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the rise of
e-Sports Wor d s b y B r a n d on G oh
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THE RISE OF E-SPORTS
hen one thinks about sports, we tend to gravitate towards the likes of physical activities such as football, basketball, and athletics. However, in the past decade, we witnessed previously unconventional sports such as eSports rise and even established themselves for the 2020s. Well, what is eSports? eSports or electronic sports is, in essence, competitive level video gaming. Needless to say, the upswing in this form of competition does challenge the notion of sports, namely physical exertion on the part of its participants. To begin, let’s look at the history of eSports, with the first such event held in 1972 at Stamford University. Participants took part in the space combat game Spacewar in the hopes of winning a year-long subscription to the Rolling Stone magazine. With the rise of the Internet in the 1990s, personal computer (PC) gaming gained traction as multinational game companies like Nintendo sponsored video game championships worldwide. Over time, games such as the military science fiction strategy game Starcraft revolutionized gaming with its real-time gameplay. More was to follow, as the now-famous Defence of the Ancients (Dota) mod, an online fantasy-themed real-time strategy gaming platform, was launched in 2003.
Photo courtesy of Intel Extreme Masters
This heralded the start of the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) genre of games that have a tremendous following till today. In 2017, the total eSports prize money awarded amounted to a whopping $110.6 million from 3765 tournaments. With eSports revenue projected to increase to $1.5 billion by 2020 and the ever-growing popularity of professional leagues such as Major League Gaming (MLG), eSports is definitely something for the future.
