All about Electronic Sports, the most popular competition among gamers
Remember the times when we would go out as kids and would spend hours playing on the streets with our friends. Nowadays, youngsters don't do it, instead, they spend hours playing video games and electronic sports; welcome to electronic sports, the most popular competition among gamers.
What do you know about Esports? Have you ever played video games? Was it for mere entertainment or you had a professional career in mind?
Yes, you heard it right. It is now possible for you to follow a professional career in video games and actually make a living out of it. Video games have been big deal in the last decade because of their billion-dollar market and increasing popularity.
Almost everybody knows about video games but what are “Electronic sports”? It refers to the competition or the tournament organized using video games. Esports are tournaments organized for professional video game players and teams.
Although there have been organized tournaments in the past there was no real competition or viewership. But things changed in the late 2000s when professional gamers began to participate and spectatorship of these events via live streaming skyrocketed.
Esports has become a big part of the video game business by the 2010s, with many game creators actively creating and financing tournaments and other events.
Multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA), first-person shooter (FPS), combat, card, battle royale, and real-time strategy (RTS) games are the most popular video game genres connected with esports. League of Legends, Dota, Counter-Strike, Valorant, Overwatch, Street Fighter, Super Smash Bros., and StarCraft are just a few of the popular esport franchises.
The League of Legends World Championship, Dota 2 International, the Evolution Championship Series (EVO), and the Intel Extreme Masters are among the most prominent esports tournaments.
A dedicated article all about Electronic Sports, most popular competition among gamers
In this article, we are going to explore every corner of Electronic sports, from its history to the tournaments and popular teams and of course
top 10 Esports games of 2021
.
We have already talked about games that
pay its tournament champions the most, thus if you are looking for a game to start a career in, we recommend that you check the list first and then decide.
Now without further ado let us hop into the article and learn more about Electronic sports.
Esports history
Let’s begin from the very start, the dawn of Esports and the event that started it all.
On October 19, 1972, at Stanford University, the first documented video game tournament for the game Spacewar took place.
Stanford students competed in an "Intergalactic Spacewar Olympics," with Bruce Baumgart winning the five-man free-for-all event and Tovar and Robert E. Maas winning the team competition, with the grand prize being a year's membership to Rolling Stone.
The origins of modern esports may be traced back to competitive face-to-face arcade video game contests. The All Japan TV Game Championships, a statewide arcade video game competition organized by Sega in 1974, was a precursor of esports.
The fighting game Street Fighter II (1991) popularized the idea of two players competing directly at a tournament level. In 1996, the international Evolution Championship Series (EVO) esports competition was founded in response to the success of fighting games such as Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom in the 1990s.
The Korean e-Sports Association was established in 2000 as a branch of the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism to develop and govern esports in the country.
At the foundation ceremony of the 21st Century Professional Game Association (now Korean e-Sports Association) in 2000, Minister of Culture, Sports, and Tourism Park Jie-won created the name "Esports."
Seven notable Counter-Strike teams founded the G7 teams federation in April 2006. The organization's objective was to improve esports stability, notably in terms of standardizing player transfers and collaborating with leagues and organizations.
Televised esports were quite popular in the 2000s. South Korea had the best television coverage, with dedicated 24-hour cable TV game channels Ongamenet and MBCGame broadcasting StarCraft and Warcraft III events on a regular basis.
The rise in popularity and availability of internet streaming services has aided the expansion of esports throughout this time, and they are now the most popular way to watch competitions. Twitch, an internet streaming site founded in 2011, broadcasts popular esports tournaments on a regular basis.
The event, which lasted over a month and drew over 400,000 people, was the company's largest and most extensive competition ever. 343 Industries, the creators of Halo, revealed plans to resurrect Halo as an esport in 2014, with the formation of the Halo Championship Series and a prize fund of $50,000.
Physical attendance at esports contests has risen in parallel with online attendance, as has the variety of events.
The Staples Center was sold out for the Season 3 League of Legends World Championship in 2013. In addition to the tournament, the 2014 League of Legends World Championship in Seoul, South Korea, drew over 40,000 people and included the band Imagine Dragons, as well as opening and closing festivities.
