日本推出電子競技職業教育

It is 11am on the first day of term and the second years will soon be blearily rolling on to the Nishikasai campus after an all-night video game binge. It is hard to imagine students more fiercely devoted to the rigours of modern academia.

新學期第一天上午11點，二年級的學生在玩了一個通宵的電玩後，將很快睡眼惺忪地走進位於東京西葛西的校園。他們頑強地投入嚴酷的現代學校生活，很難想象有比他們更用功的學生。

For the rest of the day, about half of the year group will put in another six hours of tireless gaming, punctuated with meticulous discussion of strategy and tutorials on mental preparedness techniques. Their student peers — equally passionate about games, but less able to click a mouse at a competitive pace of five times a second — will immerse themselves in the theorems of game analysis, commentary broadcasting, cheat-detection and event management. This is how Ivy Leagues are born. By the time competitive video gaming and all the associated razzmatazz becomes a $1bn global industry (in about two years’ time, according to some estimates), Tokyo’s Jikei Gakuen may already think of itself as a venerable seat of “e-sports” learning.

這一天的其餘時間，約一半的二年級學生將再花上6個小時不知疲倦地玩遊戲，期間還會認真討論策略並參加關於心理準備技巧的輔導課。他們的同學（同樣熱衷於遊戲，但無法以每秒5次的競技速度點擊鼠標）將深入學習遊戲分析、遊戲直播、作弊探測和活動管理理論。常春藤盟校(Ivy Leagues)就是這樣誕生的。當競技電玩和所有與之相關的五花八門的活動成爲一門規模達10億美元的全球產業（一些人估計，大約需要兩年）時，滋慶學園可能已經把自己視爲了“電子競技”教學的元老。

At one level, the founding of Japan’s first e-sports academy fits comfortably (if eccentrically) into the breathless evolution narrative of professional gaming and the increasingly lucrative market in which it thrives. Through a decade of economic and technological waves — powerfully amplified by social media — the competitive playing of online games like League of Legends and Defense of the Ancients 2 has become a global spectator sport with an active audience estimated at 400m and total revenues of about $650m.

從一個層面來說，日本首個電競學院的創立非常符合（雖然這有些古怪）職業電競驚人的發展以及令電競蓬勃發展的越來越有利可圖的遊戲市場。經歷了10年的經濟和科技浪潮（社交媒體起到了有力的推動作用），《英雄聯盟》(League of Legends)和Dota 2等網絡遊戲的競技已成爲一項在全球擁有衆多觀衆的運動，活躍觀衆人數據估計多達4億人，總收入約爲6.50億美元。

As the implications of those numbers have sunk in, mainstream television networks and the marketing departments of major brands have taken note — particularly of e-sports’ historic grip over South Korea and its rapid advance into China and Southeast Asia. Sponsorship deals have become bigger, the prize pots for the largest tournaments have swollen to well over $2m. A few US universities have started offering partial scholarships for promising stars. Loose organiser associations are scrambling to become serious global governing bodies. Millionaire e-sporting heroes are emerging, along with international fanbases, doping scandals and PR teams. It is all rather impressive for a discipline whose proponents hit their peak at 24 and are often burnt out two years later.

隨着這些數據開始產生影響，主流電視網絡和大品牌的營銷部門已開始留意，尤其是留意到電子競技在韓國取得的歷史性重要地位以及該產業快速進軍中國和東南亞。贊助協議的金額變得更高，最大賽事的獎金已增加到遠遠超過200萬美元。幾所美國大學已開始爲有潛力的明星提供部分獎學金。鬆散的組織者協會正競相成爲重要的全球治理機構。電子競技富豪偶像正在誕生，同時出現的還有國際粉絲羣、興奮劑服用醜聞以及公關團隊。這一切對電競這樣一項運動而言是非常令人印象深刻的：電競運動員在24歲達到職業巔峯，往往在兩年後就走到職業生涯終點。

And for Jikei Gakuen, the timing looks decidedly smart. The first ever intake to the e-sports college was a 40-strong group who joined a year ago and will graduate in March 2018. The second year in operation saw 60 students sign up, and the college is now planning to open a second campus in Osaka for dozens more.

滋慶學園的時機選擇看上去絕對明智。電競學院的首批學員有40多人，一年前入學，將於2018年3月畢業。招生第二年有60名學生註冊，該學院現在計劃在大阪開設第二個校區，招收更多學員。

But hidden beneath the euphoric roar of novelty is a more melancholy thrum. For all of its look-at-me charge into a bold new arena, the establishment of Japan’s first e-sports school is fundamentally defensive. It is there, says its founder, to prevent Japan falling behind. E-sports is emerging as an exciting global industry and Japan, which once brought video games to the world, is almost nowhere to be seen. That is not through any shortage of exceptionally focused youngsters capable of downing endless caffeine drinks and playing games for the 11 hours a day recommended by the world’s greatest pro-gamers. The problem is that the potential pool of Japanese pro-gaming talent tends not to play the same games as the rest of the world and favours consoles over PCs — a fact that didn’t matter a jot until there was a $1bn e-sports industry based overwhelmingly on PC games.

但在這一派新鮮歡快景象的背後，隱藏着一種更爲低沉的基調。儘管日本首家電競學院貌似洋洋得意地大膽進軍新領域，但該學院的創立從根本上來說出於一種防禦意識。其創始人表示，這是爲了阻止日本落後。電子競技正成爲一個令人興奮的全球產業，曾經將電玩帶到全世界的日本在這個行業裏卻幾乎沒有立足之地。這並不是因爲能夠喝下無數杯含咖啡因飲料並每天玩11個小時遊戲（這是全球最優秀的職業玩家所推薦的）的特別專注的年輕人短缺。問題是，日本潛在的職業電玩人才與全球其他地區玩家玩的遊戲不同，他們對遊戲機的喜愛勝過個人電腦(PC)——在主要基於PC遊戲的電子競技行業成爲一門規模達10億美元的產業之前，這一點原本一點兒都不重要。

In industrial terms, Japanese companies have historically operated under constant threat of the “Galápagos effect” — the tendency to enter technological cul-de-sacs that were (just about) justified by the size of Japan’s domestic market but ultimately separated Japanese products from global markets and destroyed their ability to compete.

從行業的角度來講，日本企業的經營一直面臨“加拉帕戈斯效應”(Galápagos effect)的持續威脅，加拉帕戈斯效應是指這樣一種傾向：進入一條就日本國內市場規模而言勉強可算合理的技術死路，但這條路最終令日本產品與全球市場跑偏，並破壞了日本產品的競爭力。

The e-sports school is an attempt to prevent a Galápagos generation of gamers cutting themselves off from a lucrative market. It is never too soon to establish world-class aspirations, says the Jikei Gakuen head: “Why is Brazil good at football? Because children start playing aged three. We do that with video games, but we need to think about global markets. Japan has so much potential.”

電競學院旨在防止受到“加拉帕戈斯效應”影響的一代遊戲玩家與一個利潤豐厚的市場脫節。滋慶學園院長表示，蜚聲世界的遠大志向越早樹立越好：“巴西爲何擅長足球？因爲巴西的孩子們從3歲就開始踢球了。我們的孩子也是3歲就開始打電玩了，但我們需要考慮全球市場。日本潛力巨大。”