Has eSports turned a corner in terms of being more accepted by the mainstream media and non-gamers in the UK?
23-year-old British Call of Duty pro Callum “Swanny” Swan – who plays for Millenium – certainly seems to think so.
Unfortunately Swanny did not make it to Los Angeles to take part in the CoD XP World League tournament taking place this weekend.
In an interview with the Huffington Post, Swanny said: “At the time [of my first CoD XP event] there was something of a stigma behind gaming and behind spending prolonged hours in your bedroom playing video games.
“However, because of eSports and events such as this and the work that Activision are doing with the Call of Duty World League eSports, gaming in general has lost that stigma. I guess it’s no longer a scapegoat for the media or for parents.
“The UK is actually reaching the level where it’s starting to receive positive mainstream media coverage, it’s not being scapegoated – it’s actually now legitimised in a way.”
“However now the UK is actually reaching the level where it’s starting to receive positive mainstream media coverage, it’s not being scapegoated – it’s actually now legitimised in a way,” Swanny added.
“I think we’ve transcended the definition of a niche definitely. People for the last few years didn’t actually acknowledge that eSports was an emerging industry, at the time they just regarded it as a niche fad, but now people are recognising that this is here to stay.”
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
