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.新学期第一天上午11点，二年级的学生在玩游戏了一个通宵的电玩后，将迅速睡眼惺忪地走出坐落于东京西葛西的校园。他们坚强地投放严苛的现代学校生活，很难想象有比他们更加用功的学生。

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.这一天的其余时间，大约一半的二年级学生将再行花上上6个小时不知疲倦地玩游戏，期间还不会严肃辩论策略并参与关于心理准备技巧的辅导课。他们的同学（某种程度热衷游戏，但无法以每秒5次的竞技速度页面鼠标）将了解自学游戏分析、游戏直播、作弊观测和活动管理理论。

常春藤盟校(Ivy Leagues)就是这样问世的。当竞技电玩和所有与之涉及的五花八门的活动沦为一门规模约10亿美元的全球产业（一些人估算，约必须两年）时，滋庆学园有可能早已把自己视作了“电子竞技”教学的元老。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.从一个层面来说，日本首个电竞学院的创办十分合乎（虽然这有些怪异）职业电竞难以置信的发展以及令电竞蓬勃发展的更加有利可图的游戏市场。

经历了10年的经济和科技浪潮（社交媒体起着了有力的推展起到），《英雄联盟》(League of Legends)和Dota 2等网络游戏的竞技已沦为一项在全球享有众多观众的运动，活跃观众人数据估算多达4亿人，总收入大约为6.50亿美元。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.随着这些数据开始产生影响，主流电视网络和大品牌的营销部门已开始注意，特别是在是注意到电子竞技在韩国获得的历史性最重要地位以及该产业较慢进占中国和东南亚。

赞助商协议的金额显得更高，仅次于赛事的奖金已减少到相比之下多达200万美元。几所美国大学已开始为有潜力的明星获取部分奖学金。

牢固的组织者协会于是以竞相沦为最重要的全球管理机构。电子竞技富豪偶像正在问世，同时经常出现的还有国际粉丝群、兴奋剂服用丑闻以及公关团队。

这一切对电竞这样一项运动而言是十分令人印象深刻印象的：电竞运动员在24岁超过职业巅峰，往往在两年后就跑到职业生涯起点。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.滋庆学园的时机自由选择看起来意味著明智。电竞学院的首批学员有40多人，一年前入学，将于2018年3月毕业。

招收第二年有60名学生登记，该学院现在计划在大阪开办第二个校区，招生更加多学员。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.但在这一派新鲜喧闹景象的背后，隐蔽着一种更加沙哑的基调。

尽管日本首家电竞学院奇特洋洋得意地大胆进占新领域，但该学院的创办彻底来说出于一种防卫意识。其创始人回应，这是为了制止日本领先。

电子竞技于是以沦为一个令人兴奋的全球产业，曾多次将电玩带回全世界的日本在这个行业里却完全没立足之地。这并不是因为需要喝下无数杯不含咖啡因饮料并每天玩11个小时游戏（这是全球最杰出的职业玩家所引荐的）的尤其专心的年轻人紧缺。问题是，日本潜在的职业电玩人才与全球其他地区玩家玩游戏的游戏有所不同，他们对游戏机的青睐比不上个人电脑(PC)——在主要基于PC游戏的电子竞技行业沦为一门规模约10亿美元的产业之前，这一点原本一点儿都不最重要。

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.从行业的角度来讲，日本企业的经营仍然面对“加拉帕戈斯效应”(Galápagos effect)的持续威胁，加拉帕戈斯效应是指这样一种偏向：转入一条就日本国内市场规模而言只得可算数合理的技术死路，但这条路最后令其日本产品与全球市场跑偏，并毁坏了日本产品的竞争力。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.”电竞学院目的避免受到“加拉帕戈斯效应”影响的一代游戏玩家与一个利润可观的市场僵化。

滋庆学园院长回应，享誉世界的远大志向越早竖立就越好：“巴西为何擅长于足球？因为巴西的孩子们从3岁就开始踢球了。我们的孩子也是3岁就开始打电玩了，但我们必须考虑到全球市场。日本潜力极大。

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