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Thirty-seven kilometres north-west of Sydney’s CBD sits Kellyville, a sleepy residential area surrounded by rural farmland. There’s a Coles, a pub and a handful of shops – in other words, an ideal location for a young family eager for a quiet slice of suburbia that’s not too far from the city. It’s a crisp Friday morning and the neighbourhood is a scene of domestic bliss, with cloudless blue skies reinforcing the sense of optimism that’s arrived in the wake of newly relaxed COVID-19 restrictions. Schools have reopened, the NRL has returned to television screens and Australia is back to business as usual. Almost.
The household we’re here to visit looks like any other but appears to exist in its own bubble. The windows are closed and the blinds are drawn, as if shutting out the outside world. Approaching the front door, the chorus of local birdsong is interrupted only by the faint sound of heavy-metal music floating from a nearby house. We check our notes confirming we’ve come to the right place.
Thankfully, there’s someone home. Dressed in a plain navy T-shirt, baggy combat shorts and no shoes, 23-year-old Chris Lee answers the door and welcomes us inside. Aside from the many pairs of sneakers lining the hallway, there’s little indication that anyone actually lives here. Until you reach the front room.
Six state-of-the-art gaming PCs sit perched against the wall, in front of a row of chairs that look better suited to the cockpit of a fighter jet than a suburban household. But this isn’t any old house, it’s home to the Chiefs, an elite Australian eSports team who are due to compete in a regional tournament of League of Legends. Today marks the opening day of the season.
Video gaming is not what it used to be. Forget the images of teenage kids wasting their lives in their parents’ basements – eSports is big business. Huge, actually. While sometimes played on traditional sports games like and , eSports tend to feature online titles that exist within either intricate fantasy narratives or fictional warzones, and are typically played on PCs rather than consoles. The most popular eSports include , and . Most are available for free and are played on online servers divided by region. By 2021, the number of active gamers worldwide is predicted to reach over 2.7 billion, more than five times the number playing basketball.
