COMMUNITY
Supported by our advertiser, SideQuest
Questing for the Grassroots How SideQuest’s gaming cafes bring esports to the masses AUTHOR Jake Nordland @callmeprivate
998 was a wild year for esports. Several industrydefining titles were released that year, including StarCraft, Half-Life (whose Counter-Strike mod would go on to shape the industry) and Net Fighter (likely the first ever onlineonly fighting game). Veteran esports organisation K1ck Esports was also founded and a number of venerated
1
52
names like Team Liquid and Evil Geniuses were soon to launch. Also founded in 1998 was Chinese internet cafe chain Wanyoo, now known in the UK as SideQuest Gamers Hub. One could argue esports was born in internet or gaming cafes like theirs across Asia; nerdy early-adopters flocking round flanks of computers to compete in
nascent multiplayer online games like StarCraft is what laid the foundation for esports’ growth. A lot has changed since then. Esports now exists on a scale few could have imagined at the time. Yet while the media attention, shining lights and frenetic crowds remain pinned on the flashy top tier of the esports pyramid,