Esports By Year

Esports, short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, individually or as teams. Although organized competitions have long been a part of video game culture, these were largely between amateurs until the late 2000s, when participation by professional gamers and spectatorship in these events through live streaming saw a large surge in popularity. By the 2010s, esports was a significant factor in the video game industry, with many game developers actively designing and providing funding for tournaments and other events.

The most common video game genres associated with esports are multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA), first-person shooter (FPS), fighting, card, battle royale and real-time strategy (RTS) games. Popular esports franchises include '' League of Legends'', '' Dota'', '' Counter-Strike'', ''Valorant'', ''Overwatch'', ''Street Fighter'', ''Super Smash Bros.'' and ''StarCraft'', among many others. Tournaments such as the ''League of Legends'' World Championship, ''Dota 2'' International, the fighting game-specific Evolution Championship Series (EVO) and Intel Extreme Masters are among the most popular in esports. Many other competitions use a series of league play with sponsored teams, such as the Overwatch League. Although the legitimacy of esports as a true sporting competition remains in question, they have been featured alongside traditional sports in some multinational events in Asia, with the International Olympic Committee also having discussed their inclusion into future Olympic events.

By the late 2010s, it was estimated that the total audience of esports would grow to 454 million viewers, with revenue increasing to more than 1 billion, with China accounting for 35% of the global esports revenue in 2020. The increasing availability of online streaming media platforms, particularly YouTube and Twitch, have become central to the growth and promotion of esports competitions. Despite viewership being approximately 85% male and 15% female, with a majority of viewers between the ages of 18 and 34, female gamers have also played professionally. The popularity and recognition of esports first took place in Asia, seeing significant growth in China and South Korea, with the latter having licensed professional players since 2000. Despite its large video game industry, esports in Japan is relatively underdeveloped, with this being largely attributed to its broad anti-gambling laws which prohibit paid professional gaming tournaments. Outside of Asia, esports are also popular in Europe and the Americas, with both regional and international events taking place in those regions.

History

Early history (1972–1989)

The earliest known video game competition took place on 19 October 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.

Contemporary esports has roots in competitive face-to-face arcade video game competitions. A forerunner of esports was held by Sega in 1974, the All Japan TV Game Championships, a nationwide arcade video game tournament in Japan. The tournament was intended by Sega to promote the play and sales of video games in the country. There were local tournaments held in 300 locations across Japan, and then sixteen finalists from across the country competed in the final elimination rounds at Tokyo's Hotel Pacific. Prizes awarded included television sets ( color and black-and-white), cassette tape recorders and transistor radios. According to Sega, the tournament "proved to be the biggest event ever" in the arcade game industry, and was attended by members from leading Japanese newspapers and leisure industry companies. Sega stressed “the importance of such tournaments to foster better business relationships between the maker-location-customer and create an atmosphere of competition on TV amusement games". In 1977, Gremlin Industries (a year before being acquired by Sega) held a marketing stunt to promote their early arcade snake game ''Hustle'' in the United States, involving the "Gremlin Girls" who were a duo of professional female arcade players called Sabrina Osment and Lynn Reid. The pair travelled across 19 American cities, where players could challenge them in best-of-three matches for a chance to win money. The duo were challenged by a total of 1,300 players, only about seven of whom managed to beat them.

The golden age of arcade video games was heralded by Taito's '' Space Invaders'' in 1978, which popularized the use of a persistent high score for all players. Several video games in the next several years followed suit, adding other means of tracking high scores such with high score tables that included the players' initials in games like '' Asteroids'' in 1979. High score-chasing became a popular activity and a means of 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. It was won by Rebecca Heineman. Walter Day, owner of an arcade in Iowa, had taken it upon himself to travel across the United States to record the high scores on various games in 1980, and on his return, founded Twin Galaxies, a high score record-keeping organization. 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. A multicity tour in 1983, the "Electronic Circus", was used to feature these players in live challenges before audiences, and draw more people to video games. These video game players and tournaments were featured in well-circulated newspapers and popular magazines including '' Life'' and '' Time'' and became minor celebrities at the time, such as Billy Mitchell. Besides establishing the competitive nature of games, these types of promotional events all formed the nature of the marketing and promotion that formed the basis of modern esports.

In 1984, Konami and Centuri jointly held an international '' Track & Field'' arcade game competition that drew more than a million players from across Japan and North America. '' Play Meter'' in 1984 called it "the coin-op event of the year" and an "event on a scale never before achieved in the industry". , it holds the record for the largest organized video game competition of all time, according to '' Guinness World Records''.

Televised esports events aired during this period included the American show '' Starcade'' which ran from 1982 to 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''. In the UK, the BBC game show '' First Class'' included competitive video game rounds featuring the contemporary arcade games, such as ''Hyper Sports'', '' 720°'' and ''Paperboy''. In the United States, the Amusement Players Association held its first U.S. National Video Game Team competition in January 1987, where ''Vs. Super Mario Bros.'' was popular among competitive arcade players.

