What Is An
eSport?
Competitive Video Games Played By Professionals For Fun And
Profit. Mostly Multiplayer Strategic FPS Games Including Call Of
Duty, Dota2, Counter Strike, League of Legends, StarCraft etc...
Is eSports a
Sport?
Many People Don’t Consider It a
Sport (Yet)
“eSports is not a sport…..Mostly, I’m
interested in doing real sports.”
------ John Skipper, ESPN President
Then What
Is a Sport?
● Physical And Mental Activity
● Entertainment for Viewers
● Competition and Emotions
● Associations and Organizations
● Championships And World Cups
Video Games Got It All
● Involves a lot of Dexterity and Mental Activity
● A Huge And Ever Increasing Fanbase
● Lots of Competition & Full of Emotions
● International Associations
● Regional & International Championships
● Lots of Investors and Prize Money
Increase in
Coverage
● Many Sports Networks,
including ESPN, now cover
eSports
● Accepted as a Sport by
American Athletic Society
● Dedicated Sections on
Sports Websites
The Rise of eSports:
The Numbers
Call of Duty was the first franchise to hold
International Championships. Which Inspired other
franchises to follow.
The Rise of eSports:
The Numbers
Amazon Bought TwitchTV, The Largest Online
Video Game Streaming Platform for 1 Billion
US Dollars.
Twitch experiences 15 Million Daily Active
Users (100+ Million Monthly).
The Rise of eSports:
The Numbers
October 2017 Stats for Twitch are as below:
League of Legends: 94.3 M Hrs
Counter Strike: 28.3 M Hrs
Dota 2: 31.6 M Hrs
73 Million people viewed the League of
Legends World Championship 2017, on
TwitchTV
eSports as a Career
ESL (Electronic Sports League) and MLG
(Major League Gaming) are the world’s largest
Professional eSports Organizations. They
organize Competitions Worldwide.
eSports as a Career:
Earnings
The Teams are sponsored by companies like Cloud9,
Rebull, SteelSeries etc.
According to League of Legends 2014 handbook, players
must be paid a minimum of $12,500 per split.
For a 28 match season, that is $450 each match.
eSports as a Career:
Winnings
The Pakistani DOTA2 player from Karachi, Sumail Hassan
has amassed $2,401,560 in championship earnings.
League of Legends Worlds 2017: $4,072,101
DOTA2 2016 The International: $20 Million
DOTA2 2017 The International: $24 Million
eSports as a Career:
Contracts
Recently, Faker renewed his contract
with SKT (South Korean
Telecommunications) over 2.5 Million
USD.
eSports as a Career: No
Limits
The Silver Snipers is a Professional
Swedish Counter Strike team, where
the youngest player is 62, and the
oldest 81.
There are no Age or Geographical
Restrictions. eSports Knows No
Boundaries.
eSports in Pakistan
ESN is the largest eSports organization in
Pakistan, based in Karachi.
Major sponsors, in Pakistan, are ASUS and
PTCL.
Colleges and Universities also hold gaming
competitions.
The Future of eSports
Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality
● Echo Arena
● The Unspoken
Upcoming eSports games
● Player Unknowns BattleGround (PUBG)
● Clash Royale
References & Resources
● eSports - Wikipedia
● Rise of eSports is a Game Changer | HuffPost
● Scientific Relevance of eSports - Harvard Research
● Our Game | League of Legends - YouTube
● Electronic Arts
● Millionares of Competitive Gaming - VICE News Documentary
● College Scholarships - VICE News
Notas do Editor
Can be played on local network or on the internet. Require a lot of skill (Hand-Eye coordination, Dexterity, Communication with teammates, Timing. IQ and Planning skills in case of Strategic games).
Shortly after this declaration by ESPN President, the network started coverage of eSports and partnered with DOTA 2 for streaming International Championships , which we will get to later
If we assume that eSports are not a sport, then we should ask what is considered a sport.
ESPN covers eSports on it various channels such as ESPN2 and ESPNU, and the air-time is increasing (upto 18 hours on weekends).
Many countries grant sport visas to players who come for playing tournaments or championships
Battlefield by EA, Counter Strike, DOTA, League of Legends, Overwatch, StarCraft. The background image is what we call an “open bracket” tournament
It is expected that the fanbase will double (half a billion, currently 71 million) in the coming years.
You might have heard of live streaming on Facebook or Youtube, but the largest online streaming platform is Twitch. The quality of live stream is way better than Youtube and other services. And it’s exclusively for video games.
This also implies that eSports is not just the future of entertainment, but also a huge business opportunity.
In 2015, Twitch generated 60 Million USD in revenue. It is believed that it will be worth $20 Billion by 2020, bringing in $1 Billion revenue per year.
The major difference between a traditional sports league, like NBA and many football leagues, and a pro gaming league like MLG is that the latter covers multiple games.
The teams compensate their players in form of salaries or contracts (more companies: ASUS, nVidia, Intel)
What is a split? It’s like a season. In LoL, there are 2 splits a year. Namely, Spring Split and the Summer Split. The summer split decides who is going to the Worlds.
However, most players are paid much higher based on skill level.
So what Valve actually did was ask its fans to donate for the championship pool prize.
Base prize pool actually $1 Million, the rest of $23 Million is contributed by fans. 1st place $10 Million
You can also form contracts with teams. The team’s sponsers will pay you considerably depending on your skill and fame.
Faker, a South Korean professional LoL player, is the 3 times World champion. He dropped out of Highschool to join SKT. In the past he had declined offers of 1 Million USD from Chinese teams.
The team was formed by Tommy Ingemarsson who is a ten-time CS world champion.
PTCL has also introduced new services exclusively for gamers.
Companies like Unreal, Nintendo, nVidia are bringing breathtaking innovation in AR and VR.
Thus, eSports is not just restricted to PC gaming or console gaming, it is ever expanding and many new games introduce their competition every year.
Newzoo, an expert in video games data, predicts that the global eSports audience will increase to a staggering 385 million people in 2017 and estimates that revenues from eSports will grow from $130 million in 2012 to $696 million this year.
To learn more about this subject in detail, you might find these resources helpful.