 Hello everyone, thank you for joining us today and thank you Monica and the team at X Prize It's really a privilege to be here to be a part of the virtual future of learning labs And of course, thank you to the team at Engage for creating this wonderful world for all of us to share So I'm Gordon Bellamy. I'm here from USC Games And we're gonna talk about the power of games and specifically about eSports Education and equity and how they've come together to help us all move forward So a little bit about me. I Love knowing the agenda for any meeting a discussion and or the table of contents as it were I love to know the beginning middle and end so I'm gonna share that with you for this talk We're gonna begin with my origin story. We're gonna talk a bit about the history of eSports we're gonna talk about eSports and education and most importantly about the confluence of eSports equity and you and your ability to impact the world going forward so a bit about me I Come from a family of lawyers my my brother's a lawyer my father's a lawyer I'm actually named after my father's law school professor professor Richard Gordon at Georgetown. So I've had Expectations set for me for as long as I can remember and maybe some of you who know what that's like to have Expectations extrinsically placed on you. I studied engineering and my path was to be an environmental attorney and My focus was hydrology, which is the study of water in my case water treatment Now one of the great things about college or university is It's really about deciding what you want to do and and who you want to become So for me that that real day of reckoning came we went on a field trip to the water treatment plant And that's where you learn how they convert some of the sewage or wastewater back into drinkable water And I learned two very important things that day One that I hold these people in the highest regard We trust with our drinking water and and all the crafts associated with that the second Was that I'm not one of those people that wasn't the path for me That wasn't where my true passion wasn't as important as to know what you care about as important No, you know, what's not right for you. So I Started to reflect and think about, you know, well great if I'm not gonna follow this path. What do I love? what does matter to me and What I love are sports now I've never been like the greatest athlete or the fastest or the tallest But I'm very very passionate about the stories and narratives around sports So by good fortune my course were required that I took a whole year off and I needed to find work And so I decided I was going to apply to ESPN the sports network and EA sports, which was very new at the time So I sent my resume off And I got no replies and I was like Confused because I I thought with my academic pedigree and my passion for sports that would be enough but it was and So in this case, you know pressure made some diamonds Decided to take another more direct approach in this case there's a game called NHL hockey that I loved very dearly and I called every single person in the credits for that game from the manual and Once again, there are a number of rejections that got along the way But I got down to the the credits to the special things and there was a guy named Jim Simmons Who was an external developer that means he wasn't actually even you know in house at the studio and he picked up and He gave me the opportunity to have an introductory level quality assurance test like the lowest job in the totem pole the entry level role at electronic arts So I go there spring break 1993 to take the test and The way the tests work back then they'd give you an incomplete piece of software called alpha software So all the features are in but it was still lots of bucks And the reason I'm here today is because They gave me a sports game to test They gave me a game called bulls versus blazers and I once again my love and passion And my love and passion for games intersected at the right time in the right place And and that's why I'm here if I had gotten a different type of game. I might not have been so fortunate so I got the job and I went back to work that summer at electronic arts And that began my life in games So I worked on madden and that was another game I was a football I love and back then the way it worked games were made on cartridges And so they'd be manufactured in japan or puerico and then they actually bring them by ship To america and so that created this great time lag and the result of that Was that they'd have last year's rosters So you wouldn't have all the rookies and all the trades and all the transactions that that make Football for me at least so exciting as you enter into a new year so I Spent my spring to summer working on a workaround for this trying to problem solve And so my problem solution was I started to call Because that's what worked for me every nfl team To get up to date rosters so I could arrive At ea with the most up-to-date information like day one. So I show up day one. I've got my big notebook of solutions But that's not what they hired me to do They hired me there for qa and so I actually got sent to another building To qa test a game called the haunting starring polter guy and actually learn the craft And as importantly like learn the humility to be like a great team contributor Ultimately that worked out I ended up making my way back to the madden team And I was ea's global rookie of the year for all my hard work And end up becoming the lead designer On madden football for a couple of years And that was great. Um I to this day. I love ea I love madden but What I learned was that I also wanted to be living our dreams like madden Was someone else's idea and someone else's dream that we