Console eSports at Insomnia 55 Weren’t What I Expected

I don’t know exactly what I expected to see when I walked through the door of the console eSports room at Insomnia 55 (which I attended in partnership with Argos this past weekend), but it certainly wasn’t multiple school kids shouting swear words at each other across rows of TV’s. Unlike some other Call of Duty events the Insomnia 55 Call of Duty open doesn’t have an age restriction, allowing anyone with a copy of the game and a controller to compete for the £4000 prize pool, and as a result most of the competitors I saw there were clearly under 18.

During my first 20 minutes inside the packed console eSports room I was amazed by the language and volume of the teams involved. A kill in a high pressure situation would nine times out of ten result in the killer jumping up and launching abuse at the victim, however Liam ‘Hankzy’ Hanks, a player taking part in the event, assured me it was just mind games.

“There are a lot of expletives that get thrown around between teams, it’s mind games and trying to put each other off. Sometimes it does go too far and that’s where you need a ref to step in to say ‘Look, thats a warning.’ We have a warning system in place so one warning and then you lose the game or lose the map.”

Advanced Warfare was one of the most revolutionary Call of Duty games in recent years, the change in pace saw a lot of changes at the top of the pro scene but I was interested to hear the thoughts from those who aren’t competing quite at the highest level. Hankzy has been playing Call of Duty since CoD 4, and as such is one of the more experienced competitors at this event, and he offered up an interesting perspective.

“Its not one of my favourites. It wasn’t difficult to get used to, but it was annoying at the start because obviously you’ve got the double jump, the jetpacking, the boosting left, right and center – a lot of it was unbalanced at the start of the game. But it has grown on me quite a lot.”

With Insomnia 55 most likely being the last Insomnia event to feature Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, I also wanted to see what the general consensus was on Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 and the recent beta. The majority of people I spoke to said that they enjoyed the beta, despite some balance issues, and had very high hopes for the new title. Many of the older, more experienced players said they were looking forward to the slightly slower pace returning to the series.

Just across from the multiple Call of Duty stations were the Halo European Championships. While the Call of Duty scene was incredibly loud and primarily teenage males, the Halo tournament seemed slightly calmer and more diverse. In the first match I saw a team of two fathers and their sons take on a team of 20-something males. Needless to say the kids and their dads got destroyed, but the atmosphere here was much more welcoming, and people were clearly enjoying themselves. Although, as more teams started to be eliminated and the top tier players started to meet each other, the trash talking became a lot more common.

The Halo tournament was played on the Halo 2 Anniversary edition multiplayer mode and some of the tactics the teams pulled out where genuinely impressive. On CTF, one team would constantly throw the flag between them, never holding onto it for more than a couple of seconds at a time, which caught their opponents off guard and allowed them to win the map comfortably.

Similarly to the Call of Duty players, many of the Halo competitors said that they were looking forward to the release of Halo 5 later this year and hoped that a large competitive scene would grow around it. While Halo 2 is a classic game and still one of the best multiplayer shooters ever, I got the impression that the players want something new to sink their teeth into and are hoping that Guardians will be the game that really takes Halo eSports to the next level.

While the console eSports section was obviously the main attraction for those playing competitive games on a console, the expo hall was also host to some interesting competitions that anyone on site could enter. One of the most popular was the Splatoon tournament on the Nintendo stand. Having launched to decent reviews earlier in the year, with a lot of new content added since, competitive Splatoon is starting to become a reality. The younger generation were clearly enjoying themselves, and doing quite well I may add, and the tournament format made them incredibly competitive, with loud shouts of joy when they emerged victorious. While it perhaps wasn’t designed to be an eSport, with the new content that has been added Splatoon could have a long future as a competitive game.

Overall, the most surprising part of my console eSports investigation at Insomnia 55 was just how young most the of the competitors were compared to the PC tournaments on offer. The majority of CoD players were under 18, more than a few of the Halo teams were also around that age and unsurprisingly many of the Splatoon competitors were well below that age. I asked Hankzy about his future in competitive Call of Duty and if he would play Blops3 competitively.

“I might give it a go first event, see what it’s like. I mean I’m debating it really because I’m getting to an age now. I’m 20, and if you’re not making moves around 20…” His thought trailed off as he considered his options. “A lot of the kids who are winning the events and the ones I think are going to win this one are 16, 15, so there’s a five year gap. But no, I’d like to if I could, if I thought I was good enough.”

Console based eSports certainly isn’t going anywhere soon, but with some of the older players starting to feel like they can’t compete with the teenagers there may need to be some changes in order to make sure that the scene doesn’t become dominated by those who can’t compete in some tournaments due to age restrictions. However, many are hoping that, in the Call of Duty scene at least, Black Ops 3 will bring back some of the older players who have dropped out in the past year thanks to the more traditional, slower paced style.

Much like its PC counterpart, console eSports is a rapidly growing market, and looks set to grow even more in the coming year. Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 will undoubtedly once again change the competitive CoD scene massively, and Halo 5: Guardians could finally be the game that brings Halo onto a par with other top eSports. However, while the big games continue to get bigger, titles such as Splatoon and others not officially at I55 like Rocket League continue to slowly grow, and may have bright futures ahead of them in the world of eSports.