There were times when students in the campus would hide behind bushes or sit long hours in the toilet to play their favourite hand held console games, these were days when electronic games were frowned up and met with glaring eyes.
Things have changed over the years when activities of such become elevated to sports status, over the years electronic games have rose in recognition garnering an industry all for itself said to be even bigger than the film industry. eSports, the sub sector in the industry is the tournament aspect with players competing in international and local leagues vying for prize money and prestige. Malaysia is no stranger in the global arena having produced world beating teams and continue to represent in major leagues like Dota and CounterStrike.
With no formal training or coaching unlike traditional sports, eSports finds its track in the campus, most of the players are from Universities or Colleges and often ply their skills in this backdrop. Mini tournaments, friendly banter between friends laid the foundation for some of the world beaters like Geekfam and Mushi. Lately much attention has been given to this space, varsities are ripe with talents and undiscovered potentials, during a campus tournament orgsanised by Reach Publishing together with U Mobile, a village team from UTEM Melaka went on to become champions beating a MPL lead team in the Mobile Legends Campus finals. This goes to show talents are abundant, just that the system to raise them is missing.
UITM or Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) is looking to change some of the curriculum legacy issues that was not build in universities for eSports and talents. The campus has taken bold steps to introduce electronic sports as one of its co-curricular modules in the next semester.
UiTM vice-chancellor, Prof Emeritus Datuk Ir Dr Mohd Azraai Kassim said, “We are aware that the e-sports industry is growing rapidly, especially among the younger generation now and UiTM is not lagging behind in keeping with the development of the industry in line with the changing educational landscape today.
“This new module will boost students’ interest in participating in e-sports and it can be looked at as a new profession,” he told reporters after signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between UiTM and Kitamen Resources Sdn Bhd (Kitamen) here today.
The objective is to indirectly expose students to the field of digital technology that is related to sports, through education and research. Universities are aware that the platform is increasingly becoming an area that can provide employment opportunities to students.
Just like characters in a game, the sports is getting more gold coins and building momentum to carry on to the next stage.