The inaugural Esports Arena, the United States' first specialized esports venue, opened in Santa Ana, California, in 2015.
This was the brief history of esports. Let us stay on the path to learn about the recognition of Esports as a sport. And then we can get to
the biggest Esports games
.
Esports Recognition as a sport
Do you think that video game tournaments should be categorized as sports? If no then this section might change your perspective over Esports and
the biggest Esports games
that have been categorized as Cybersports.
On July 25, 2001, Russia became the first country to recognize "cybersport" as an official sport discipline. Despite worries that video games were addictive at the time, China was one of the first countries to recognize esports as a legitimate sport in 2003.
Danny "Shiphtur" Le, a League of Legends player from Canada, was the first professional gamer to be granted an American P-1A visa, which is reserved for "Internationally Recognized Athletes." Turkey's Ministry of Youth and Sports began awarding esports player licenses to professional players in 2014.
The Olympic Games are also being considered as a means of legitimizing esports.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) held a summit in October 2017 to acknowledge the growing popularity of esports, concluding that "competitive 'esports' could be considered a sporting activity, and the players involved prepare and train with an intensity that may be comparable to athletes in traditional sports,".
But also that any games used in the Olympics must adhere to "the Olympic movement's rules and regulations."
The organizing committee for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris was in talks with the International Olympic Committee and several professional esport groups about including esports in the event, citing the necessity to make the Olympics relevant to younger generations.
Finally, the organizing committee decided that bringing esports to the 2024 Games as medal events were premature, although it did not rule out additional esports-related activities during the Games.
This is good news for gamers and younger generations to see the most popular esports games in 2021 and 2022 in world class competitions such as Olympics.
Esports games
This is the part that we all were waiting for to explore the list of esports games. Here you can review the list of esports games that are popular among the gamers and professional players. The popularity of fighting games and first-person shooters, which are still popular today, coincided with the emergence of competitions in the mid-1990s.
In the early 2000s, real-time strategy games were extremely popular in South Korean internet cafés, having a significant impact on the global growth of esports.
Many games and genres have competitions, but Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Call of Duty, League of Legends,
Dota 2, Smite, Hearthstone, Rocket League, Super Smash Bros. Melee, StarCraft II, and Overwatch are the top 10 Esports games of 2021.
We also have recently prepared the list top 10 Esports games of 2021 that you can check out and learn about each game individually.
Esports tournaments
Have you ever witnessed an Esports tournament, preferably the biggest Esports games, up close? If you have then you probably know how majestic it is. Esports competitions are nearly always physical events that take place in front of a live audience and are overseen by referees or officials.
The competition might be part of a bigger event, such as Dreamhack, or it could be the whole event, such as the World Cyber Games or the Fortnite World Cup. At gaming and multi-genre events, Esports tournaments have become a popular attraction.
Despite the fact that video game contests have existed for a long time, esports underwent a dramatic transformation in the late 1990s. Tournaments grew in size and corporate sponsorship became increasingly prevalent after the establishment of the Cyberathlete Professional League in 1997.
Esports reached a larger audience as viewership increased both in-person and online. The World Cyber Games, the North American Major League Gaming league, the Electronic Sports World Cup in France, and the World e-Sports Games in Hangzhou, China are all major competitions.
Some of the highest-earning teams in Esports tournaments are Team Liquid, OG, Evil Geniuses, Fnatic, and Vitus. pro.
These teams also compete in the biggest Esports games such as Dota 2 and CS: GO. Prize money for tournament competition is frequently provided directly by game creators, although sponsorship may also come from outside sources, such as corporations providing computer hardware, energy drinks, or computer software.
Esports ethics
What are the common rules and ethics of these kinds of tournaments? What kind of behavior do professionals promote in
the biggest Esports games
?
Professional gamers are typically expected to act ethically, according to both the stated regulations established by tournaments, associations, and teams, as well as common standards of good sportsmanship. When lost, for example, it is standard practice and excellent manners to talk "gg" (for "good game").
