esports

esports, online gaming competitions in which amateur and professional gamers participate individually or on teams through organized leagues, often with monetary prizes on the line. Competitive gaming gained prominence about the cusp of the 21st century and swiftly grew into an organized form of gaming akin to traditional sports leagues.

Origins and history

The first cited instance of an esports competition was in 1972, when players convened at Stanford University’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory for the Intergalactic Spacewar! Olympics, in which they competed for a year’s subscription to Rolling Stone magazine. In 1980 a more mainstream contest, the National Space Invaders competition, took place in which thousands of competitors vied to set a high score in the game, which was first created by the video game company Taito in Japan. The esports world took another step toward a more organized landscape in 1982 when businessman Walter Day established Twin Galaxies, an organization dedicated to recording players’ high scores on different arcade games.

Until the 1990s, esports tournaments were often limited to competitors attempting to top their opponents’ high scores rather than competing head-to-head. One event often credited with introducing esports (in their modern form) into the mainstream was the May 1997 Red Annihilation Quake tournament, during which player Dennis Fong beat his competitor in the first-person shooter game 14 to −1, thereby winning $5,000 and a custom Ferrari. A month later the Cyberathlete Professional League was formed, helping to pioneer the concept of professional leagues.

In the late 1990s South Korea, an early adopter of esports, experienced a boom in “PC bangs,” or Korean Internet cafés, which attracted not only gamers looking to access stable broadband connections but also audiences who would observe gameplay. PC bangs capitalized on the craze and sponsored specific players and teams. In 2000 the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism established the Korea e-Sports Association (KeSPA), further legitimizing esports’ role in mainstream culture.

Competition and gameplay

Competitors may participate in tournaments by using video game consoles such as PlayStation or Xbox but may also use their PCs (personal computers). Tournaments often attract millions of viewers and can be watched online on such platforms as YouTube or Twitch, on certain cable and broadcast networks, or in person. In 2016 the League of Legends World Championship Semifinals sold out New York City’s Madison Square Garden.

Esports do not generally divide teams or leagues by gender, though there have been instances of gender-specific tournaments, as well as criticism about a lack of female representation in the field. Because there is no central authority about esports regulations, rules vary with the organization or competition. In general, game developers such as Activision Blizzard, Riot Games, and Valve Corporation tend to organize independent competitions for their titles, as they control the intellectual property needed to run a game-specific league.

Competitors in such tournaments include members of professional esports organizations, such as Team Liquid or Team Dignitas, which often have players competing in several different games. Professional esports can be lucrative: some top players earn millions through monetary prizes (some prize pools have reached $45 million) and sponsorship deals. Additionally, some universities, including the Ohio State University and the University of Missouri, have varsity esports programs, which are governed by the National Association of Collegiate Esports.

Crossover has occurred between sports gaming and traditional organized sports: the NBA (National Basketball Association), for example, sponsors an esports league for its basketball video game series NBA 2K, and it even holds a yearly draft. In 2023 the International Olympic Committee held its first Olympic Esports Week, though its game choices were criticized for not accurately representing the esports landscape and merely simulating traditional sports.

Challenges

Esports competitors face challenges different from those faced in physical sports for a myriad of reasons, including insufficient infrastructure. In Africa, for example, many esports players do not have access to dedicated, developer-run servers (mainly because developers see a supposed lack of demand), thus siloing them from official competitions.

Though there is debate about whether esports qualify as sports, they are not exempt from the scandals and controversies associated with their traditional counterparts: cheating, use of performance-enhancing drugs, game fixing, and instances of discriminatory language. In 2015 a member of the professional esports team Cloud9 publicly proclaimed that he and his teammates were “all on Adderall,” prompting the Electronic Sports League to create a list of banned substances and announce that it would be instituting randomized drug tests. In 2016 Lee (“Life”) Seung-Hyun, a popular South Korean StarCraft II player, threw two games in exchange for roughly $60,000. After Lee’s illicit activities were discovered, he was banned for life from competing and spent 18 months in prison.