Saahil Arora, better known by his screen name UNiVeRsE, is playing as a fearsome fishlike creature named Slardar. His character hides behind a row of trees with two teammates, ready to strike. Spectators of this computer game, called “Dota 2,” watch the action on a colossal screen above the stage of the Wang Theatre during a recent tournament before thousands of spectators.
Suddenly Arora’s character bursts from cover, smashing Slardar’s trident into the ground to stun an opponent, Li Peng, who’s playing as a character known as the Shadow Shaman. As Arora moves in for the kill, the crowd roars its approval.
“It’s a very emotional game,” said Arora, a professional “Dota 2” competitor. “It’s just like soccer or basketball.”
Arora and his team, Evil Geniuses, traveled from California’s Bay Area to compete in the Boston Major, a four-day video-game competition this month. The event sold more than 9,000 tickets to fans who watched 16 teams from around the world face off onstage for cash prizes totaling some $3 million.
The spectacle — a change of pace for the Wang, which usually hosts theatrical events like the recent productions of “An American in Paris” and “The Wizard of Oz” — was almost certainly the most prominent gaming competition Boston has ever hosted. It also underscored the growing global interest in “e-sports,” an industry worth an estimated $892 million. The events, which treat video games like traditional spectator contests, are already widely popular in Asia and parts of Europe.
In a “Dota 2” match, which tends to be about an hour long, two teams of five players sit in a pair of soundproof booths onstage and control characters who battle in a forested arena with the goal of overrunning the enemy’s base. Every player chooses a different character from a pool of more than a hundred stylized monsters and wizards, each with distinct abilities and magical powers, and outfits them with weapons and other accessories as the game progresses.
As a result, no two bouts are alike, and the ensuing complexity has earned the game a certain cachet among hard-core gamers. Devotees compare its frenetic pace to basketball, careful positioning to chess, and use of statistics and bluffing to poker.
A skilled team needs to work together like clockwork to control the map and win skirmishes. Supporting players often are called upon to sacrifice themselves for the greater good, which ramps up the dramatic tension and helps to explain the game’s growing international popularity as a spectator event.
A high-profile tourney like the Boston Major in some ways resembles other, more typical spectator sports, with a rotating cast of announcers breaking down play like traditional sportscasters and fans yelling out support for their teams.
Nick Cardone, who came to the event from Northampton, said that the crowd’s enthusiasm suggests “you’re gonna see more of these Boston Majors in the future. It’s showing that e-sports have traction here. They’re able to fill up a theater that usually does opera.”
For some here, there’s an aspirational component to the competition. Zach Bartell, who drove up from New Haven for the first day of the event with his friend John Boaks, is a high-ranking player online who’s flirted with the idea of playing professionally. When he watches the action unfold, he explains, he’s looking for new strategies to employ in his own games.
“I’m a competitive guy,” said Bartell. “I like how there’s always something I can do better.”
The pair watch intently as the Evil Geniuses spar with Wings Gaming, a Chinese team: Only three teams from the United States made it to the Boston Major, and Boaks and Bartell would love to see one of them take home a top prize. As the Evil Geniuses slowly gain the upper hand in an onscreen brawl, they join a growing chant from the crowd: “USA! USA!”
The dedication of the crowd, which skews overwhelmingly young and male, is palpable. Managers ferry teams in and out of a back entrance like rock stars to avoid a crush of fans seeking autographs. Nick Dorris, who flew in from the Midwest and attended the tournament dressed entirely in American flag attire down to a pair of shorts, sneakers, and a bandana on his head, waited in line for more than two hours to take a photo with Evil Geniuses,.
“If it’s in the United States, I’ll go,” Dorris said of “Dota” competitions.
By the time he posed for a photo with Dorris on the third day of the tournament, Arora was riding high. Buoyed by a series of decisive victories, he was feeling optimistic about Evil Geniuses’ odds on the final day.
“It’s been going pretty well,” he said, but also sounded a note of caution: “If you want to win a tournament like this, you need to beat everybody.”
Arora, it turned out, was right to be circumspect. The next day, the Evil Geniuses were knocked out of the bracket by OG, a European team that went on to take the million dollar first prize.
Soon, Arora is likely to face difficult career choices. He’s earned more than $2.6 million in prizes over the course of his six-year career. But at 27, he’s far older than his teammates — his compatriot Syed Hassan, for instance, is just 17. Aficionados say the game’s lightning-fast action seems to favor players in their early 20s and younger.
“I’ll probably try to do something in e-sports if I can,” Arora said, “and if that doesn’t work out, then I’ll go somewhere else.”
Jon Christian can be reached at jonathan.a.christian@gmail.com.