An industry that not many people care to acknowledge but one that's been rising constantly over the years and deserves our attention. I am talking about The eSports industry. The eSports scene is a perfect example of how the merger between technological progress cultural environment and traditional entertainment can open the door for a completely new and full-blown industry.
1. eSports was a thing before consumer-grade internet even existed
The Internet as we know it took shape in the late 80s when the first Internet service provider or IPs began to emerge but people are playing competitive video games as early as the 70s one of the first video game competitions took place at Stanford University in 1972 for the game space war the final prize being a one-year subscription to the Rolling Stone magazine it was clearly a hobby back then with little to no money involved but that was about to change dramatically.
2. South Korea played a huge role in the development of the Industry
South Korea is viewed by many as the mecca of eSports with the rise of Internet connectivity came to a whole new world of opportunities and things to do for leisure with online gaming being the focal point and nobody embraced the new trend harder than South Koreans land gaming centers or PC banks as they call them started to pop up all over the country with most of them providing their customers with food and drinks and later on even places to take a nap competitive gaming became such a popular and respected activity that "The Korean Ministry of Culture Sports and Tourism actually founded a new department called the Korean eSports Association" to promote and regulate the new industry to put things into perspective being a pro gamer in Korea is like being an NFL player in u.s.
3. There are still major visa issues for eSports players
Even though eSports is a big industry it's still in its early years and general rules and regulations are just starting to solidify however it's still not uncommon for players to be kicked out in the middle of a tournament even being barred from entering a country altogether due to visa issues or local authorities not recognizing professional eSports players as worthy of receiving a traveling visa things are starting to slowly pick up so an example being the p1a visas which are issued to internationally recognized athletes for which professional gamers can now apply even with the hardships the industry is facing its ability to force the system to change its rules his damn impressive.
4. In 2014 an eSports event sold out the same stadium that the 2002 FIFA World Cup took place in
It may come as a surprise but major eSports events have been selling out stadiums for years every eSports game has its own league in tournaments and the major ones culminate in a world championship that happens every year where the best eSport teams compete for millions of dollars in 2014 the World Championship for riots League of Legends took place in Seoul's second-largest arena which once hosted the 2002 FIFA world cup a total of 45,000 fans attended the event along with another 11 million viewers watching it live online if you think that's impressive in 2017 the world championship finals took place in Beijing National Stadium the same one that hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics a total of 91 thousand tickets were sold out in a matter of seconds with an online viewership peaking at 106.21million people to put things into perspective in the same year the Superbowl final had an attendance of 70,000 while the UEFA championship league file had 66,000.
5. The Dota 2 international 2017 had a total prize pool close to $25 million
In the early years of eSports even six-figure prize pools for major tournaments were unheard of there weren't many people throwing money at gaming events let alone big sponsors to boost prize pools however valve the company that made the game Dota 2 came up with a very interesting strategy to make up for the lack of funding they created a series of in-game purchases for players to buy and a good portion of the money went straight to the prize pool for their upcoming World Finals called the International fans of the game certainly didn't shy away and a total of $24,787,916 was raised was close to $11 million going to the winning team that means that each one of the five players won around $2 million considering that Roger Federer got paid $2.9 million for winning Wimbledon one could say that eSports careers are no longer something to laugh about.
6. Manchester United got into a bidding war over an eSports team
Manchester United yes the UK football giant Manchester United got into a bidding war against Fnatic one of the biggest eSports organizations over an overwatch team overwatch is a team-based multiplayer first-person shooter made by Blizzard Entertainment back in 2016 not long after the game was released the UK Football Club started scouting for teams to break into the East for scene after finding the right candidates they quickly got counter-offered by Fnatic which was doing the same thing this isn't the first time a traditional sports organization tried to enter the eSports world either former NBA superstar Rick Fox started his own eSports organization back in 2015 and is now an active member in the online gaming community.
7. The eSports scene faced a huge gambling scandal
Where there's competition there's also gambling but eSports open the door for a whole new way of betting away your money in the popular first-person shooter CSGO you can get in-game skins that can change the appearance of your weapons in order to let players customize their experience these are available within the game's own shop where you can pay to open a box that contains a random skin and they also drop as you play the game players could also trade the skins between each other for money and the rarer the skin the more people were willing to pay furthermore third-party websites started to appear where you could bet your skins and eSports matches with a chance of getting more valuable ones in return however the market got so big and out of control that according to Bloomberg Businessweek in 2015 there were around $2.3 billion worth of skins being traded and gambled around it didn't take long before people started to exploit this unregulated market by creating their own gambling websites and promoting them under false claims to underage kids people actually got rich from trading pixels it got so bad at the time that the Federal Trade Commission had to intervene and regulate the market.
8. Cheating is a problem in the Online Gaming Competitions
Imagine you're an average football player but you have a special pair of shoes that make you run faster and every time you hit the ball you score that's actually a thing in online gaming especially in first-person shooter games where you can activate cheats that let you see through walls and your bullets always hit no matter how unimpressive your accuracy is Gaiman developers and eSports organizations are in a constant battle against hackers and people who make cheat codes there's no real way to stop cheaters besides holding offline tournaments but even then people always find a way to import cheats using USB sticks hacks got so advanced they are almost impossible to notice with the naked eye and hackers had to practice using them to make it look natural of course getting caught results in an instant ban but it's still a problem.
9. eSports is changing the way we consume content
Let's say you're watching LeBron James playing basketball live and you ask him in a chatroom how to practice a 3-point shoot and he responds right there at that moment that's how eSports is changing the game live streaming and real-time feedback is the new media and the online gaming industry is an early adopter with the rising popularity of Twitch and other live streaming platforms the attention is quickly shifting towards this new way of consuming content more than 100 million people tuned in on Twitch every month to watch their favorite players and the categories are constantly expanding with talk shows podcasts and other live shows it's no wonder Amazon acquired twitch for almost 1$ billion back in 2014.
10. eSports is growing at a staggering rate with near billion-dollar revenues in 2018
"According to news oh which is a global market intelligence organization eSports is predicted to hit a $905, million market share in 2018 which is a 38% increase from the previous year given the nature of the market and its early-stage development the revenue streams are a bit unstable sponsorships are still the main force that brings money in with other sources starting to slowly pick up even though the growth of eSports is hard to ignore not everyone is willing to dive in and surprisingly Nintendo is one of them.
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