Let’s start to figure out what it is – esports. Not all people understand that these are not stupid games, but real team or single professional work. Indeed, this is a completely official sport, recognized by the relevant Ministry of the Russian Federation in 2016! Most of the world’s developed countries have also recognized eSports disciplines on a par with traditional ones – these are Italy, USA, France, Finland, South Korea and others.

It will be interesting for you to know that in 2001, esports was already officially recognized – then Russia became the first country to make such a decision. In 2006, he was excluded from the register, and returned back in 2016 – you know the rest.

Let’s try to understand in more detail what kind of sport it is – eSports. It was recognized as an official discipline according to the order of the Ministry of Sports of the Russian Federation No. 702 and meets the requirements stated in it:

Promotes the intellectual development of human abilities;
Has distinctive features, including the basic principles, the equipment used and the regular holding of competitions;
The name corresponds to the content of the discipline.

At the same time, there are requirements for non-recognition of a sports discipline if:

There is no competitiveness;
The rules do not create a level playing field for all participants;
Cruelty, disrespect or violence, humiliation of the dignity of the individual and other manifestations of hostility and violation of the law are allowed.

An excellent answer to the question of how to explain to parents what esports is. A real sports competition held in an online format is not just a passing of a shooter or a fighter, not a haphazard sitting at a computer. Use the above terminology to convince and convey your point of view!

Cybersport is a profession, it is a team or solo competition to win a certain game. We introduced you to the definition and made sure that this is a real and recognized sport. How did he become such when he appeared? Let’s go a little deeper into the past!

What is esports

What is esports? This is a kind of virtual competition in any computer game. Depending on the gameplay, the competition can be:

command. The game is played by two teams of 4-5-6 gamers. There is a captain, there is a coach, a manager in the team;
individual. Each gamer is responsible only for himself and his actions and competes with the same gamer from the opposing team.

There are eSports teams that have separate squads of gamers that specialize in certain games. Often, an esports player is focused on one specific esports discipline. But it happens that he is engaged in several types of virtual sports.

What is esports, how is it useful? It’s not just a hobby. Thanks to Angel Munez, who created the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) in 1997, esports has grown from entertainment into an official sport recognized, including by Russia. Later, other leagues appeared: Electronic Sports World Cup, World Cyber Games, etc.

Advertisers, investors sponsoring tournaments and championships contribute to the development of the gaming and computer industry. With the money left after the payment of the prize money, old and new computer games are created, pumped, updated. Often part of the amount is donated to various charitable foundations, goes to support the sick, the elderly, animals, and the environment.

Who is an esportsman

Who are esportsmen? These are the players who participate in eSports competitions. On the one hand, gamers spend a lot of time at computers. On the other hand, this is their job. In the era of cybernetics, nano-technologies, computers and the Internet, this type of earnings, when it comes to professional teams, has a right to exist.

Cybersportsmen are constantly training, that is, they are working to improve their own qualifications. They spend from 6 to 12 hours a day at the PC, studying the game, constantly following the guides, news, participating in training meetings, qualifying tournaments. In order to later go to the tournament, which is often held in another city or even country.

The Women’s Esports Community

At one time it was believed that esports games were male entertainment. There were no women’s teams or female players on the men’s teams. Today, competitions are held between women’s teams, as well as between men’s. In America, for example, about 40-43% of all teams are female.

True, in one pair you will not find a confrontation between the women’s and men’s teams. And this is not chauvinism, the organizers explain the pattern by the different approach of women and men to solving problems, different degrees of emotionality, stress resistance, concentration, reaction speed.

History and development

“Is esports a profession or entertainment?” – this is the question that thousands of people are asking. It is difficult for many to understand how clicking the keyboard and the mouse could become a profitable activity and received the status of a sports discipline.

Let’s take a look at the history of the development of esports – this will help to understand the path of its formation.

The first esports tournament – its progenitor – took place already in 1972. 24 Stanford University students competed in the Spacewar game. Two people play at the same time – the one who knocks down the enemy’s spaceship wins. The winner got a subscription to Rolling Stone Magazine!

