Growth of eSports

When old single player games started evolving into a much bigger scale online multiplayer games, people started competing over the title of the best in the game they played. At first bunch of friends would gather in the LAN café to see who is better. Later on some people would organize small tournaments with small prize pools, so people who are good at the game could earn some extra cash. Now eSports became much bigger than that. Over the past few years eSports grew exponentially and gained a much larger fan base than people thought it would.

If you are sitting in your room or in a LAN café playing video games with your friends or by yourself then you are a gamer, who plays just for fun. Some people would even consider it as a hobby, because that’s what you do in your leisure time for your enjoyment. When you pass that line and start earning a living from playing video games then you are a professional gamer, a part of eSports.

Nowadays people, who are good at certain video games, can earn their living by playing them. Some of the largest titles in the eSports industry are: League of Legends, Dota 2, Counter Strike and Starcraft 2. As for example more than 32 million people watched League of Legends Season 3 World Championship final live. And Dota 2 tournament, The International 4, had a prize pool of over 10 million dollars. Each year prize pools and fan base of these games are growing. MLG(major league gaming) had more than 11.7 million unique viewers in 2012 watching one of their tournaments, compared to 3.5 million in 2011, which is a 334% increase. MLG is just a small piece of the eSports; today more than 70 million people watch eSports worldwide.

ESports are growing not only because of the fan base, but also because a lot of different organizations started to get involved. These organizations believe that investing in eSports is a profitable idea. Some organizations host tournaments, some own teams who go to these tournaments, but almost all of them make a good profit from eSports. Those who own a top Tier team already earn millions just from merchandise with their logo on it. And usually tickets to the tournaments with best teams sell out within an hour. Earning millions from the video game competition seemed rather impossible a few years back, which makes me wonder of how far they will go In the future.

I myself am a gamer. I have played all of the above games and I must say that in order to be successful in them a person must have a lot of individual skill as well as teamwork capabilities. Not everyone can get to the top of eSports, but those who do are rewarded generously.

Perhaps it is still a bit too early to compare eSports to the sports we are used today, such as football and basketball, but seeing the rate at which eSports are growing I can certainly say that they will not stop to grow any time soon.

sources: 

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/32-million-people-watched-league-of-legends-season-3-world-championships/1100-6416259/

http://www.ongamers.com/articles/report-more-than-70-million-people-watch-esports-worldwide/1100-1157/