Watch CBS News

Video Gaming On The Rise As A Collegiate Sport

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - It's filling sports arenas throughout the world. Competitors square off for multi-million dollar prizes. But is it a sport?

"There's a lot of teamwork and a lot of communication. There's a lot of really quick thinking and reaction time," CMU student Kevin Kuan said.

Welcome to the brave new world of E-sports - competitive video game playing where its professional players are as well-known as Peyton Manning or LeBron James.
 
And there are the intercollegiate ranks, where to no surprise, Carnegie Mellon University is already a national powerhouse.

"Everyone here is really smart. We all love computers, we do a lot of engineering," Patrick Glinsman said.

The members of CMU's E-sports team are masters of a game called League of Legions, where five team members take on another college team in cyberspace.

One of its stars is sophomore Patrick Glinsman, who would be a junior if he hadn't taken a year off to play professionally.

"It was just a leave of absence. It was temporary leave, but yeah," Glinsman said.

Was he successful?

"For playing games it wasn't bad," he said. "Maybe $30,000, $40,000."

But that's small potatoes in a world where teams can win prizes of up to $10 million.

Glinsman is now back pursing his engineering degree in addition to video gaming.

"It's not healthy when you hear about someone in China playing for 48 hours straight. We don't do anything like that. That's absurd," Glinsman said.

At least one university -- Robert Morris in Illinois -- is now offering athletic scholarships to video game players -- contending that like physical sports, it sharpens intelligence, reaction time and decision making.

"If more schools start offering scholarships, I think that this will show games take the same amount of dedication of another person who plays a sport like football or baseball. Video games will be a lot more accepted in society," Kuan said.

Whether this is sport or not may not matter. Playing video games competitively has become big business and will continue to grow on campuses and off.

Join The Conversation On The KDKA Facebook Page
Stay Up To Date, Follow KDKA On Twitter

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.