were contributing to but we wanted to do like our own things and so me And one of my best pals We actually started our own studio called z-axis. We called it z-axis because back then Making 3d games was a relatively new idea We grew it up to around 70 people ultimately the soul to act division, which is another game publisher And it's still to this day like the most important financial decision of my life I moved to la which is where I am speaking to you from right now and hopefully around the world all of you are healthy and safe Um and I joined the business development side of the game industry and by that That's where you discover other developers and give them a chance to be published and distributed It's sort of my way of beginning to pay it forward the good fortune that I had in the game industry And I spent much of the most rest of my career Whether that be running the game developer association for the world or published organization Um trying to help others move forward In fact, that's one of the reasons I'm here today. Hopefully to help fuel your passion around esports and games And it's also why five years ago I entered into the realm of education So I wanted to help people move from point a to point b with my abilities and connections So I'm here in la and in la. There's a school usc University of Southern california and it happens to be the number one game design and development program in the world And it's really fun because of the way it's set up There are engineers and designers working together at both the undergraduate and graduate level devoted to games Um and now there's creators. So there's streamers and communicators all Fastest of the craft working together in a collaborative environment around games as their passion and their career Some of the great things that have come out of the program are like journey You see them in the playstation one hand clapping walden We have a collaboration right now with walt Disney Imagineering lots of exciting things I myself teach a class where the playstation 4 is the textbook and we play games as canon And I lead a program called the usc bridge which is about professionalizing Which is you know, how do you what you make games? How do you grow a community? How do you incorporate? How do you get into the business of games? And of course as you know, I'm passionate about sports and I'm very passionate about esports I in fact love esports and I saw that students were getting excited about esports as well I mean who wouldn't be uh, so we worked with teams like la valiant 100 these cloud nine Team liquid to bring esports to usc And so we formed something called the esports student union And what the student union is about it's it's all of our collegiate varsity sports, which are like league of legends heart of stone Overwatch and smash and we're starting rocket league this year And it's run by a hybrid of student and faculty together that that I advise And I work in it because I love it and because esports is a new and quickly growing and thriving industry that runs on passion And the opportunity to help build those connections between grassroots like the students who just love and play And now we're starting to create the games and the professional teams to grow the ecosystem Like that's growing the future of esports So games have always mattered to me Uh, they've always been important and and the reason why is Because well as you can see in vr. I'm I'm african-american and When you navigate the world as an african-american and it's it's come to the fore this the summer with social unrest you navigate with a set of rules and you're taught them from very young and part of the joy of games Is that it's a place where we all Played by the same set of rules. We all start at the same point and move together forward you know towards towards wherever we're heading inside of the game and Creating universes like that for everyone so they can have better understanding and shared experiences matters to me Something else that matters to me Is that you're enough Um, I think that especially now There could be so much pressure To achieve or to be validated whether that be in the class in social media in competition That you don't hear enough that you're enough as you are And so I just want to take this moment with all of you and just just say that and we're going to return to that later Um in the talk, but if you take nothing else from today, it's that that you You you are enough Now I want to take us back and talk a little bit about the history of esports so you can have some context for what's going on today So um esports Back in the 70s way back in time and even the 80s Games were primarily isolated arcade experiences that that's what dominated the video game market The first famous esports athletes were like billy mitchell who had high scores for the games like pac-man and docky con the very first esports competition Was actually in 1972 and we see going back to the black and white pictures, you know, it's a way back um, so in 1972 There's a video game event hosted at stanford university in california and students players competed in a game called space war And the top prize back then was a one-year subscription To rolling stone magazine for those of you who are super young a magazine is like a bunch of websites taped together on paper But that was the prize and obviously it's growing in measures since then Video games broke into the mainstream with a game called space invaders and it's amazing because you can actually see it If you look up there, okay, that is space invaders And so they had a world championship of space invaders that attracted 10,000 players And this really brought video games out of niche into the public eye In fact, and that