eSports

This availability is similar in some ways to soccer, where kids need nothing more than a ball and some space and they can play; most kids at some point play video games, especially with the growth of mobile games and smartphones. This offers a certain allure to the idea of being a professional gamer, especially compared to traditional careers such as accountants, lawyers, or sales associates. As well, the growth of the industry has seen broadcasting partnerships with ESPN, TBS, SyFy, and Telemundo broadcasting eSports events. And traditional sports leagues like NHL, NBA, and the NFL have launched tournaments, leagues, and in some cases, ownership stakes in eSports and respective leagues or teams.

Two of the games that emerged from this growth in South Korea and are considered to be two of the first real eSports titles are Starcraft (1998)/Starcraft II (2010), developed by Activision Blizzard, and the Defense of the Ancients (DOTA) 2, published by Valve Corporation. DOTA 2 gave rise to a network of small scalesmall-scale tournaments that have evolved into massive organized competitions. However, in South Korea, Starcraft proved a more popular game and spawned the first developer-organized and sponsored gaming leagues, some of which continue today.

DOTA 2 has remained a popular game, and the DOTA 2 international championship boasted the largest prize pool of any eSports event, with the 2019 DOTA 2 International offering a prize pool of USD $13.5 million to the winner, out of a total prize pool of USD $30.8 million, more than traditional sports such as Golf and ultimate fighting. Other popular eSports games, based on prize money, competitors, and viewers, include the following:

There are two categories of eSports developers. The first are the "hands-off" developers, such as Microsoft or Nintendo, which develop games but do not organize eSports events for titles. Instead, they allow the community to organize competitions and tournaments and seek developer approval. The opposite areis the "hands-on" developer, such as Riot Games, Activision Blizzard, and Valve Corporation. These developers actively organize professional tournaments and leagues for their respective games. These latter developers tend to grow faster than the former, as the corporation holds the intellectual property rights to its titles and controls how the game is played throughout leagues.

Another difference between eSports and traditional or physical sports is that the latter are not owned by a single person or organization; they are timeless. Whereas eSports are contingent on the choice of the games' developers. If a developer decides to close a game, the game is gone and any eSports based on the game are gone. An example of this is the game Fractured Space, which Edge Case Games decided to stop developing in late 2018 due to a small player base. Many of these decisions are made to prioritize new products or cut monetary losses. This means developers, in many cases, determine who has access to the games and the related leagues and at what quality, making the distribution and access different from traditional sports.

ESL and its related leagues, such as the ESL Pro League/ESL ESEA Pro League, began as a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) professional sports league. The league is a non-developer league, meaning they license the titles for their competitions. It is considered a premier professional league and is one of the major professional leagues in eSports. The league began as a venture between the Electronic Sports League and E-Sports Entertainment Association League (ESEA), with the inaugural season of the league starting on May 4, 2015. The joint venture brought $1 million in prize money for the first two seasons. These original seasons covered Europe and North America, but have since expanded to include Asia, Oceania, and South America before being contracted into the four regions: Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Oceania.

The ESL tournaments were originally formatted around twelve teams from Europe and North America, and in the first three seasons, ESL gave the top four teams in each region a ticket to the final tournament. This final tournament was a local, physical offline tournament relying on a local area network (LAN) to ensure fairness and reduce playing latency (lag). By the fourth season, the tournament expanded to twenty-eight teams, with fourteen teams per league, and six teams from each region qualifying for the offline tournaments. The teams played their regional rivals twice, playing twenty-two games for the first three seasons, and twenty-four games from season four to season seven.

By season seven the ESL expanded and the teams went from twenty-four to forty. To reduce some of the league's complexity, by season nine, the South and North AmericaAmerican regions were integrated into a single region. Thirteen of the teams in the ESL Pro League automatically qualify through a Permanent Partner Status, a revenue-sharing system ESL operating with the organizations of these thirteen teams. Of the other eleven teams that qualify for the twenty-four teamtwenty-four-team finals, six qualify through the ESL world ranking, which measures team results from all significant tournaments; the remaining five qualify through regional qualifications. These regional qualifications occur through regional ESEA Premier Seasons, with two taking place for every ESL season.

