.& Sats. Beer Pong; is it a sport? By Josh Martin, Sports Editor “i very time you go to a house party, there are always three questions to be answered: how many people are going, is it BYOB, and—possibly the most important of the three—will there be beer pong? Beer pong has become so popular over the past several decades that it is almost mandatory at every house party. You’ve probably have seen beer pong in movies like Road Trip: Beer Pong and Beerfest. On Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, host Jimmy Fallon has publicly played the game with celebrities like Betty White, Serena Williams, Anna Kournikova, Charlize Theron, and the one and only Jessica Alba. How to play To play beer pong, you must have beer, 12 or 20 cups (depending on what style you want to play), a long table (a ping pong table, preferably), ping pong balls, and some friends. This game can either be played one-on-one — otherwise known as singles—or two-on-two, which is always a fan favourite. The object of beer pong is to sink the ping pong ball into your opponent’s cups before they do the same to you each round. Every time a ball sinks a cup, the person who filled that cup with beer must drink the cup’s beverage. One classic rule that I insist on is the stare off at the beginning of the beer battle. For the stare off, each player throws their respective ping pong ball into the opposing team’s cups while staring into each other’s eyes—for the rights of the first throw in the game. It is suspenseful, intimidating, and invigorating all at the same time. Once there is a clear winner, the game begins. So, it is a sport? Beer pong is often related to other sports such as billiards and darts, and has recently become so popular in that The World Series of Beer Pong has been created, which is being held in Las Vegas at the Flamingo Hotel and Casino. Now going into its seventh year, the popular World Series event will be held this upcoming January 1-5. It includes four nights on the strip, hundreds of teams from the U.S. and Canada, 12 guaranteed games, and a grand total of a $50,000 grand prize. And the best thing about it is that anyone can sign up! If you want to know more information about this event check out the website at www.bpong.com /wsobp. A fun way to consume alcohol in a sporting manner of competitiveness, frustration, and glory. All of the emotions that come with the world of sports. It’s a sport. Redefining sport? UBC Starcraft Club brings competitive gaming into the spotlight Photo by: Josh Curran By Vinicius Cid — The Ubyssey (University of British Columbia) VANCOUVER (CUP) — Your command centre is being burnt to the ground, all of your miners are dead and to make matters worse, you only have one tank left to fend off an approaching Zerg horde. You life is about to be control + alt + deleted. Welcome to the UBC Starcraft Club. Last November, a group of 20 gamers banded together with the aim of propagating e-sports throughout campus. Less than a year later, the Starcraft Club has more than 300 paid members, all united by their desire to mingle and have fun with like-minded gamers. “Most of the time, people play online games by themselves or with a couple of friends,” said James Choi, the club’s president. “But we want to get everyone together and have fun as a whole.” It isn’t just about gaming, however. The club has a goal of developing e-sports, which in essence is the game of playing video games. It may be silly to think of sitting in front of a computer and jamming away at a keyboard as a form of sport, but that may be a matter of perception. It takes work ethic and skill to play a game and triumph over opponents, just like it does in hockey or football. “We call it mechanics,” said Alek Hrycaiko, a fellow Starcraft Club member. “The way that you navigate through the game, you get used to the commands until it sinks with you and you become better at it.” With a mastery of the mechanics comes a mastery of the game. When two skilled players face off against one another, the intensity of the game becomes palpable. It is this aspect of Starcraft that makes it plausible to label competitive gaming as a form of sport. “In order for e-sports to become a professional sport, it has to be a business. It needs to have an audience and people who pay the players to do their job,” said Sarana Sopanpanichkul, another fellow Starcraft Club member. “You already have huge amounts of people who want to watch a game and sponsors who are putting up big money, so in that sense it’s already a sport.” The perception of gaming as an e-sport is already concrete in South Korea. Top Starcraft 2 gamers receive the equivalent of thousands of dollars in sponsorship deals to participate in national tournaments, which receive the benefit of television broadcasts and are capable of selling out stadiums. E-sports are also experiencing an explosion of popularity in China that could soon reach the same levels of intensity. “It’s like our sports [in North America], teams are sponsored by companies like Pepsi, Samsung and LG,” said Choi. “And games [are broadcast] on TV and people go out there to watch the finals.” The hope is that the UBC Starcraft Club will do its part to contribute to the rise of e-sports in North America. While the members don’t really see parents encouraging their children to play video games in the future, a more realistic expectation is that the ability to effectively command virtual troops in a strategy game or be a marksman in a shooting simulation will be considered a genuine skill worthy of appreciation, similar to throwing a football or shooting a puck. That would be much better than the current consensus, where gaming is normally seen as an inherently antisocial and wasteful activity. “Right now I’m so happy to be at the forefront with how the community is turning out,” said Choi. “It brings down some of the stereotypes people might have about gamers, but when we come out and play together, it’s just like any other sport and a very social activity.”