competition was actually run by a friend of mine, rebecca haineman Who ended up working in the industry for a very long time But this game like what you're seeing right above my head was the very beginning of mainstream esports Later in the 80s Esports began so there's a show called starcade where contestants would attempt to beat each other in high scores in arcade games That was very very popular quick forward Into the 90s Well, this technology ushered in a new era of competitive gaming games for the first time in the 90s Had the power of internet connectivity So online multiplayer became a prominent feature, especially in pc games And a company you're probably familiar with called nintendo held their first world championships and they toured across the usa with their consoles Now another breakthrough moment as big as the space invaders was the first true expro Esports event of the modern era and that was quakes red annihilation that was in may of 1997 This was over 2000 entrants on the internet playing one on one And the top 16 players Actually attended e3 which is a large gaming convention that's held every year in summer And the grand prize as you can see in the slide Was a ferrari 328 gts owned by one of the programmers So this was like the moment this was when games became like aspirational popular lifestyle And as things grew on through into the new millennium Which is now 20 years old More and more internet went to the fore and the prize money went up So for example, like gosh prize money spiked as high as like a million dollars in 2006 And esports grew in korea where starcraft and warcraft 3 became very very popular games and the presence of so much high speed internet accessibility Grew a culture around online gaming Europe as well espn hosted madden competitions and the scope of tournaments there were about 10 tournaments in year 2000 in 2010 There were 260 esports tournaments and brands you may have heard of like major league gaming and intel extreme masters began So in the 2010s Hold on a second This was a big change. So television is one thing But twitch and facebook are an entirely different world So in both twitch and facebook we experienced the peak inaccessibility and the peak and people being able to get to esports Now so anyone with an interest in esports could dive right now into twitch programming. So in 2015 amazon bought twitch And so video game streaming is actually integrated into The whole amazon experience and if you've seen recently now, it's going to be prime gaming alongside prime music and prime movies and prime shopping and What that means is that like games are so far away from being isolated They're a core experience Especially for young people Now in the same way that television was for the generations past Or even selling as broad as music So what does that mean? So what that meant was The growth of broadcast esports So League of Legends and Dota 2 have become huge spectator sports and you're seeing one of the championships right there And why these games specifically? I'll tell you why One they're free They're free to play Yet they're strategically complex So league of legends world championship has taken place. It's going to be in china this year It's been in the galen center in the staple center. It's been in huge stadiums around the world They attract performers like imagine dragons or even virtual performers like kda So if you remember like stanford space war tournament, I was telling you about in 1972 where someone got a magazine subscription Well now Look at what's been born out of that So for example Dota's the international For a problem is the prize pool is now well over 25 million dollars Per year that's spread between the different winning teams Other popular games of your new to esports are valerant, which just came out fortnight csgo Smash brothers, of course And overwatch just wanted to start to look around at different games to explore to find the game. That's right for you So esports in your future sort of looking a bit ahead so How big is it now? The total esports revenue stream in 2019 was over one billion dollars Over 453 million people viewed esports last year Over 57 percent of them are in asia-pacific region By 2022 it's projected that by Reuters that the esports revenue will be over 1.8 billion dollars And it's becoming president even more mainstream again. So for example in japan's olympics, which will now be in 2021 Hopefully there there's going to be playing street fighter and rocky league alongside the conventional sports So streams in separate tournaments mind you But still like it's going to be part of the olympic experience for people who are there and for people who are watching and streaming over the internet So streams are breaking free of the internet now and becoming reintegrated with conventional channels like espn abc etc And in fact as games are becoming even more normalized esports are too And you're just as likely as a young person to be watching esports on sunday as you would be to watching the nfl Something that's happened with that is the rise of collegiate esports So they're now currently over 128 collegiate varsity esports programs across north america And over 100 of those offer some kind of scholarship money For students to participate in the programs right now scholarship money is over 15 million dollars That's right out between these schools to different students who are either playing or managing or helping the program in some way Over a hundred varsity teams competing this year's uh tespa overwatch collegiate championship tespa is like an officially partnered organization with blizzard And so different ecosystems are growing in different ways Because what's unique about esports versus conventional sports is