As part of the agreement, each stakeholder in the league also takes on a role in strategic decision makingdecision-making for the league. The agreement is also seen as a vote of confidence by the teams considered to be the best in the world, and provides and a chance to create a quality platform and a stable league capable of growth, without sacrificing the ability for new teams and players to grow. As well, both the ESL League and stakeholders work to develop a unified world ranking system that is brand-neutral, and can work with other ranking systems, such as the HLTV and CSPAA in order to develop a global ranking system. These ranking systems are used to determine the participation in the ESL Pro League and the ESL Pro Tour for non-partnered teams.

Despite the challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and despite trepidation on the part of the leadership of the ESL over whether the organization could make the 2020 minimum revenue guarantees, the league was able to exceed the seven-digit guarantees by nearly 20 percent, and each member of the team was able to walk away with six figuresix-figure USD of revenue. This came with the strong traction of eSports in 2020, and continued growth is expected to double the minimum guarantees from 2021 to 2023.

The European Masters tournament began qualifiers for its "Spring" tournament in March 2021. Unlike the AmericasAmerican format, the European format included two stages and a last chancelast-chance qualifier before concluding the tournament with its Grand Finals. The European Masters also has an ESL PUBG Open, a series of three tournaments scheduled to take place later the same year, with each competition carrying a $2,000 prize pool.

The League of Legends (LoL) World Championships, abbreviated as Worlds or LoL Worlds, is an annual professional world championship tournament hosted by Riot Games. Through the seasons, teams compete to participate in the World Championships, where invited teams compete for the champion title, the Summoner's Cup, and a multi-million dollar championship prize. The 2018, the LOL World's final's peak viewership was 99.6 million people, breaking a record previously set in 2017 by the same tournament.

Since the Worlds was established in 2011, the tournament has gained a lot of success and popularity, becoming one of the most watched tournaments in eSports. By extension, LoL has become one of the most watchedmost-watched video games in the world. Given the popularity of the game and the competitions around the game, there has been a suggestion that it could be included as an Olympic event. The game has already been included as a medal event in the 2022 Asian Games.

The 2021 Worlds announced the five cities that are playing host to the championship across China. These cities include Shanghai, Qingdao, Wuhan, Chengdu, and Shenzhen. The competition culminatesculminated in the grand finals onin November at the Universiade Sports Centre in Shenzhen, China, capable of seating 60,000 people. This marks the third time the Worlds iswere held in China, including in 2020 and 2017. The tournament, previous to COVID-19 concerns and restrictions, was expected to head to North America, which has been pushed to 2022 for the resumption of normal fan experience and a reduction of COVID-19 restrictions.

Previous to the release of Fortnite, PUBG was one of, if not the most popular battle royale games in eSports. With the release and the popularity of the game Fortnite, the active player base of PUBG declined and the popularity of tournaments and viewership also declined. In 2018, the PUBG Global Invitational totaled more than 60 million peak viewers; since then it has declined. The largest PUBG tournaments include the PUBG Continental Series, which offers one of the largest prize pools associated with PUBG and focusfocuses on region specificregion-specific play. Otherwise, the next largest leagues include the ESL PUBG Masters and the PUBG Mobile World League.

Organized and licensed by Tencent Games, the developer and publisher of PUBG's mobile version of the game, has been held as a league event for the mobile version of the game. The league features teams from South EastSoutheast Asia, South Asia, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and wildcard teams. The league is new relative to its peers and was hampered in the 2020 championships, which were due to be played at the Coca-Cola Arena in Dubai until players tested positive for COVID-19. This led to players competing in the tournament from their hotel rooms, and the tournament had to be postponed to ensure they played on a dedicated network to ensure the competition was as fair as possible.