In esports, reports of widespread usage of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) are prevalent, with players discussing their own, their teammates', and their competitors' use, and officials admitting the problem. Stimulants like Ritalin, Adderall, and Vyvanse, which can increase focus, response time, and avoid tiredness, are commonly used by athletes.
The uncontrolled use of such medications offers serious health hazards to competitors, including addiction, overdose, serotonin syndrome, and weight loss in the case of stimulants.
As a result, several major sporting bodies and leagues, including Major League Baseball and the National Football League, have outlawed Adderall and other similar stimulants, and their usage has been sanctioned.
In most major markets, gambling and betting on esports matches are prohibited. Because esport gambling is illegal, it has spawned a criminal market and virtual money. Bookmarkers and gambling firms, like conventional sports, want to attract as many gamblers as possible.
The esports gambling industry's target demographic, on the other hand, has been one of its major problems. Because a large portion of the esports audience is under the age of 18, most governments have voiced skepticism about the market's moral perspective.
Esports live stream services
Let us talk about the live stream services and websites that will help you become an audience of the biggest Esports games tournaments.
Most popular esports games in 2021
events are broadcasting live over the internet to viewers.
With the closure of the Own3d streaming service in 2013, Twitch is by far the most popular esports broadcasting service, competing alongside Hitbox.tv, Azubu, and YouTube Gaming. You can find the most popular esports games in 2021 on this streaming service and watch your favorite streamer for hours without limitation.
While live coverage of events generally attracts the most views, the growing popularity of streaming platforms has allowed users to broadcast their own games without regard to such events. Individual broadcasters can sign a deal with Twitch or Hitbox to get a part of the advertising money generated by ads that air on their streams.
Major League Gaming's MLG.tv was another popular streaming site streaming the biggest Esports games.
The network, which focuses on Call of Duty programming but also broadcasts a variety of other games, has grown in popularity, with MLG.tv viewership growing by 1376 percent in the first quarter of 2014. Over 160,000 people watched the Call of Duty: Ghosts broadcast during MLG's X Games tournament in 2014.
YouTube's live streaming platform was also revamped, with a fresh focus on live gaming and the biggest Esports games in particular. Simulcast coverage of The International 2014 was also available on ESPN's streaming service ESPN3.
Riot Games and MLB Advanced Media's technology subsidiary BAM Tech announced an agreement in December 2016 to distribute and monetize broadcasts of League of Legends events through 2023. BAM Tech will pay Riot at least $300 million each year, with ad income shared 50/50.
Esports television coverage
Some countries have dedicated channels for the biggest Esports games live streams such as South Korea. MBCGame was pulled off the air in 2012, however Ongamenet continues to broadcast as an esports station in South Korea.
"TV is not a priority or a goal," said Riot Games' Dustin Beck, and DreamHack's Tomas Hermansson, who added that "esports have [been shown] to be successful on internet streaming [services]."
ESPN3 aired a half-hour program highlighting the event the night before the finals of The International 2014 in August.
Major League Gaming was bought by Activision Blizzard, the publisher of the Call of Duty and StarCraft video game franchises, in January 2016.
Activision Blizzard CEO Robert Kotick said in an interview with The New York Times about the purchase that the firm wanted to build a U.S. cable network dedicated to a list of esports games and tournaments, which he described as "the ESPN of video games."
He believed that higher-quality productions, similar to those seen on traditional sports telecasts, may help esports appeal to sponsors. Former ESPN and NFL Network executive Steve Bornstein has been named CEO of Activision Blizzard's esports division.
The biggest Esports games tournaments are aired nationwide by TV 2, Norway's largest private television network. With its initial schedule of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, League of Legends, and StarCraft II, TV 2 teamed with local Norwegian group House of Nerds to deliver a complete season of esports competition.
Thank you for reading our article. If you want to learn more about the
list of esports games
or
popular battle royale games, be sure to check out the articles that we have prepared exclusively for gamers and game lovers.
Read More:
DISCLAIMER! Sportmob does not claim ownership of any of the pictures posted on this website. Again, we do not host pictures or videos ourselves. Our authors merely link to the rightful owner. Lastly, Sportmob have carefully considered and reviewed all of its content. Despite that, it is possible that some information might be out-dated or incomplete.