Esports (also known as eSports, e-sports, competitive (video) gaming, electronic sports, or pro-gaming) can be defined as a form of sports where the primary aspects of the sport are facilitated by electronic systems; the input of players and teams as well as the output of the eSports system are mediated by human-computer interfaces. Most commonly eSports take the form of organized multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players. The most common video game genres associated with esports are real-time strategy, fighting, first-person shooter (FPS), and multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA). Tournaments such as The International, the League of Legends World Championship, the Battle.net World Championship Series, the Evolution Championship Series, and the Intel Extreme Masters, provide both live broadcasts of the competition, and prize money and salaries to competitors.
Although organized online and offline competitions have long been a part of video game culture, participation and spectatorship of such events have seen a large surge in popularity from the late 2000s and early 2010s. While competitions around 2000 were largely between amateurs, the proliferation of professional competitions and growing viewership now supports a significant number of professional players and teams, and many video game developers now build features into their games designed to facilitate such competition.
The genre of fighting games and arcade game fighters have also been popular in amateur[citation needed] tournaments, although the fighting game community has often distanced themselves from the eSports label. In 2012, the most popular titles featured in professional competition were the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games Dota 2, League of Legends, and the real time strategy game StarCraft II. Shooting games like Counter Strike, Team Fortress 2, and Call of Duty have enjoyed some success as eSports, although their viewer numbers have remained below those of their competitors.
Geographically, eSports competitions have their roots in developed countries. South Korea has the best established eSports organizations, officially licensing pro gamers since the year 2000. Official recognition of eSports competitions outside South Korea has come somewhat slower. In 2013, Canadian League of Legends player Danny "Shiphtur" Le became the first pro gamer to receive a United States P-1A visa, a category designated for "Internationally Recognized Athletes". Along with South Korea, most competitions take place in Europe, North America and China. Despite its large video game market, eSports in Japan is relatively underdeveloped, which has been attributed largely to its broad anti-gambling laws.
In 2013, it was estimated that approximately 71,500,000 people worldwide watched competitive gaming. The increasing availability of online streaming media platforms, particularly Twitch.tv, has become central to the growth and promotion of eSports competitions. Demographically, Major League Gaming has reported viewership that is approximately 85% male and 15% female, with 60% of viewers between the ages of 18 and 34. Despite this, several female personalities within eSports are hopeful about the increasing presence of female gamers.
Early History (1972-1989)
The earliest known video game competition took place on October 19, 1972 at Stanford University for the game Spacewar. Stanford students were invited to an "Intergalactic spacewar olympics" whose grand prize was a year's subscription for Rolling Stone, with Bruce Baumgart winning the five-man-free-for-all tournament and Tovar and Robert E. Maas winning the Team Competition. The Space Invaders Championship held by Atari in 1980 was the earliest large scale video game competition, attracting more than 10,000 participants across the United States, establishing competitive gaming as a mainstream hobby.
In the summer of 1981, Walter Day founded a high score record keeping organization called Twin Galaxies. The organization went on to help promote video games and publicize its records through publications such as the Guinness Book of World Records, and in 1983 it created the U.S. National Video Game Team. The team was involved in competitions, such as running the Video Game Masters Tournament for Guinness World Records and sponsoring the North American Video Game Challenge tournament.
During the 1970s and 1980s, video game players and tournaments begun being featured in popular newspapers and magazines including Life and Time. One of the most well known classic arcade game players is Billy Mitchell, for his listing as holding the records for high scores in six games including Pac-Man and Donkey Kong in the 1985 issue of the Guinness Book of World Records. Televised eSports events aired during this period included the American show Starcade which ran between 1982 and 1984 airing a total of 133 episodes, on which contestants would attempt to beat each other's high scores on an arcade game. A video game tournament was included as part of TV show That's Incredible!, and tournaments were also featured as part of the plot of various films, including 1982's Tron.
Video Games Go Online
In the 1990s, many games benefited from increasing internet connectivity, especially PC games. For example, the 1988 game Netrek was an Internet game for up to 16 players, written almost entirely in cross-platform open source software. Netrek was the third Internet game, the first Internet team game, the first Internet game to use metaservers to locate open game servers, and the first to have persistent user information. In 1993 it was credited by Wired Magazine as "the first online sports game".
Large eSports tournaments in the 1990s include the 1990 Nintendo World Championships, which toured across the United States, and held its finals at Universal Studios Hollywood in California. Nintendo held a 2nd World Championships in 1994 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System called the Nintendo PowerFest '94. There were 132 finalists that played in the finals in San Diego, California. Mike Iarossi took home 1st prize. Blockbuster Video also ran their own World Game Championships in the early 1990s, co-hosted by GamePro magazine. Citizens from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Chile were eligible to compete. Games from the 1994 championships included NBA Jam and Virtua Racing.
Television shows featuring eSports during this period included the British shows GamesMaster and Bad Influence! the Australian gameshow A*mazing, which would show two children competing in various Nintendo games in order to win points.
Tournaments established in the late 1990s include the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL), QuakeCon, and the Professional Gamers League. PC games played at the CPL included the Counter-Strike series, Quake series, and Warcraft.