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 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".

Growth and online video games (1990–1999)

The fighting game ''Street Fighter II'' (1991) popularized the concept of direct, tournament-level competition between two players. Previously, video games most often relied on high scores to determine the best player, but this changed with ''Street Fighter II'', where players would instead challenge each other directly, "face-to-face," to determine the best player, paving the way for the competitive multiplayer and deathmatch modes found in modern action games. The popularity of fighting games such as ''Street Fighter'' and ''Marvel vs. Capcom'' in the 1990s led to the foundation of the international Evolution Championship Series (EVO) esports tournament in 1996.

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 game show ''A*mazing'', where in one round contestants competed in a video game face off, and the Canadian game show '' Video & Arcade Top 10''.

In the 1990s, many games benefited from increasing internet connectivity, especially PC games. Inspired by the fighting games ''Street Fighter II'', '' Fatal Fury'' and '' Art of Fighting'', id Software's John Romero established competitive multiplayer in online games with '' Doom''s deathmatch mode in 1993. 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, ''StarCraft'', and '' Warcraft''.

Global tournaments (2000–present)

The growth of esports in South 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 many people to look for things to do while out of work. Instrumental to this growth of esports in South Korea was the prevalence of the Komany-style internet café/LAN gaming center, known as a PC bang. 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. Minister of Culture, Sports, and Tourism Park Jie-won coined the term "Esports" at the founding ceremony of the 21st Century Professional Game Association (currently Korean e-Sports Association) in 2000.

"Evo Moment 37", also known as the "Daigo Parry", refers to a portion of a '' Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike'' semi-final match held at Evolution Championship Series 2004 (Evo 2004) between Daigo Umehara (playing Ken Masters) and Justin Wong (playing Chun-Li). During this match, Umehara made an unexpected comeback by parrying 15 consecutive hits of Wong's "Super Art" move while having only one pixel of vitality. Umehara subsequently won the match. "Evo Moment #37" is frequently described as the most iconic and memorable moment in the history of competitive video gaming. Being at one point the most-watched competitive gaming moment of all time, it has been compared to sports moments such as Babe Ruth's called shot and the Miracle on Ice.

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 4Kings, Fnatic, Made in Brazil, Mousesports, NiP, SK-Gaming, Team 3D. The organization only lasted until 2009 before dissolving.

The 2000s was a popular time for 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 renamed GIGA II from June 2006 to autumn 2007. The French channel Game One broadcast esports 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 two seasons in 2007 and 2008. CBS aired prerecorded footage of the 2007 World Series of Video Games tournament that was held in Louisville, Kentucky. The G4 television channel originally covered video games exclusively, but broadened its scope to cover technology and men's lifestyle, though has now shutdown.

During the 2010s, esports grew 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.

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 viewer watching for an average of two 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, Nintendo hosted Wii Games Summer 2010. Spanning over a month, the tournament had over 400,000 participants, making it the largest and most expansive tournament in the company's history. 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 US$50,000. 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 esports players as varsity level athletes and offer athletic scholarships. In 2017, Tespa, Blizzard Entertainment's collegiate esports division, unveiled its new initiative to provide scholarships and prizes for collegiate esports clubs competing in its tournaments worth US$1 million. Colleges have begun granting scholarships to students who qualify to play esports professionally for the school. Colleges such as Columbia College, Robert Morris University, and Indiana Institute of Technology have taken part in this. In 2018, Harrisburg University of Science and Technology began a tuition scholarship program for esports players.

In 2014, the largest independent esports league, Electronic Sports League, partnered with the local 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.

In 2015, the first Esports Arena was launched in Santa Ana, California, as the United States' first dedicated esports facility.

In 2021, China announced a law which forbade minors from playing video games, which they described as "spiritual opium", for more than three hours a week. With China being a large market, the law raised concerns about the future of esports within the country.

Classification as a sport

Labeling competitive video games as a sport is a controversial topic. Proponents argue that esports are a fast-growing "non-traditional sport" which requires "careful planning, precise timing, and skillful execution". Others claim that sports involve physical fitness and physical training, and prefer to classify esports as a mind sport.

Former ESPN president John Skipper described esports in 2014 as a competition and "not a sport". 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. In the 2015 World Championship hosted by the International Esports Federation, an esports panel of guests from international sports society discussed the future recognition of esports as a legitimate sport.

Russia was the first country that classified "cybersport" as an official sport discipline on 25 July 2001.Приказ Госкомспорта РФ от 25.07.2001 № 449 «О введении видов спорта в государственные программы физического воспитания» After a series of reforms in Russian sports, it was classified as a sport again on 12 March 2004.Приказ Федерального агентства по физической культуре и спорту от 4 июля 2006 г № 414 «О компьютерном спорте» In July 2006, it was removed from a list of sport disciplines because it did not fit the new sport standards. On 7 July 2016, The Ministry of Sport decided to add cybersport the into sport registry and on 13 April 2017, esports become an official sport discipline once again.

