- The Tokyo Esports School is an ambitious project seeking to elevate Japan’s burgeoning esports industry
- Esports in the country are still relatively new with Japan making big strides to catch up to the rest of Asia
- The new school will seek to educate professional players as well as industry professionals capable of achieving more
Esports-minded school children will have the opportunity to go to a dedicated school in Tokyo’s Shibuya district starting early next year.
Time to Teach Esports… and Boring Stuff, Too
Tokyo’s Shibuya district is soon to play a host of one of its most ambitious projects focused on competitive video gaming. The country’s first esports school, aptly called the Esports Koutou Gakuin, which… you have guessed this right, translates as Esports High School, is to open early next year.
The school is a rarity in the Japanese landscape as professional gaming was not actually allowed in the country until 2018 when a change in legislation made it possible to host esports tournaments and get a license to play in such competitions professionally.
However, this is the first initiative that actually wants to grow esports on an educational level with Japanese telecom company NTT and local soccer club Tokyo Verdy funding the project. The school will actually bring together an interesting crop of talents, with professional esports players, and NTT and Tokyo Verdy employees coming to help with the curriculum.
Needless to say, the school itself will feature some pretty neat gaming rigs, with 40 Galleria XA7C-R37 PCs, which are decked out with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 graphics and Core i7-11700 CPUs.
Not Just Gamers, More Like Professionals
Students who are going to school to just game, though, will have to curb their enthusiasm. The school is not going to do away with the traditional Japanese curriculum, although it would definitely modify it to accommodate extended training sessions for popular esports games, such as MOBAs, FPS, Battle Royales, and more.
Students will not just learn how to be professional players, as the curriculum will also train them to be prepared to work in other aspects of the esports industry. This would include game writers, designers, creators of content, and even programmers. The school will take a multi-pronged approach towards training the pros of the future.
Japan can use more talent for its burgeoning esports industry which is set to become one of the biggest worldwide.
