good stories like "look how a child is raising money for her mother's cancer treatment" which are actually pretty horrific. And it's not like this is going to help really, one or two particularly lucky and skilled players might take off but everyone else would still be stuck in the shit. It's like lookign at lotteries as a way to escape poverty. It might give some hope but no actual improvment.
It's all about the entertainment. (Score:2)
It's an interesting idea far from our early days of what gaming was all about. Shame open-source has a "making money" problem otherwise all those favelas could be about programmers making it big and lifting themselves out of poverty. It has some of the same requirements as gaming.
esports needs unions and own equipment cheating? (Score:2)
esports needs unions and own equipment cheating issues?
When you have keyboards with macro and other stuff it's easy to chat and the big funded teams can get the high hardware to do that.
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esports needs unions
League of Legends professional players have an... association. Not technically a union, but close. It has managed a handful of changes since its creation in 2018. Most notably, it got team owners to agree to notify players who will be dropped from the roster in advance of the roster lock date for the league, so they have a chance to find a new team.
Soccer ball vs Gaming PC (Score:2)
Which is cheaper?
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False poverty statistics (Score:2)
I have been to countries where there are people living on less than $1 per day. Some people I have talked to have had zero income or cash to their name for months. Ironically they are quite happy by many standards. In fact some of them may even be less stressed than wealthy people who are acclimated to a certain lifestyle. For one thing, in rural areas of many developing countries you donâ(TM)t need money. Food literally grows on trees and on farmland. Your house is obviously no mansion but itâ(TM
I see their angle (Score:2)
Kids who are already good at shooting real people with real guns will also be good at doing it virtually.
Sports is a social mobility mechanism (Score:2)
Sports, especially professional sports has always been a way out of poverty for the oppressed classes / ethnic groups.
I chose randomly three well-known athletes: Pelé, Maradona, Mike Tyson.
I knew nothing of their history or background (I am not a sports fan at all).
All three grew up in poor families and neighbourhoods.
Google "sports as social mobility" for scientific references - there are plenty.