The technical infrastructure begins with the gear used by an eSports player. Generally, this begins with a high-performance computer capable of running popular titles at high frame rates, for which they require high-quality computer displays capable of refreshing the active frame in milliseconds to reduce the latency between the action on the screen and the players' inputs. Similarly, the other peripherals used by eSports players can be considered similar to the equipment of players in traditional sports, where they do not make the player, but they can help the player reach a new level. These include gaming mice and keyboards and a high-quality audio system (such as a headset), which gives the player a chance to hear details in-game, which can give them a competitive advantage.

As previously stated, Twitch has been an important factor in the growth of the popularity of eSports. Around the time of Twitch's launch, the website had 3.2 million unique visitors per month. By 2012, the site grewhad grown to 20 million visitors per month, which drew Amazon to acquire Twitch in 2014 for $1 billion after competing with Google over the acquisition. With Twitch's growing popularity and capability in livestreaming competitive gaming saw the company integrated into new game releases by developers such as Blizzard Activision, and in the hardware of popular console platforms Xbox and PlayStation.

As YouTube has expanded the company's livestreaming and gaming capabilities, they have begun to add more features similar to those found on Twitch to better compete with the platform. This has included polls, clips, and subscriber-only chats. These are features that allow users to clip a favorite part of a stream and, share it with a community, and interact directly with the streamer or just in private.

With the increase in eSports, the push for advertising in eSports has grown. Most advertising has been digital or in-place, similar to advertising in other sports during live events. However, there has been a development of programmatic in-game advertising to bring online and offline worlds together, which can allow livestreams of online or offline tournaments to stream advertising that is region-specific or dependent on subscriber status. As well, through sponsorships, different eSports teams offer a chance for advertisers to create stronger branding mediums through the interactive streaming. This can include traditional sponsorships, such as wearing specific brands or consuming specific brands' products while broadcasting. And with the increased engagement between eSports fans and their favorite players or teams, it can offer a chance for brands to reach new levels of intimacy with potential customers.

The impact of publishers and developers can also be negative. While thethey build the games and they develop the infrastructure in many cases, they can also ban players and even teams. For example, in 2016, Riot Games banned many players in League of Legends, leading to the sale of League Championship Series teams and Challenger Series teams because their key players were banned.

GamesThe games as a service model has helped developers and eSports in two main ways: first, by generally being free to play, a large group of players is often attracted to the game (as there is little to no risk compared to purchasing a full-price game), and once there is a certain player base, a not insignificant amount of that player base will want to pay for cosmetic add-ons, new features, in-game currencies, and other in-app purchases to enhance their experience. This allows the developer to keep a game, especially an online game, going for far longer than a single purchase model, earning a combination of revenues, and often attracting enough players to create enough popularity around the game to give it the potential to become an eSports title, which in turn increases the popularity of the game.

Activision Blizzard includes professional gaming properties Overwatch League, the Call of Duty League, Hearthstone Grandmasters, and the World of Warcraft Arena World Championship, among others. Activision Blizzard also operates Tespa, a collegiate eSports league. Previous to 2020, Activision Blizzard's then CEOthen-CEO, Bobby Kotick, saw the eSports industry as an opportunity similar to professional football in terms of scale. The eSports industry was expected to grow 15 percent and reach an overall valuation of $1.1 billion in 2020, with the potential to continue to grow into a multibillion dollarmultibillion-dollar industry.

The developer has had bellwether leagues in Hearthstone, World of Warcraft, and Starcraft, which all had a strong eSports following early in the history of eSports. And the company's focus has shifted towards first-person shooters, as it's a widely played gaming genre and has been more marketable to a mass audience. The main sources of revenue for Activision Blizzard in eSports includesinclude advertising, sponsorships, team sales, and sales of media rights, merchandise, and tickets. Of those, the biggest components are advertising and sponsorships, which Activision Blizzard has already managed to attract a group of top consumer brands to sponsor the Overwatch League.