The growth and expansion of the computer games industry fell on the 1990s – then there were constantly small local tournaments and competitions, similar to the very first event in the world of esports;
Eight years later (in 1998), Atari hosted the next major cyber event – the Space Invaders competition, which was attended by several thousand people;

The first massive tournament “Red Annihilation” was held in 1997 – it was organized by Angel Munyen, the players fought in Quake. It took place in several stages – first, 2000 American players competed online, and only then 16 finalists arrived in Antlanta, at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. For the first time, the broadcast was actively conducted on the Internet, the winner received a Ferrari 328 GTS – it was Dennis Fong;

It was after the first tournament that Munez created the first professional eSports league, Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL).

In the two thousandth, the formation of the Internet began – then such well-known products as Starcraft or Counterstrike saw the light. The following page has opened:

In 2000, the World Cyber Games tournament started – the first prize fund was 600 thousand dollars, and Samsung was the sponsor;

In 2002 Major League Gaming (MLG) was created, one of the most successful cyber leagues;
In 2003, two professional leagues sprang up in South Korea, OnGameNet StarLeague and MBC Game StarLeague, which were broadcast on two gaming-only TV channels;

At the same time, a competitor to WCG, the Electronic Sport World Cup, was launched in France, an international championship sponsored by Intel and NVIDIA.

Gradually, the number of leagues grew, new tournaments appeared – and the prize fund expanded. All this is inextricably linked to the improvement of the quality of computers and the emergence of new popular games.

You can unequivocally answer the question: “Is e-sports a profession or a hobby?” If you find out how much team members train. You need to hone your reactions, study every little thing, every detail of the map and be able to enter into full interaction with other users. Professional players spend 8-12 hours a day at the computer, they have coaches – specialists who develop strategies and train discipline and reaction. It is not surprising that athletes earn decent money, because esports is a difficult process! We’ll talk about numbers later, while we discuss which games are the subject of the battle.

How is esports developing?

With the current pace of development of esports, it is possible that in 3-5 years the stars in computer games will become champions of the Olympiads known throughout the country with great financial support.

Esports have dozens and hundreds of customization options. While nothing has changed in classic sports for a long time, new disciplines appear in esports, completely new formats (like Hearthstone ), existing games are constantly being transformed thanks to patches. And the stars of the esports world are much more down-to-earth people than many singers, actors and the same football players. It’s nice when your idol is a person with whom you can always communicate even through chat in the stream. You can go on for a long time, but everyone loves esports in their own way.

In order for an esports team to develop and show good results, they need to train a lot. For some it may seem like a waste of time, but in fact, cybersportsmen work no less than ordinary athletes. They do not get up from the computer for 8-12 hours a day, tournaments are held in different countries, which is why players have to face with constant travel.

Varieties

In e-sports, there are e-sports disciplines – there are many of them, it is not possible to single out all of them. Each discipline is a game of the same name, in which the participants of the competition fight among themselves.

Here is a small TOP of the most popular, highly paid and demanded disciplines. Please note – these are far from all possible varieties, only a small part of them!

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Dota 2
Hearthstone;
Overwatch
League of Legends;
FIFA;
World of Tanks
StarCraf;
PUBG;
Call of Duty.

Four unambiguously leading eSports disciplines that gather spectator stadiums that are incredibly massive and spectacular are the team strategy League of Legends and Dota 2, a new modification of the Counter Strike shooter called CS: GO and the card game Hearthstone.

Esports is a real and officially registered sport. Therefore, it has certain disciplines – it will not be possible to single out everything, but you can define the main categories of games! There is no official division yet, but we will use the following classification:

Shooters (Counter Strike);
Strategies (Dota 2);
Fighters (Mortal Kombat);
Simulators (FIFA).

The very notion of esports does not mean that any game can become a discipline – by no means. Remember any simple network game from Odnoklassniki or the famous VKontakte Farm – believe me, such toys will never make it into the tournament table. What are the criteria for selecting games for inclusion in the list of eSports disciplines?

There are several such parameters – we recommend paying attention:

Defined rules and purpose;
The fact of competition – between teams or players separately;
The existence of game mechanics – you need to do certain actions to get a certain result;
Inability to pay to simplify the gameplay.

How successful the discipline will be depends on the number of spectators, professional teams and the competition held.

Many people think about what eSports is and how to get there, not least because of the cash winnings. The opinion is erroneous that esports players earn less than ordinary athletes – prize rates can reach several hundred thousand dollars.