that the games are actually owned by a company And so they share some of the responsibility for lifting up the ecosystem So let's just to paint a picture for a team. So at usc where I was telling you about the esports student union That's about 10 core staff Which are students about 50 players 50 varsity players across our four teams And over 250 members of our clubs You're just people who just love the games and just love being a part of the culture and the tournaments And the operations thereof and so the next generation is really embedded with the games already. I mean video games are now Indisposable because they're both interactive and they have this widespread appeal although they're once looked down upon It's now everyone plays games and video games in just a hobby. It's a job Right. So many of us like me who spent their whole career and and possibly some of you will Actually earn money in and around games and as demographics interests and culture change esports will only continue to rise So you might go well, what am I going to do in esports? What would my career look like? Well, working in esports is not just being a player But rather the entire ecosystem surrounding esports So you'll see some examples here like marketing and management for teams and sponsorships Is a huge area like foster than they foster networks of communication with teams They talk to higher ups inside the school and inside organizations. They workshop slogans. They do social media They do events and they actually work with the players to do promotional stunts as well Producing tournaments is its own craft So of course there's teams playing but there's huge teams that are needed to put on these tournaments from camera people directors producers writers production assistants And of course making the games being played Designing for esports now. There's a whole generation of of esports native young people There's a generation of people who are creating games and creating experiences for esports The industry is growing and changing so rapidly that there's likely jobs that you'll have That don't even exist yet and they're just going to be a matter of you following your passion And in fact some of those jobs and roles may be created around Your particular passion and creativity But why working in esports even if you love it, how does it help you with tangible skills? so I broke it down like this in the four key areas that I feel Esports will help you develop in if you choose to pursue it and help work with your teams whether it be in high school Or college Regardless of your position being involved in esports. I think teaches valuable and widely applicable skills So those skills that I've identified are teamwork professionalism problem solving and flexibility Just talk a little bit more about each of those. So in the case of teamwork Obviously the players work with coaches and teammates But the business and marketing people will naturally collaborate with each other and external organizations to set up those great moments That either fund the organization or spread their acclaim professionalism now Overwatch League is taking really powerful directions with this and they it brings it all the way down to college. I think that One of the great things about esports is it takes people who are experts in one thing and helps them develop skills in areas where they aren't So for example press conferences conducting yourself with an audience responding to critique accepting wins and losses graciously Is not something that one always learns directly in school But as an extracurricular activity esports are a great place to cultivate these skills I mean at the end of the day It is still a bit of a a business and a fun thing to do So supporting your organization you might need to connect with sponsors But across the board you're going to need to be professional and just learn manners of communication Another very important trait is time management Days of people who work in esports are crowded crowded activities and scheduling is everything And that's something you'll see and I'll give some examples that you'll be able to carry over into your academic life And lastly like problem solving Problem solving exists like this is a real once again. It's a confluence. It's entertainment technology and competition. It is notoriously hectic problems new problems arise and problems can snowball into other problems and Actions need to be taken quickly and there's a lot of learning by doing There's an attitude we have at usc where it's like I don't know this but let me learn We'll really try to empower not only our players to solve problems in the game The coaches to solve problems between players the the cast the crew and directors to solve problems of the broadcast Always be trying to learn like always learning and always trying to solve And then lastly Flexibility which is close to problem solving and that it's a way to solve problems Like there's a lot of improvisation a lot of problems that are being presented to you in esports Only solvable by you because of how new a problem can be Plus it's an entertainment industry. So there are things that are running on off schedule And you've got to be flexible as a temperament to be successful Esports and your education. So how does the effect so I want to draw on two specific examples So I'll talk about some students. I'll call my student a column andrew So andrew at our school was assigned to lead the organization execution of an entire event the overwatch carnival So the overwatch carnival was open to the public. It was a chance. You got to meet pro players You got to obviously play in overwatch events Play fun events like offline as well to win prizes And andrew stepped up and organized and ran