Kiwi athletes have begun honing their skills and sinking hours into games in a bid to compete at the first-ever Commonwealth Games esports events.
For the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England, a pilot is being offered where three different esports are up for medal contention – Dota 2, Rocket League and eFootball.
The Commonwealth Esports Championships will take place on August 5 – but there is still a long road ahead to get there for Kiwi hopefuls.
New Zealand Esports Federation (NESF) chief executive Jonathan Jansen said the New Zealand qualifiers, where Kiwi teams would go head-to-head to find the best teams across each game, would be played first.
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After that there would be the global qualifiers and, if teams made it through that, the actual tournament.
Two sections were available for each game: open and females.
Auckland-based Lucy Tam, 30, will be competing as part of a women’s team, Sweetbix, in Dota 2.
Dota 2 is a 5v5 game where players compete across three lanes and the jungle (the space between the lanes). The aim is to push the enemy back and destroy the enemy ‘ancient’ in their base.
Tam is returning to the game after a two-year break. She said the competition offered a good opportunity to get out there and represent New Zealand on an international stage.
“I’m hoping that this helps normalise the sport and gets people more supportive.”
The passion is what kept her wanting to play, she said.
If the team put in the work, which a lot of the women had been really motivated to do, there was a good chance of making it to the games, Tam said.
The New Zealand public had yet to support esports as seriously as it should, unlike other countries, she said.
There also wasn’t any formal training to help competitors.
While the Commonwealth Esports Championships might not be the pinnacle of competition in gaming spheres, it would provide for a mainstream demographic that might not have seen something like this before, Jansen said.
“It’s really exiting for a lot of gamers … this could reach beyond the world of esports”.
Registrations for the NZ qualifiers close on April 7.
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