EA's strongest division of titles, even encompassing a broad range of genres and types, is sports. The sports games include Madden NFL and FIFA franchises. In 1997, EA acquired Maxis Software, the developer of SimCity. EA continued the label for a few years before developing The Sims, which in the early 2000s was the best-selling PC game.

The EA Competitive Gaming Division was foundfounded in 2015. This division was founded to develop eSports competitions in the company's biggest franchises, including FIFA, Madden NFL, Battlefield, and more. Previous to the founding of the EA Competitive Gaming Division, EA had eSports competitions in place with the FIFA Interactive World Cup and the EA Sports Challenge Series. But the new division was tasked with creating new eSports opportunities, and growing the company's existing eSports offerings. This included the development of a worldwide championship with the game Battlefield 4, which was hosted in partnership with ESL One, and included the return of the Madden NFL Live Challenge. Part of the development of the Competitive Gaming Division was to build a program to centralize EA's eSports efforts and develop events and infrastructure to broadcast EA competitiveCompetitive tournaments and experiences.

This is to continue to grow EA's brand in the world of eSports, even though the company believes competitive gaming is built into all of the company's most popular titles, such as Battlefield, Madden NFL, Apex Legends, and FIFA. But despite this inherent competitiveness, the company is considered to be behind other publishers and rivals in the case of its eSports strategy and presence. EA, to continue to grow eSports, developed major tournaments in Barcelona, Manchester, and the EA Champions Spring Cup in Asia, which had more than 20 million competitors engaged in the EA Sports FIFA 18 Global Series. But these competitions are still not as established as rivals, including Riot Games' League of Legends, Valve's Counter-Strike and DOTA 2, and Activision Blizzard's Overwatch League, all of which have formal eSports leagues and cultivate and reward professional players.

The EA Sports FIFA Championship is the largest sports-based eSports competition series, with multiple tournaments and partnerships with FIFA and the Premier League for eSports tournaments to occur in tandem with real-life tournaments of those leagues. EA FIFA, and related eSports title Madden NFL, have received decent viewing numbers, with the less popular Madden NFL experiencing 97,000 peak viewers, while the EA FIFA eWorld Cup had about 244,000 peak viewers. Both of these numbers represent viewership increaseincreases, with Madden tripling its previous view count and FIFA doubling its 2018 view count. But this is in contrast to the League of Legends World Championship's near 4 million peak viewers and Fortnite's World Cup Finals 2.3 million peak viewers.

Apex Legends is one of the top battle royale games and was launched with the expectation that the game would be more popular to either of EA's sports franchises and as popular as Fortnite or Overwatch. Initially, this goal of competing with Fortnite and Overwatch seemed good, as Apex Legends launched with 10 million players in the first three days, besting Fortnite's launch, until the game reported a 74 to 75 percent decline in players, revenue, and peak viewership a few months after launch. And EA expects the player base and viewer base will increase again with the development of a competitive series around the game.

Part of the lack of development of the viewer base of Apex Legends is, in part, because the game is newer, being released in 2019, and with EA announcing support for a competitive league in 2020. The game did win awards for the best multiplayer title in The Game Awards. The tournament series around the game offered an open format series offering four types of events, from online tournaments to global live events, and with events carrying a total prize pool of $3 million. And with the tournament being open, it means anybody can participate and there are no guaranteed slots for any professional teams or players in order to entice players. This follows a strategy similar to FIFA and, Madden NFL, and Apex Legends largest competitor, Fortnite.

In the Apex Legends league, players will start in online tournaments and live Challenger Events in order to earn a spot in the Premier and Major Events. The live events fall into three tiers, in ascending order of prestige: Challenger Events, Premier Events, and Majors. The Challenger Events have players competing against competitors from their country. Premier Events are set at the regional level, such as Europe or North America. And those players with the highest point totals in online and live events are invited to the Majors. There are a total of four Majors, each expected to include 100one hundred squads made up of three players. And theThe series would endends with the Apex Legends Global Series Championship, intended to be the crowning tournament of the series.

