Apparel designed for use in esports remains, currently, more of a hypothetical than an established trend. While products like Puma’s “active gaming footwear” do exist, these sorts of items have yet to approach anything close to standardized use in the esports world, indicating that the idea behind their creation has yet to be actualized. If there were a shoe esports pros could wear and reasonably expect to provide them with any sort of competitive advantage, players wanting to win, which describes most of the pros out there, would wear it.
Esports organization Complexity Gaming and esports apparel company We Are Nations are now attempting to design esports apparel that will impact performance insofar as that is possible, in their newly-announced collaborative lab space created expressly for that purpose.
The Lab, as it’s been named, will make use of tests that measure comfort, function, mobility and performance in Complexity Gaming players in items being designed as part of the initiative. Complexity has teams in competitive leagues for Dota 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Rocket League, Fortnite, Hearthstone and other games, so theoretically the benefits of gear created in The Lab could be applied across a variety of esports.
Testing will be administered throughout a three-step process. First, players begin in a Cognitive Lab that measures performance-related metrics like memory and reaction speed. Then they will move to a second room, called the Herman Miller Innovation Lab, in which they will have the opportunity to provide direct feedback on gear that’s in the process of being designed. Finally players will enter a Training Room designed to mimic an in-person esports arena, down to details like its lighting and temperature.
All testing will take place in the GameStop Performance Center, the Complexity Gaming headquarters located in Frisco, Texas, which is adjacent to the Dallas Cowboys practice facility.
Since the debate over whether or not specialized gear can benefit esports players at all is ongoing, this collaboration between Complexity and We Are Nations looks to provide a conclusive answer, one way or another. If the experiment fails to create anything substantive, esports pros at the very least will have access to apparel designed with players’ comfort in mind. Should these experiments result in performance-enhancing gear, however, a wholly new industry could be born from those results.
Source: Esports Insider