all this now this he managed to do despite it being his first event And his first time handling event of this size But then what he was able to do was to bring his work It bring that into his work as a team game designer and lead his team on his first class game project Because he had the confidence in some of the best practices he took from running an esports event My second student will call her kriana. Her name is kriana She actually manages our overwatch team scheduling and she what that means like is their team well-being as well So she mediates team conflicts. She leads group outings. She organizes the team bonding activities Now she is also the art lead on a game project And she uses her social and organizational skills from management to help her art team do the best work So I mentioned before the need to be always learning. Well, that's a core Tenant in esports. So as a player Keeping up with the current metas and strats That's key by nature esports promotes educational values like all the roles in esports, whether you be a player a coach Business staff must be up to the challenge of adapting growing and learning as things change because frankly, there's no precedent It's a new industry and every game that comes out is a new curve ball And mistakes will be made but it's how you learn from those mistakes and how you build and grow That's how the industry improves. It's basically learning via practice. That's the pedagogy of esports The skills of esports carry over to school projects and other management skills So school level esports, whether that be high school or collegiate are basically grassroots and people come together And they learn and they harness that passion and energy Into their current operations and that's why so many people are now able to go out of high school and college esports Directly into professional roles either in the craft or into other other skills other crafts Where people see they have those management and team building skills And want to integrate them into their businesses But Remember yourself and I I have a quote here I'll just read it because this print may be small and vr And this is from qiana who I was telling you about She said When the team wins you feel like you win When the team does badly you feel bad and it's hard not to internalize the team's status because you're so close to it But esports has helped me realize that I need to build a work life balance And it's taught me the importance of self-care So I just want to slow down because I know I've been talking about how great esports is it is But you are super important And self-care is super important So sometimes because of passion people can over commit any esports, especially school level where there are no defined work hours And communication on platforms like discord and other messaging channels create an attitude of people feeling the need to be constantly available at any hour of the day Something that we encourage our students to do is define a work life balance And that is to set boundaries like esports like anti activity. She'd be done like in healthy moderation and for example Doing that work at 11 p.m. On a Saturday night should never be happening at anyone's job It doesn't need to be happening in your esports So in qiana's case, I mean she was always she was working at the high school level always She didn't see it as work. She'd send messages during class right for bed, etc. And it started to diminish The rest of her life. She was working in was on the verge of burning out And so she actually stopped Injecting her esports work into every fast of her life and set up like clear times So that she could be at her best both mentally physically and socially And avoid many of the issues that stem just from overworking And thus she's now able to enjoy esports and life at the same time And esports is ready for you one of the greatest examples of esports Collegiate and professional success is sabrina wong. So sabrina wong is Awesome, look her up. I recommend adding her on linkedin if you're on linkedin She was leader of the uc riverside of esports program And then she turned that into an internship at blizzard for tespa that organization I was telling you about before and then went right into the professional ranks working for la valiant 100 thieves and now she's a manager with evil geniuses She also has her own clothing line business that she started as well All things are possible basically she is able to continue to pursue her passion and build on the skills she developed in school Working in esports a great resource for jobs in esports is hitmarkerjobs.com There are over 5 000 jobs right now and They're global And right now while everyone is working from home. There's a great democratization where wherever you are You can now work for an esports team As long as you have internet you would connect and contribute in the way that you can with your skills Back as far as 2018 when we looked there were over 681 companies in 34 countries looking for teams The big employers are still like blizzard and activision riot makes league of legends and valiant twitch, of course But there's so many companies and so many roles big and small that you can now get into esports professionally or as an internship Heck a great example is phil delphi fusion. They were once hiring a meme specialist at 17 dollars an hour So everything from writing social media posts to being an on-camera host to building like search engine optimization visibility To managing events or even teams. There's really something for everyone. You just got to get out there and go get them Which brings me to the change of belief so younger people And many people are younger than me Are much more interested in esports than traditional sports