EA launched the "Stay Home. Play Together" campaign in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic to draw attention to the company's Apex Legends, FIFA, and Madden NFL eSports competitions. Apex Legends was capable of tripling its average minute audience viewership through the program. While the NFL Checkdown x Madden NFL program was developed in participation with the NFL to bring NFL players to go head-to-head over two days, and saw the highest viewership of any Madden NFL Tournaments.

EA has also held tournaments since the launch of Live Event Competitions in 2016 to coincide with UFC live events. These EA Sports UFC 2 Live Events offered a game mode in which players could compete in a tournament and the winners could compete at a live finals at the UFC Fan Expo and part of the 5th Annual UFC International Fight Week. Players partaking in the tournament selected one of the four athletes on an upcoming fight card, customized the fighter, and competed online. To ensure fairness in the competition, EA balanced the fighters with the same overall attribute rating and move level. Rankings were then determined by the number of wins a player could accumulate during the qualifying period before taking three losses. At the end of the qualifying period, eligible players with top scores were invited to compete in the finals in Las Vegas.

EA has a history of developing unique strategies to push the company's content and generate interest in the content, especially in the eSports arena. This includes developing The Sims Spark'd series, which debuted on TBS's Eleague and BuzzFeed's Multiplayer YouTube channel in a four-episode series of a reality television show based on The Sims game. A more eSports-focused strategy was a community-driven game show called FIFA Face-Off, a two-part YouTube show that placed celebrities against each other and against FIFA professionals and influencers. Through each episode, celebrities and FIFA pros would pair up, select a team, and compete to win a share of a $25,000 prize pool.

This mainstream entertainment approach, as called by EA, is an approach to expand the audience and based on a belief EA holds that the company can bridge the gap between gaming and the mainstream culture. Beyond building interest around an eSports league, part of EA's strategy has also expected to develop a league that attracts adjacent subcultures to the gaming community, such as fashion, technology, and music, and integrateintegrates those into an overall content strategy.

Peacekeeper Elite is the only non-MOBA title in Tencent's stable of eSports games, and as such the development of the associated tournaments has been more difficult. The company has worked, regardless, to develop competition with a grassroots focus, hosting competitions in multiple Chinese cities and universities for students, hoping to grow the sport more organically. In part of growing the sport, Tencent has hosted the championship of Peacekeeper Elite competitions of the league at the Shanghai Mercedes-Benz Arena, and that each region was able to compete during this tournament competition, with tournament sponsorship including brands such as Oppo, Warhorse, Buick, Snapdragon, JingDong Esports, Suansuanru, and Stride.

Similarly, Tencent and the Hubei Provincial Outreach Department and Wuhan Tourism & Sports Group signed a partnership in 2021 aimed at expanding eSports activities in Wuhan. The partnership is expected to bring the CrossFire Franchise League to Wuhan as a step to establish the city as the Chinese first-person shooter eSports hub. This is to include athe development of a larger eSports town sponsored by Tencent and is expected to include an eSports theme park, an eSports university, a cultural creative park, a comics and animation industrial park, an entrepreneurship community, and a big data center. It is intended to play host to other new technologies and businessbusinesses, all invested in and developed by Tencent.

Riot Games is a Los Angeles, California-based video game developer and publisher founded in 2006 by Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill. The company released its debut title League of Legends in 2009, which has gone to be one of the most-played PC games and a key game in growth of eSports. Riot Games was majority-acquiredmajority acquired by Tencent in February 2011 and was fully acquired in December 2015. The company also operates the League of Legends World Championship, Championship Series, and Mid-Season Invitational eSports tournaments. Riot Games has also developed the game Valorant, a 5 versus 5 battle royale game in which Riot Games developed the Valorant Champions Tournament, which competes with other battle royale games such as Fortnite, Overwatch, or Apex Legends.