Rise of Global Tournaments (2000 onwards)
The growth of eSports in Korea is thought to have been influenced by the mass building of broadband internet networks following the 1997 Asian financial crisis. It is also thought that the high unemployment rate at the time caused large numbers of people to look for things to do while out of work. The Korean e-Sports Association, an arm of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, was founded in 2000 to promote and regulate esports in the country.
In the second decade of the 21st century, eSports has grown tremendously, incurring a large increase in both viewership and prize money. Although large tournaments were founded before the 21st century, the number and scope of tournaments has increased significantly, going from about 10 tournaments in 2000 to about 260 in 2010. Many successful tournaments were founded during this period, including the World Cyber Games, the Intel Extreme Masters, and Major League Gaming. The proliferation of tournaments included experimentation with competitions outside traditional eSports genres. For example, the September 2006 FUN Technologies Worldwide Webgames Championship featured 71 contestants competing in casual games for a $1 million grand prize.
In April 2006 the G7 teams federation were formed by seven prominent Counter-Strike teams. The goal of the organization was to increase stability in the eSports world, particularly in standardizing player transfers and working with leagues and organizations. The founding members were 4 Kings, Fnatic, Made in Brasil, Mousesports, NiP, SK-Gaming, Team 3D. The organization only lasted until 2009 before dissolving.
The 2000s was also the peak of televised eSports. Television coverage was best established in South Korea, with StarCraft and Warcraft III competitions regularly televised by dedicated 24-hour cable TV game channels Ongamenet and MBCGame. Elsewhere, eSports television coverage was sporadic. The German GIGA Television covered eSports until its shutdown in 2009. The United Kingdom satellite television channel XLEAGUE.TV broadcast eSports competitions from 2007 to 2009. The online eSports only channel ESL TV briefly attempted a paid television model re-branded GIGA II from June 2006 to autumn 2007. The French channel Game One broadcast e-sport matches in a show called Arena Online for the Xfire Trophy. The United States channel ESPN hosted Madden NFL competitions in a show called Madden Nation from 2005 to 2008. DirecTV broadcast the Championship Gaming Series tournament for 2 seasons in 2007 and 2008. CBS aired prerecorded footage of the 2007 World Series of Video Games tournament that was held in Louisville, Kentucky, US. The G4 television channel originally covered video games exclusively, but broadened its scope to cover technology and men's lifestyle, though has now shutdown.
The popularity and emergence of online streaming services have helped the growth of eSports in this period, and are the most common method of watching tournaments. Twitch, an online streaming platform launched in 2011, routinely streams popular eSports competitions. In 2013, viewers of the platform watched 12 billion minutes of video on the service, with the two most popular Twitch broadcasters being League of Legends and Dota 2. During one day of The International, Twitch recorded 4.5 million unique views, with each view watching for an average of 2 hours.
The modern eSports boom has also seen a rise in video games companies embracing the eSports potential of their products. After many years of ignoring and at times suppressing the eSports scene, in 2014 Nintendo hosted an invitational Super Smash Bros. for Wii U competitive tournament at the 2014 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) press conference that was streamed online on Twitch. Halo developers 343 Industries announced in 2014 plans to revive Halo as an eSport with the creation of the Halo Championship Series and a prize pool of $50,000 USD. Both Blizzard Entertainment and Riot Games have their own collegiate outreach programs with their North American Collegiate Championship. Since 2013 universities and colleges in the United States such as Robert Morris University Illinois and the University of Pikeville have recognized electronic sports players as varsity level athletes and offer athletic scholarships.
In 2014, the largest independent eSports brand, Electronic Sports League, partnered with the local eSports brand Japan Competitive Gaming to try and grow eSports in the country.
Physical viewership of eSports competitions and the scope of events have increased in tandem with the growth of online viewership. In 2013 the Season 3 League of Legends World Championship was held in a sold-out Staples Center. The 2014 League of Legends World Championship in Seoul, South Korea had over 40,000 fans in attendance and featured the band Imagine Dragons, and opening and closing ceremonies in addition to the competition.
Classification as a Sport
Labelling video games as sports is somewhat controversial. While some point to the growth in popularity of eSports as justification for designating some games as sports, others contend that video games will never reach the status of "true sports". However popularity is not the only reason identified: some have argued that "careful planning, precise timing, and skillful execution" ought to be what classifies an activity as sport, and that physical exertion and outdoor playing areas are not required by all traditional or non-traditional 'sports'. In a 2014 technology conference, when asked about the recent buyout of popular game streaming service Twitch, ESPN president John Skipper described eSports as "not a sport - a competition." In 2013 on an episode of Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel the panelist openly laughed at the topic. In addition, many in the fighting games community maintain a distinction between their competitive gaming competitions and the more commercially connected eSports competitions of other genres. Video games are sometimes classified as a mind sport. In the 2015 eSports World Championship hosted by the International e-Sports Federation, an e-Sports panel was hosted with guests from international sports society to discuss the future recognition of e-Sports as a recognized, legitimate sporting activity worldwide.
