As I wandered the boardwalk the other day, I thought to myself, does video gaming skill make you better at carnival games since gamers have great hand eye coordination?

At the boardwalk, there was no shortage of video games on display; the most popular games featured prizes from Super Mario Bros & Pokémon. Gone are the days of Looney Tunes characters & teddy bears 🧸 on the Midway.

In case you were wondering, the answer is no, my gaming skills did not translate to more prizes 😿 or less money spent. Being athletic may help with darts or knocking over milk bottles. These are games of chance (rigged?) for a reason. But, I like to think my accuracy was better than most in the game above; we did go home with Yoshi 💚.

1. The 142nd IOC Session voted for the creation of the Olympic Esports Games 🥇 The first Games will be in Saudi Arabia in 2025.

   • This is a big deal. Esports has always battled to be recognized as a ‘sport’ and now the IOC has deemed it so.

   • NYT has a list of Olympic Games video games if you’re hyped about the start of Paris 2024.

2. Roblox is battling online predators and having some troubles with it, it’s a must read for parents.

   • Online games can be amazing with the right people, but there are bad apples out there. Roblox is trying to combat them, and they did report over 13,000 incidents to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in 2023.

   • I am probably overly cautious about my children’s access to online games. I’ve only let them play on private Minecraft servers with their older cousins. As they get older, I’ll let them get more involved but knowing what voice chat can be like in games, I’m good keeping them sheltered for now.

   • Our Online Safety Guide provides some tips for you across a variety of platforms. Most importantly, talk to your kids about what they are playing and who they are talking with online.

3. The increasing use of video game metaphors in daily communication 🗣️ mirrors the use of baseball term usage per a Harvard linguistics “etymology nerd”

   • “On deck”, “in the ballpark”, and “curveball”, all have baseball meanings but evolved other non-sports ones over time. With more and more gaming vernacular in your lives, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

4. EA Sports College Football 25 🏈 launched to massive fanfare after an 11 year hiatus and 2.2MM people paid $100 to play the game 3 days early!

   • It is extremely rare for a game 11 years in the making to live up to the hype, yet this one has.

   • Also, if you loved NCAA amateurism, you can likely blame video games for ruining it for you.

diff: (noun) - Short for difference; used to describe a skill difference between players on opposing teams, or teams in general

Synonym: skill gap

If someone thinks the tank on the enemy team is better than the tank on their team or has performed better during that game, they'll say "tank diff"

League of Legends

Commonly referred to as ‘League’ or LoL, it is a multiplayer online battle arena published by Riot Games and is one of the most played games worldwide.

In the game, two 5v5 teams defend their own half of the map. Every player manages a unique "champion" with distinct abilities and playstyles. Champions gain strength throughout the match by accumulating experience points, gold, and buying items, all of which help them overpower the rival team. Victory is achieved by demolishing the opponent’s ‘Nexus’, a building situated in their base.

It could be said that League put esports on the map; the World Championship has sold out the likes of Beijing National Stadium and the Chase Center in SF, with opening acts like LilNasX and NewJeans.

The Basics:

Released: 2009

Platforms: PC (a Mobile version called Wild Rift is available)

Pricing: Free with in-game transactions

Here’s what you’ll be seeing on screen:

1. Info on your target - their stats and health among other things

2. High Level Game and Player stats (Left to Right):

   1. Kill Score by team - Red vs Blue

   2. Your own Kills / Deaths / Assists

   3. Your Creep Score (how many minions you’ve killed)

   4. The Game Timer

3. Your Character. Health bar on top and mana/energy bar below. Blue is mana, yellow is energy - they function similarly in that you use them to fuel abilities.

4. Minions - CPU controlled for each side. They are sent down each of three lanes in waves automatically engaging any enemy they encounter.

5. Turrets - Also called towers, they deal damage to enemy minions and champions, and provide limited vision from the Fog of War for their team. There are 11 towers per side that can be defeated to take over the other team’s side.

6. An Enemy Champion - Health bar on top and mana/energy bar below. The purple circle around him is the area of effect of his ability.

7. Your teammates - You can see their health and mana quickly

8. Chat - Player chat as well as game updates get posted here

9. Your Champions Stats & Abilities - Detailed stats on the left, your champion level and the XP you need to level up (purple curve around the Champion portrait), and all your abilities (the square boxes). Most champions have five abilities: a Passive, three Basics, and an Ultimate. Special Summoner Spells like Flash (an instant-dash), the black silhouette with yellow background, are also there. Summoner spells are abilities with unique effects. A few commonly used ones are Flash, Teleport, Smite, and Ignite.

10. Your Equipment - Items enhance your champion’s performance, like granting faster movement, improved damage, and reduced ability cooldowns. They require gold to purchase. The gold you have is under them.

11. The Minimap - Think of this like a birds-eye view of the battlefield. You can see the positions of champions, minions, wards, towers, and more. The white rectangle shows the part of the map the screen is currently on. It also shows which parts of the map are in the Fog of War and which parts aren't.

VIDEO GAME SUMMER CAMP

A few years back - Evil Geniuses ran a summer camp for kids (and their parents) who wanted to learn more about esports and League of Legends. We’ve posted one of the League of Legends overviews to our website if you want to dive even deeper into the game.

It’s high summer - the time for vacations, the beach, barbecues, and sun 🌞 . While portable gaming can make road trips easier, sometimes you can’t beat fun car games like the License Plate game (my kids are hooked on this, but we did see 47/50 states!!), the Minister’s Cat, or ‘I’m Going on a Picnic’.

As we get closer to August, the end of summer is on the horizon. We’ll be checking out back to school for gamers in the next couple of newsletters. Enjoy those last days of summer!

GLHF,

Chris

Connect with me: LinkedIn, X (Twitter)

What I’m playing: Elden Ring