China was another one of the first countries to recognize esports as a real sport in 2003, despite concerns at the time that video games were addictive. Through this, the government encouraged esports, stating that by participating in esports, players were also "training the body for China". Furthermore, by early 2019, China recognized esports players as an official profession within the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security's Occupation Skill Testing Authority recommendations, as well as professional gaming operators, those that distribute and manage esports games. By July 2019, more than 100,000 people had registered themselves as professional gamers under this, with the Ministry stating that they anticipate over 2 million such people in this profession in five years.

In 2013, Canadian ''League of Legends'' player Danny "Shiphtur" Le became the first pro gamer to receive an American P-1A visa, a category designated for "Internationally Recognized Athletes". In 2014, Turkey's Ministry of Youth and Sports started issuing esports licenses to players certified as professionals. In 2016, the French government started working on a project to regulate and recognize esports. The Games and Amusements Board of the Philippines started issuing athletic licenses to Filipino esports players who are vouched for by a professional esports team in July 2017.

To help promote esports as a legitimate sport, several esports events have been run alongside more traditional international sports competitions. The 2007 Asian Indoor Games was the first notable multi-sport competition including esports as an official medal-winning event, alongside other traditional sports, and the later editions of the Asian Indoor Games, as well as its successor the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games, have always included esports as an official medal event or an exhibition event up to now. Moreover, the Asian Games, which is the Asian top-level multi-sport competition, will also include esports as a medal event at the 2022 edition; esports around games such as ''Hearthstone'', ''Starcraft II'', and ''League of Legends'' were presented as an exhibition event at the 2018 Asian Games as a lead-in to the 2022 games. The 2019 Southeast Asian Games included six medal events for esports. Since 2018, World Sailing has held an eSailing World Championship that showed a main sports federation embracing esports. The Virtual Regatta race shadowing the 2020-2021 Vendee Globe was the first online game believe to have in excess of 1,000,000 unique users

Ahead of The International 2021, which was originally set to take place in Stockholm in 2020, the Swedish Sports Confederation voted in June 2021 to deny recognition of esports as a sporting event, which jeopardized plans for how Valve had arranged the event in regards to travel visas for international players. Valve had tried to work with Sweden to accommodate players, but eventually rescheduled the event to Romania instead.

The 2022 Commonwealth Games will feature esports competitions as a pilot ahead of being a potential full medal event for 2026.

Olympic Games recognition

The Olympic Games are also seen as a potential method to legitimize esports. A summit held by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in October 2017 acknowledged the growing popularity of esports, concluding that "Competitive 'esports' could be considered as a sporting activity, and the players involved prepare and train with an intensity which may be comparable to athletes in traditional sports" but would require any games used for the Olympics fitting "with the rules and regulations of the Olympic movement". Another article by Andy Stout suggests that 106 million people viewed the 2017 Worlds Esports competition. International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach has noted that the IOC is troubled by violent games and the lack of a global sanctioning body for esports. Bach acknowledged that many Olympic sports bore out from actual violent combat, but stated that "sport is the civilized expression about this. If you have egames where it's about killing somebody, this cannot be brought into line with our Olympic values." Due to that, the IOC suggested that they would approve more of esports centered around games that simulate real sports, such as the '' NBA 2K'' or ''FIFA'' series.

The issues around esports have not prevented the IOC from exploring what possibilities there are for incorporation into future Olympics. During July 2018, the IOC and the Global Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF) held a symposium and inviting major figures in esports, including Epic Games' Mark Rein, Blizzard Entertainment's Mike Morhaime, and esports players Dario "TLO" Wünsch, Jacob "Jake" Lyon, and Se-yeon "Geguri" Kim, for these organizations "to gain a deeper understanding of esports, their impact and likely future development, so that heycan jointly consider the ways in which heymay collaborate to the mutual benefit of all of sport in the years ahead". The IOC has tested the potential for esports through exhibition games. With support of the IOC, Intel sponsored exhibition esports events for '' StarCraft II'' and ''Steep'' prior to the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, and five South Korean esports players were part of the Olympic Torch relay. A similar exhibition showcase, the eGames, was held alongside the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, though this was not supported by the IOC.

During the Eighth Olympic Summit in December 2019, the IOC reiterated that it would only consider sports-simulating games for any official Olympic event, but it would look at two paths for such games in the future: those that promoted good physical and mental health lifestyles, and virtual reality and augmented reality games that included physical activity.

Leaders in Japan are becoming involved to help bring esports to the 2020 Summer Olympics and beyond, given the country's reputation as a major video game industry center. Esports in Japan had not flourished due to the country's anti-gambling laws that also prevent paid professional gaming tournaments, but there were efforts starting in late 2017 to eliminate this issue. At the suggestion of the Tokyo Olympic Games Committee for the 2020 Summer Olympics, four esports organizations have worked with Japan's leading consumer organization to exempt esports tournaments from gambling law restrictions. Takeo Kawamura