From 1997 to 1999, Asia was hit by a period of financial crisis in which South Korea was an affected country. Money was difficult to come by and families found cheaper and more accessible entertainment options. With this came athe rise of internet cafes, often known as PC Bangs, which offered people in the country a chance to play video games at an affordable rate. Around these grew social communities where players could hang out and socialize through playing cooperative and competitive titles. Starcraft, released in 1998, became one of the most popular titles, in part, thanks to the game's appeal to South Korea's national interest in activities that tested their abilities to think and react rapidly. The game went from one of the many games offered on a computer at a PC Bang to a national obsession.

The development of eSports in Africa is an example of the role developers can play in the maturation of eSports. There has been a lack of development in terms of infrastructure for eSports in the continent, and developers have not properly penetrated the continent. Riot Games, for example, has decided to not make an African server for many years, often claiming that there is not enough demand to justify the cost of the servers. Theoretically, players in Africa can play through North American or European servers, but the latency would prevent those players from competing effectively.

Publishers have developed a business model known as "Games-as-a-Servicegames as a service," where players can play a base game for free, and the game features in gamein-game purchases in order to generate revenue. Many of these purchases are for aesthetic upgrades commonly known as "skins," which do not impact game performance but allow players to express themselves. Skins have become so popular that some incidents of children being bullied over their skins (or their lack of). Games-of-a-ServiceGames as a service can also include the development of "season passes," which players have to purchase to play the most current skins and loot available during that period. In some cases, the season pass can open up new places to play, such as new maps, which may become part of the base game after the season ends.

Games-as-a-ServiceGames as a service has helped developers and eSports in two main ways: first, by generally being free-to-playfree to play, a large group of players areis often attracted to the game (as there is little to no risk compared to purchasing a full-price game);, and, once there is a certain player base, a not insignificant amount of that player base will want to pay for cosmetic add-ons, new features, in-game currencies, and other in-app purchases to enhance their experience. This allows the developer to keep a game, espeicallyespecially an online game, going for far longer than a single purchase model, earning a combination of revenues, and often attracting enough players to create enough popularity around the game to give it the potential to become an eSports title, which in turn increases the popularity of the game.

However, there have been criticisms of the Games-as-a-Servicegames as a service model as more and more developers have tried to foster the model on games where it does not work (such as single-player, story-based games where content packs might be sold after a player has already purchased the game). For every successful Games-as-a-Servicegames titleas -a suchservice title—such as World of Warcraft, ForniteFortnite, Apex Legends, and Destiny 2 - there2—there are at least three titles whichthat tried to apply the business model to a game where it does not work. In some cases, developers have been criticized for cynically building a game only for the business model, failing to build a game players genuinely enjoy.

The company owns and operates additional studios under an independent studios model, in which a studio owned by a larger studio acts independently of the larger studio. And these tend to operate under Activision Publishing and include studios such as Treyarch, Infinity Ward, High Moon Studios, and Toys for Bob. As part of this, the Activision Publishing segment develops and publishes interactive software products and entertainment content with a focus on the console platform. The Blizzard Entertainment segment acts similar to Activision Publishing, but with a greater focus on the PC platform. While the King Digital Entertainment segment focuses on software and entertainment products for mobile platforms, such as Google's Android OS and Apple's iOS. And Activision and Blizzard largely maintain distinct corporate entities, with independent development and publishing streams.

Activision Blizzard develops revenue from the sale of game titles, and onfrom in-game content purchases, and generates revenue through the company's eSports leagues and digital advertising. Besides the merger between Activision and Blizzard, other important acquisitions have included the August 1997 acquisition of Raven Software, the October 2003 acquisition of Call of Duty developer Infinity Ward, the October 2001 acquisition of Tony Hawk and Call of Duty co-developer Treyarch Invention, and the February 2016 acquisition of mobile games publisher King Digital.

With the rise of eSports, there has been a rise in the concern over potential health side effects of excessive game playing. WitheWith many players practicing for long periods of the day, even when not in competition, eSports has health concerns based on over-use. Despite the sport seeming like it would be impossible to get injured in, the sedentary nature and repetitive movements, and the lifestyle of eSports, which can include increased consumption of caffeine and sugar, lack of exercise, and poor posture which can complicate otherwise straightforward health concerns.

