Esports Essays

Video games have been around for many years and so has competitive gaming. The first video game was created around 1970 and was Pong. Pong required one or two players to play. The players would play next to each other and the game required both players to move the courser to the ball and knock in to the other player’s side. Pong was the first competitive video game because you could play with another person. The video game industry now is a very big market and is suspected to be an 86 billion dollar industry in 2016 (A Classification Of Business Models In Video Game Industry). For the past couple of years video competitions have gotten really popular and now there is a franchise called eSports that hosts gaming competitions in big areas. “The past several year’s eSports have seen meteoric growth in dozens of markets, attracting tens of millions of viewers each year in the United States, alone” (Hollist). Esports is made up of many different games and each game has different teams that specialize in the game that they are competing in. E-Sports 89 million viewers in 2014 and is suspected to grow to 145 million in 2017. ("Red Bull Media Readies ESports Studio for Prime Time."). Competitive gaming should be recognized as a sport because each team has a sponsor. The sponsors pay for all associated costs of the player’s gaming including, but not limited to, plane tickets, hotel rooms, and food. In return the teams have to wear the

We always regard “GAMES” as “pastimes”, but in reality the functions of games are more than that.

Last year the League of Legends finals alone brought 40,000 people to Seoul, South Korea.(xx Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Paragraph 5) This isn’t counting the thousands at home who watched using streaming services. The teams also attract sponsors. The company DXRacer USA gave Robert Morris University a free chair which normally costs 349 dollars. Finally, eSports are one of the fastest growing sports ever. The quote, “The eSports scholarship program has been featured by ESPN, NPR, HBO’s ``Real Sports`` and a variety of other newsgroups.”, shows this. (xx Pittsburg Post and Gazette Paragraph 3) The only other sports to get this much attention to get this level of attention at the college level are men's basketball and men's football. Video games are fast on the rise in the world as the world moves toward a more technology dependent society. Estimates put video game spectators at 19.4 million by 2020.

Continuing on, between the fact that out of country professional gamers get the same visa as out of country athletes and the fact that gaming can earn more money than being in the NFL, also that more people watch the video game championships than the MLB games, It's pretty safe to say that video games SHOULD be considered a sport.

Now that technological companies all over the world have set most of the seven billion individuals in the world with a computer, smartphone or tablet, it is time for better software to use with them. This is where games come in. Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello stated in a recent interview that PC gaming is the ‘fastest growing platform’. This shows the growing interest in gaming bearing in mind that gamers also have the means to play on. The term ‘gamer’ refers to an individual that plays a game or games, typically a participant in a computer or role playing game. The gaming community has grown so wide in the last few years because of the shift from single player games to multiplayer games on the internet

In a market currently dominated by free cellphone apps or $60 in-box games, League of Legends stands in a field of it's own. One of the key factors in Riot’s success

Whether it’s playing video games or watching video games, we get filled with an intoxicating feeling to play or watch more. Throughout generations, there has been an increase of people playing video games and about half the population in the United States plays video games. Since 1980, video games are taken to a different level with eSports, which is competitive electronic gaming tournaments with other competitors. In 2000 to the present , eSports grew in popularity and became known worldwide because of the game “League of Legends”. In 2011 “LoL” tournament ranked over 1.6 million views worldwide and during a “LoL” championship in 2015 over 36 million people were viewing the game. ESport raises this question: “Do video games counts as sports?” Video games do not count as a sport because it does not match the criteria of a sport,video games are luck-based, and are unhealthy.

Video games have become very popular in the past several years. Recently, people have even been making careers out of gaming. The article “Should Pro Gamers be considered Athletes?” talks about whether not professional gamers should be considered athletes. Pro gamers shouldn’t be considered athletes because they aren’t doing anything

So, I’m going to change things a bit. Instead of just talking about dates and numbers, which can be boring; I’m going to give this a little casual twist. So, in order to start the history let’s get a few facts out of the way. Let’s talk about gamers, mainly because I’ll be using the term a lot; gamers are people who spent a lot of time playing videogames. The Average gamer playing video games has spent twelve years playing them. Adult gamers have an average of fourteen years of playing videogames, guys have an average of sixteen years, and girls have an average twelve years. Speaking of girls did you know that 47% of gamers are girls? I would have never guessed that, but it’s a fact. So, as of 2013 49% of all people who live in The United States owns a console. All of them that own a console have at least two of them. Me, I own eleven… I think I may have a problem. Anyway, now that some of the facts are out of the way let’s start, THE HISTORY OF VIDEOGAMES! Now before I start I want to talk about all the most important events in the history of videogames, as I call them eras. Each era is very important because they shaped the videogames we know and love today.

The main organization in charge of competitive gaming is known as MLG or Major League Gaming. MLG has sponsored all of the major console tournaments and some PC tournaments around the world, including million dollar prizes for first place. MLG now holds a millionaire dollar call of duty tournament every March which includes competitors from all over the world. Call of duty is not the most popular game watched on the circuit, however. League of Legends holds a yearly two million dollar tournament and it attracts sponsorships from all heavyweight brands, such as Coca-Cola and American Express. Last year more than thirty-two million people watched this event live (theguardian.com). Competitive gaming is now among the largest growing subcultures in all of America. The culture of gaming is all about meeting people who play the same games you do and experiencing a world together disassociated from the reality outside of playing video games. The values of competitive gaming are the same as any other sport in America. Sports are all about building virtues, such as perseverance, determination, empathy, and discipline. Teamwork is the most advantageous skill taught and used by adults. Without teamwork one cannot function at a job or work among others involved in a job. Without a job one cannot provide for their family or themselves.

Salinas, E. J. (2013). Competitive video gaming, the sport of the future. Retrieved February 22, 2016, from https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/handle/2152/22690

October 27, 2009 was the release date for the current most popular and successful game in the history of video games. League of Legends, developed by the company, Riot Games. League of legends has 26 million players daily, and 67 million players monthly all around the world. Based on the hours played, there is a total of over one billion hours logged on per month. It is also the most competitive video game today as well. The growth of the game has been so large that it the competitive scene in League of Legends has more viewership numbers than most popular sports including the NBA finals and the World Series that occurred in

Imagine a large arena filled with two competitive teams. The tension grows and finally, one team prevails and is greeted by stupendous amounts of cheering. There are a wide variety of video games that are popular worldwide, and are played by many different people. Video games, and gaming in general, should be considered to be added in the many sport selections because of how similar it is to any other sport: how pro players that get paid, and how a lot of talent is necessary to play.

eSports are a form of a sport that deals with video games and their competitions between professionals. eSports has risen over the years, with 2016 allowing the peak of the popularity. “Consider this year’s The International 2016 DOTA (Defense Of The Ancients) 2 Tournament,” Chris Wood says to The State Press [eSports deserve their place in the world]. “The total prize pool available to the winning teams of this tournament (August, 2016) was around $20 million dollars. In comparison, the prize money pool for the 2014 Rose Bowl was $22 million.” With winnings like this, I believe it is beyond safe to say that eSports are on the rise, and they mean business.

Gaming has been such a huge part of nearly everyone’s life growing up as a kid and it’s only getting bigger and bigger every day. Growing up as a kid, online gaming wasn’t as popular as it is today. I started off with a Gameboy and Dreamcast console that later shifted to better consoles like the PlayStation, Xbox, Wii, and Nintendo. Nowadays, almost everyone, including myself, have shifted to the more popular gaming platforms in mobile games and online PC games. More specifically, certain types of online gaming styles like FPS, MOBA, and MMO are distinctly more popular than many others. Not only has the popularity for online gaming platforms evolved but the importance and relevance of