, Columnists
eSports Is a Losing Game for Old Media
eSports is alluring to traditional media, but it's hard to make money from.
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The 1970s sci-fi movie "Rollerball" imagined a distant future -- 2018, to be precise -- in which athletes compete in a brutal team game that ends in many of their deaths. Turns out the dystopia came early, electronically at least.
There's a global and growing audience for live competitive video games, or eSports, where players inflict virtual carnage on each other in titles such as Call of Duty or do battle in digital versions of conventional sports like football.