E-athletes named for inaugural Commonwealth Esports Championships
We meet Team England's "KarenLyl" ahead of her competition debut
Last updated 15th Jul 2022
England has named its first ever team to take part in the Commonwealth Esports Championships, a pilot event that will take place alongside the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
28 nations will compete at the event, across the 6th and 7th of August, to see who can bring home gold, silver and bronze across a range of video game categories.
Among those competing, Karen Liu aka "Karenlyl", a Greatest Hits Radio journalist from Newcastle.
Video Games go mainstream
England have named competitors across three video games categories at the Championships:
- DOTA 2 - an online battle arena game
- eFootball - where gamers face each other in 11 a side matches on the big screen
- Rocket League - a game mixing football and motorsport
Categories are divided into "Open" and "Women's" events, with many of Team England's e-athletes having experienced major tournaments where millions of dollars in prize money has been up for grabs.
In the Commonwealth event, national pride is at stake.
Karen, who lives and works in Scarborough, told us: "It's amazing for me, playing video games on the side, casually for fun, and now I'm on the England women's team and hopefully trying to come home with a gold medal."
Karen reckons she's clocked nearly 10,000 hours of gaming time on DOTA 2 - a battle/strategy game that's a bit like 4D chess - which she enjoys when she's not presenting and producing radio news.
"I always play after work, I don't think there's ever a day where I don't play multiple games a day, personally I never stop playing it.
So is she nervous about stepping out wearing her England jersey for the big tournament?
"I've never played an event like this before. There's going to be a crowd, which hopefully won't add to the pressure. It'll be livestreamed as well, so who knows how many people are going to be watching?"
Lockdown and the online nature of video games means that Karen is only just getting to know her teammates in real life.
"My teammates all have full time jobs, so it's hard to figure out when and what days we can all play together as five but we've had to step it up this month."
Esports see massive growth
The finals are held in the first weekend in August at Birmingham's International Convention Centre, and sits alongside the Commonwealth Games taking place in venues across the West Midlands.
The Global Esports movement has boomed in the last decade, with e-athletes attracting major sponsorships and millions of followers on social media.
Karen, who attended University in Leeds says: "It's a pilot so I hope it goes well and eventually will pave the way for the future of Esports.
"There's been a lot of tournaments where the prize pool has been millions of dollars. It's massive, absolutely massive."
Karen hopes that female gamers will be inspired by the event, and see there are opportunities in an increasingly popular new genre of sport.
Nations will compete in a play-off event before the Finals themselves.