Esports is organic and for those who are older generation who ridicule it They just don't understand and if you watch i'll go back to Overwatch League And if you watch it on abc and you look at the tweets from all the angry people it's It is it is it is something that has been born natively in your generation And something to do if you want to get better is you should know slasher if not look up slasher Look him up on twitter his name is rod bresslau brs lau. He's the most public advocate for esports he's appeared on cnn fox major news channels to defend esports from critics and Games are as we mentioned now very much a shared experience. It's accessible by all like anyone can play a video game and Anyone can become skilled like physical hindrance Especially as there's more and more work being done with accessibility is no longer the barrier that it was of nor is physical location This has become a breeding ground for diversity which has become embedded into esports and video games so The rise in esports is just a small example of the changes in your generation's ideology so violent contact sports Had been like hyper masternized and that in turn has been normalized But but this generation is steering away from it. You don't need Necessarily to to run towards concussions. You could run towards a host of very competitive activities Online and there's nothing wrong with playing a video game people used to think You know or perceive that games were inferior to traditional sports But they're not and as the world progresses and beliefs change Well, certain things gain different meanings to newer generations for it's just as as as simple as like well back when we couldn't Hopefully will again like, you know, younger people would eat out more Because they enjoy the experience reading out, but they don't love sitting in booths Which something I learned because It's so lots of restaurants that were built around this idea of booth sitting have really struggled Because they don't speak and they don't interact in the way that young people do So esports lines up with the values of your generation, especially accessibility And equality and equity and that leads to inclusion plus esports are super fun and engaging and diversity is good So what can you do? Right because you are growing the future How can we emulate the success of games in cultures and businesses and other industries and even the world? Well There's a number like the root of a lot of the problems that exist Are unconscious biases and adherence to traditional beliefs and games and esports though not completely innocent Have been able to begin breaking away from this like these beliefs That's in the past were around like a Like a pure reliance on logic and analytical thinking to maximize efficiency, right a disregard for diversity And excluding like really the other half of our intelligence, which is really heart intelligence, which is which is creativity Things like the tradition of Masculinization and feminization of power roles Right like the traditional societal system isn't built to harbor diversity boys Or often tough to have taught to harden up their emotions to to man up Girls are often taught to defer and please in a system where they were never included This leads to the development of bias Including against yourself, which in some case can manifest itself by not articulating your strength or or not applying for jobs Like so you you know read my story like and you've heard a bit a little bit about me Like I have my own biases to to overcome And esports are like now a part of helping other people overcome their own biases And how do we continue to break away from these biases? Well, first it's by redefining leadership starting with ourselves and leading while championing what's possible for the greater good Expanding our awareness to foster inclusion diversity and meaningful engagements and equality And viewing organizational culture differently Like organizational culture the culture of groups is a work in progress It will never be purely established, but we can always strive to improve it by using inclusive values as your guidelines And making sure that your organizations and your groups and your teams are a safe space for failure And for questions about diversity And you might ask like well why diversity? It's a great question and I'll tell you why It makes us strong Like I have no doubt that diversity that people bringing their uniqueness to the table as additive Makes us all stronger I also feel that it's critical to creative endeavors and that creativity is necessary for us to move forward I'm saying it's not a checklist or just a process But actually a natural outcome Of justice and us being just to each other And that starts with you You are the catalyst that will lead us that'll move us forward away from many of the flawed traditional social and business systems that exist You actively and consciously Performing every day paying attention to how you act on the world Rather than letting the world act on you will make our world a better place There's a lot of extrinsic things going on right now that are beyond your individual control But you can have so much impact as an individual in the choices that you make In your choice of how you're going to be in the world You have that potential You are valid You matter And you're enough as you are Thank you so much for spending time with today. Thank you again XPRIZE is just a fantastic event and I really appreciate it I'm going to share my contact info here. If you want to continue this conversation There is my twitter my instagram my linkedin. Please feel free to add me Uh, everyone just have a fantastic day. Hope you're all healthy and safe out there. Um, and thank you again XPRIZE