Brush up on your gaming lingo,
because e-sports is returning to relevance.
One of the first major initiatives to bring
video games out of LAN parties and into public limelight happened in 1997 with the
formation of the Cyber athlete Professional League (CPL), promising monetary
prizes for gamers and a chance to ‘go pro’. Besides the CPL, other high profile
tournaments and leagues sprouted up such as the World Cyber Games (WCG),
Electronic Sports World Cup (ESWC), and Evolution Championship Series (EVO).
Each operated within their own format, focusing on different game competitions,
and have had their moments of success.
One
of the first major initiatives to bring video games out of LAN parties and into
public limelight happened in 1997 with the formation of the Cyber athlete
Professional League
The period between 2005 and 2007 could be
said to be the peak of the international e-sports scene. The CPL in 2005 took
gaming global with a year-long world tour format that started in March and
ended in November, visiting cities from Istanbul to Singapore with the finals
in New York. Its total prize pool of US$1 million was then unheard of for
playing video games. In 2007, the WCG had a prize pool US$4 million, and would
seem to only continue to grow.
Much like professional athletes, THE
CYBERATHLETIC REVOLUTION Brush up on your gaming lingo, because e-sports is
returning to relevance. by Zachary Chan the ‘cyber athletes’ of e-sports
enjoyed celebrity status, benefitted from corporate sponsorships and were
sought after as brand ambassadors. This spawned a craze for gaming-grade
pripherals from mice and keyboards to graphics cards and headphones that were
designed and tuned for competition. If that wasn’t enough to encourage the
average Joe that their skills would improve ten-fold, you’ve got professional
endorsement from top players; the most well-known then was Jonathan ‘Fatal1ty’
Wendel.
Since
conception, video games have held a competitive nature amongst gamers. The
first video game competition was held in 1980 and featured Space Invaders. The
event attracted over 10,000 participants.
Then came an age of decline. The CPL
spiralled downward into a mire of controversy; its most recent tournament for
StarCraft II in 2013 offered a prize of only US$6,500; the WCG was officially
cancelled as of early 2014. Many other major competitions still exist, but at a
diminished capacity with lowered prize pools and minimal sponsorship. E-sports
retreated from the limelight, going back to its niche communal roots.
The only exception seems to have been South
Korea, where the love of StarCraft birthed and sustained televised professional
game broadcasts that claim to exceed viewership of actual sports. South Korea
has its own national level StarCraft tournaments — Starleague and Proleague —
that flourishes to date.
That
is from 2005 Proleague championship match with 120,000 audiences cheering for
two teams who made it to the championship. When was the last time did you gather
120,000 people cheering for you?
For the rest of the world, the decline of
e-sports can be attributed to the fact that it wanted too much to be like
actual professional sports. The ideas were there, just that the formula and
platform wasn’t right. Both the CPL and WCG grew into huge events, complete
with big name sponsors, international locations and glitzy tournament arenas.
This format proved no sustainable since the physical event itself would just
look like a bunch of guys sitting around tables. The actual ‘action’ happened
on screen.