Dota 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and League of Legends are the most played esports games today

Professional competitions are not held for all computer games. Basically, in e-sports, those games are involved, in order to win in which the participants must show specific skills – team tactics or reaction speed.

Strategies and shooters are best suited for e-sports competitions. Most of these games support multiplayer mode. Athletes can form teams and train. Success in strategies and shooters depends on the level of training of esports players: the skills of individual players and teamwork.

Strategy is a genre of computer games. To win in strategy, players must develop tactics and plan further actions.

The most popular esports games are Dota 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS: GO) and League of Legends (LoL). Competitions for these games attract the largest viewership and attract many sponsors.

Dota 2

Dota 2 is a multiplayer computer game that combines the genres of strategy and MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena). Development of the game began in 2009 and lasted four years. Dota 2 was released in 2013 and has become one of the most popular online games. In the same year, PC Gamer magazine named Dota 2 the game of the year and the esports discipline of the year.

Dota 2 matches are played by two teams of five people each. Each esportsman controls his own playable character. To win, the team must destroy the enemy fortress.

CS: GO

CS: GO is a shooter that appeared in 2012. CS: GO is a continuation of the Counter-Strike series of games that have been released since 2000.

A CS: GO match is played by two teams of five. The fight consists of several rounds. One of the teams plays the role of “terrorists”, the other – “special forces”. The team that killed all opponents or completed a special task wins the round. Tasks differ for “terrorists” and “special forces” and depend on the game location.

LoL

LoL is a computer multiplayer game that combines the genres of strategy and MOBA. LoL was released in 2009.

LoL is similar to Dota 2 in mechanics. The game involves two teams of five people. The winner is the one who destroyed the enemy’s fortress. LoL and Dota 2 differ in interface features and characters.

In 2019, the LoL World Championship became the most popular esports tournament. 3.9 million people watched the online broadcast of the semi-finals of the competition – the best indicator for all disciplines.

Largest prize pools

We continue to understand what eSports is and how it is useful. In addition to developing exceptional reaction, coordination and amazing attentiveness (as confirmed by experts), serious money can be made. Now let’s look at it in numbers!

To convince you of the seriousness of esports, let’s talk about the existing prize pools – we have selected the largest assets over the past year. First, a few words about how the fund is formed.

Part of the money is contributed by the developer of the game in which the participants compete;
Part of the funds comes from the sale of in-game items and special merchandise;
An additional fee comes from the main sponsors of the event.

That’s what esports means! It’s not just keyboard and mouse clicks – it’s serious business. Ready to find out how much money is actually spinning in esports? You will be shocked.

10th place. Rainbow Six Siege (tactical shooter from Ubisoft) – $ 4.10 million
9th place. Arena of Valor (mobile game very popular in Asia) – $ 5.80 million
8th place. Call of Duty (two games simultaneously, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare) – $ 6.51 million
7th place. Magic: The Gathering (digital version of the card game) – $ 8.89 million
6th place. League of Legends – $ 9.02 million
5th place. Overwatch – $ 9.11 million
4th place. PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS – $ 12.71 million
3rd place. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive – $ 21.1 million;
2nd place. Dota 2 – $ 46.7 million
1st place. Fortnite – $ 64.42 million

These numbers will impress even the most skeptical person – the money really goes to the players who have shown themselves from the best side. Do not forget how developed the gaming industry is now – think of streaming services, game reviews … A huge audience is constantly watching the players, many people themselves enjoy spending time on a computer or console.

By the way! A definite plus of watching cyber tournaments is that everything is available online for free, there is no need to go anywhere or buy tickets.

In simple words, they told what it is – esports, who plays it and what disciplines are popular now. Even a person who is as far as possible from the gaming world will be able to figure it out – and, possibly, will find a new hobby! It is very interesting to watch the competitions of successful players – it is a beautiful and exciting process, check it out for yourself!

Largest esports prize pool

What is esports? This is a sport. It is logical that for winning a tournament, professional gamers receive, if not a salary, then prize money. The higher the status of the tournament and the higher the place of the team in the standings, the higher the fee. The amount can be in the hundreds and millions of US dollars.

Every year, the largest prize pools come from important international esports tournaments, for example, The International – Dota 2 competition, Blast Premier Spring Series – Counter Strike GO competition.

The largest prize pool for winning Dota 2 was in 2019. The prize was $ 3 million. In 2020, the CS GO prize pool is expected to be $ 1.375 million.

