E-Sport in Virtual Reality: How "Showdown Masters" is Changing Digital Sport

Showdown Masters is the new form of e-sports in virtual reality (VR) and is being organised by Fusion Arena for the second time. The innovative tournament will take place between 14 and 26 June in Bern, Kreuzlingen and Zurich. We wanted to find out more about this new type of e-sport in a short interview.

In our VR game "Showdown", in which two teams duel each other, we have shown that you can work up a sweat. Test match experienced first-hand. As the teams in TrueVRSystems' competitive shooter not only move completely freely, but also continuously, the common prejudice that e-sports is not a sport can officially be dispelled. According to Claudio, Head of E-Sports Pandally AG, the game is also even more action-packed if you really play it in teams of two, as intended for the tournament, instead of 1 against 1 like we do.

We asked the expert a few questions about VR in e-sports during our visit.

E-sports are very trendy at the moment. What about VR e-sports?

I have been working in the e-sports sector for five years. The industry has been growing extremely fast for some time now. It's not just the number of young people who are following suit as gamers, the level of professionalism has also increased massively.

Can you make a living from it?

In Switzerland, there are at most a handful of people who can do that. The standard of living here is simply too high. There are players from Switzerland who emigrate for this very reason and live in e-sports boot camps or gamehouses abroad. It's already difficult to earn enough money. As organisers, we also need support. We are looking for major sponsors to help us publicise Showdown Master. The aim would be to be able to offer a series of major tournaments as early as next year. Firstly nationally and then, in a second step, internationally.

What do you expect from the big sponsors?

The visibility is simply much greater. When a name like Red Bull works with us, the event automatically goes on relevant platforms like Twitch, where the existing community will see us.

We clearly see VR e-sports as a niche. We are absolutely convinced that VR will achieve a breakthrough in just a few years. You can see that from various indicators. But the next step, building larger e-sports events from it, will take even more time. We estimate that we will need 3-5 years to build it up.

What would be the goal then?

People should be clamouring for places as soon as we open registration.

What is the current status?

At the moment, we have to recruit players here in the Fusion Arena or approach them directly about the tournament. Corona also plays a big role, of course. People are still hesitant and some of them don't even realise that we've been open again for a month and a half.

Are there any teams already busy training?

Yes, everything got off to a bit of a slow start due to coronavirus, but registrations have increased significantly since last week. We currently have 26 teams registered (as of Sunday, 30 June). Most of them are from Zurich, but Bern and Kreuzlingen have also registered. Surprisingly, however, Kreuzlingen has so far had the most bookings for training sessions.

Who actually decides who plays against whom?

This happens completely automatically at the very beginning. I don't touch it afterwards. That way it's fair for everyone. Of course, this method can mean that teams that know each other have to play against each other right at the start, but that's just bad luck. We are not yet at the stage where we can select the best teams or clubs and do a seeding. At the moment, it's really about getting the masses to play. But in the future, seeding would certainly be a good option.