How Competitive Gaming Grew into the eSports Industry

Video games have developed into one of the most popular forms of entertainment, with the video game industry ranking in more than $120 billion in 2019 alone. That's not to mention all the merch, cosplaying, and other fun stuff people love to invest in featuring their favorite video games and characters. Out of that, another growing industry has begun to flourish: in 2019, global eSports revenue surpassed $1 billion.

A New Favorite Classic

Competitive gaming is hardly a burgeoning interest; what most people would consider the first video game was a competitive game of sorts, although it was more of a minimalist multiplayer. Since then, people have always been looking for ways to adapt and improve the ways we play video games and the ways we play competitively.

Technology Meets the Challenges

Arcades and home consoles originally set the scene for a lot of early competitive gaming. For players frequenting arcades, high score lists were a kind of indirect competition. In some regions, though, local clubs formed to host their own tournaments on game cabinets and consoles alike. Atari even hosted it's own Space Invaders championships in the United States in 1980 with over 10,000 players.

In the 90s, PC networking began to change the way competitive gaming worked again, taking things online this time. Computers were becoming more accessible and their capabilities broader, so the expansion of online PC gaming boomed. Global networking broke down regional barriers and tournaments became much larger and more popular. Small groups of enthusiastic players would go from personal parties to big-name tournaments, playing games like Counterstrike--still one of the most popular games in eSports.

Growing Interest

By the end of the turn of the century, eSports had found its footing and was starting to turn heads. Leagues had begun to form across the world, with South Korea pushing to professionalize eSports. The Korean eSports Association was created to address broadcasting, marketing, conditions for pro gamers, and other forms of commercialization.

Other countries followed suit in later years, but Korea's investment helped to establish eSports in the way we know it modernly. Tournaments started to arrange hefty prize amounts for competitors, like the CPL World Tour in 2005 which had a collective prize cache of one million dollars, or the 2007 Championship Gaming Series which offered a $500,000 top prize alone.

Interest in eSports has only continued to gain momentum, creating a billion-dollar industry out of a hobby. Now, everyone from influencers to big-name brands to international sports teams is poised to try for their own piece of the eSports pie.

Sponsors and Teams

A huge part of the revenue that fuels the eSports industry is sponsorship and media rights, putting professional gamers in the same pay grade as professional athletes. They're also starting to get picked up by sports teams for sponsorships, "playing" alongside athletes as representatives for teams that may have been missing out on canceled or delayed seasons this year.

A Look at the Future

Looking at how audiences and revenue for eSports have grown every year, some statisticians believe that by 2023 the global revenue for the industry will be nearly $1.6 billion. More and more sponsors are looking to invest while viewership is higher than ever and broadcasting becomes more widespread and accessible, not only through streaming sites but through the increased interest of mainstream TV. There's no doubt that eSports has a long way to go, but there's also a lot of uncharted territory when it comes to the professionalization of online competitive gaming, legislation, and global standardization. There may yet be an era of growing pains the eSports era has yet to see.