Of course, one team will not get the entire prize pool. It will be distributed among the champions, the teams that made it into the top three, and those who took the lower places. Thus, computer sports can also bring dividends, so it is worth developing, working to break into important championships.

How to get into eSports?

If you want to become a professional member of an e-sports team, let’s say right away – no special gaming schools, courses, sections or departments of institutes teach this. You can join the team only by invitation from one or more of its members or from a manager. To receive such an invitation, you must first of all prove yourself in various non-professional online tournaments as a capable player, and take leading places in matches. It’s also a good idea to build connections in the gaming community. At the same time, there is simply no e-sports training.

There is another way to break through to a professional level and join a team. This is participation in free competitions. Some tournaments for aspiring esports players require a certain fee to be paid to access them. The cost is different everywhere, but usually it is not very high. You can sign up for such matches on the official websites of their organizers or in the corresponding groups on social networks.

But it is much easier to become one of the specialists organizing competitions and accompanying their activities. Among these specialists:

managers;
marketers;
media specialists;
commentators;
journalists;
editors;
programmers.

To do this, you need to enter the relevant faculty of a higher educational institution, and then visit companies that organize tournaments in search of vacancies. Such specialists are trained by many universities or colleges in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities of Russia (Moscow State University, RNU, RUDN, and others). You can get specialized education there. It should be borne in mind that obtaining each of the listed professions requires passing different subjects for the exam and different passing points. The cost of training is also an important factor.

Note that a bachelor’s degree is sufficient to work in starting positions, but a master’s degree is required for career advancement. It should also be said that the most in-demand profession accompanying esports is management.

ESports faculty

Despite the fact that most educational institutions do not train specialists in the field of esports, two Russian universities still do it. It:

University “Synergy;
РГУФК.

True, they do not train players directly, but specialists in related areas, which we talked about above (managers, marketers, and others). However, unlike traditional training, emphasis is placed here on the specifics of the work associated with the preparation, organization and conduct of cybersport competitions.

Work in esports

As we have already said, getting to work in e-sports is relatively easy if you have a specialized education and relevant vacancies in one of the companies that hold tournaments.

Films about esports

Esports has become the theme of several films and TV series. Below is a small list of the most popular films that have received positive reviews from critics and people who have watched them.

The magician. British film about how esports was born. It tells about the first-ever tournaments for games on the newly released video game consoles from Nintendo. The action of the tape takes place in 1989.
World Cyber Games movie from National Geographic Channel. This documentary focuses on the past and present of global esports and answers many interesting questions for fans: when did esports begin? why did he become so popular? what games does it include? what does this or that term mean? where did the first competition take place?
Gamer. Ukrainian feature film about a teenager who spent hours playing online shooters in a computer club and achieved considerable success in this, after which he was noticed by the manager of one of the esports leagues and became a member of a professional team.
Road to the World Championship. A documentary about the preparation of the top teams for the World Cup in various esports disciplines. It shows not the outer shell that viewers see when they decide to watch the tournaments, but the laborious process that precedes all this. You will see training for the development of reaction, joint exercises, training on offline simulators – in other words, everything that makes up the work of a professional cyber sportsman.
The reverse side of the screen. A documentary about the large-scale DOTA 2 competition that took place in 2014. Players and commentators who have come there share their impressions, as well as talk about their work and daily life.

Esports audience

In addition to changes in technology, the portrait of the gamer as a whole is also changing.

Whereas previously only a teenage boy was considered a gamer, today 45 percent of American gamers are women. And the average age of a player is 34 years.

By 2021 Millennials (generation of people born in 1982-2004 (in Russia – 1985-2003)). will reach their peak purchasing power and become a mainstream gamer.

By 2021, Newzoo predicts an annual growth rate of approximately 14%. They also predict that the number of casual viewers will grow to 307 million, 250 million esports enthusiasts, making the total audience 557 million.

Sources used and useful links on the topic: https://twitchgid.ru/kibersport-chto-eto-takoe/ https://CQ.ru/articles/cybersport/cto-znacit-kibersport-kak-stat-professionalnym-geimerom https: //imgame.kz/spets/chto-takoe-kibersport/ https://go-sport.ru/article/chto-takoe-cybersport/ https://geekplus.ru/chto-takoe-kibersport/

Post source: lastici.ru