With the rise in popularity of eSports, there has been increased concern over the long-term physical toll of competing in eSports, similar to concerns with more physical sports. Some players, such as Faker, an eSports star, are reported to practice twelve to fifteen hours a day, which can come with health and addiction concerns. Many of the potential physical side effects come from overuse, with the most prevalent ailments being eye strain and wrist and hand discomfort. These are similar conditions to those seen in sedentary desk jobs, but with an inclusion of injuries common of intense dexterous actions.

As noted above, part of the physical side effects can come from the mental side effects of eSports. This can be especially true of players who experience an unpredictability of income, the need to be constantly entertaining, and the pressure of growing channels and presence can all be a source of constant stress for eSports players and livestreamers. EspecialyEspecially as many players survive exclusively on the revenue received from playing well or from streaming. The anxiety and stress this comes with can manifest in various ways, with common symptoms including the following: headaches, nausea, lightheadedness, dizziness, rapid heart rate, shortness of breath, chest pain, and feelings of dread.

Along with these side effects, studies into eSports playing and streaming have shown to cause addiction to technology, aggressive behaviors, sleep disorders, and a hindrance to social relationships, the development of emotional intelligence, and school performance (where applicable). This is consistent with other addiction behaviors and patterns. And, as "Gaming disorder" has been defined in the World Health Organization's 11th Revision of International Classification of Diseases as a pattern of behavior characterized by impaired control over gaming, increasing priority given to gaming over other interests and activities, and a continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences. Playing as an eSports athlete obviously exposes an individual to these types of addictions.

Following this came Nintendo's release of the Super NES in 1991, which brought Super Mario and Street Fighter and increased the popularity of video games. This, along with the arms race between Nintendo and Sega, continued to increase the quality and popularity of video games. Nintendo, in turn, acted on the rising popularity of video games, ledand to Nintendo launchinglaunched the Nintendo World Championships in 1990, which allowed players to compete against each other for a prize in one of the earliest eSports tournaments and as a promotional tool. Nintendo held a second world championship in 1994, with the grand finale held in San Diego, California, and drew a massive amount of spectators. These events also offered a way for players to connect with each other before social media or well-established regular gaming tournaments.

This led to The Red Annihilation, a Quake event, which took place in May of 1997 and has been considered by some as the first real eSports competition. The internet allowed for over 2000 entrants to face each other in one-on-one competitions in Quake before the field was reduced to sixteen players. These sixteen players were flown to Atlanta, Georgia, to compete at the Electronic Entertainment Expo at the World Congress Center. This event was viewed by spectators in person and online and received news coverage from newspapernewspapers and television networks. And the tournament crowned Dennis "Thresh" Fong, who won the tournament and the grand prize of a Ferrari 328 GTS, previously owned by Quake programmer John D. Carmack.

This popularity brought media companies ON-Media and MBC Plus Media to launch TV channels to broadcast Starcraft competitions. The leagues attracted sponsorships from the likes of Samsung and SK Telecom. Other companies and developers followed the example, sponsoring teams and players, and hoping to get their brands in front of younger generations. Thresh, the Quake champion, had been a minor celebrity in North America, but in South Korea, professional Starcraft players were superstars. eSports proved popular and lucrative in South Korea and led to pushing the envelope in terms of bringing eSports to growing audiences.

This decade saw eSports take another step as video games and online gaming continue to grow in popularity. Internet cafes grew around the world and gave players the chance to play multiplayer video games on high poweredhigh-powered PCs they may have otherwise been unable to afford. Many of these cafes changed as home computers became more powerful and decreased in price.

With the launch of Twitch in 2011 came affordability and centralization of broadcasting increasing the viability of eSports tournaments. Attempts during the previous decade to televise eSports on dedicated channels in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States had proved unsuccessful. These efforts saw the example of DirecTV developing the Championship Gaming Series in the United States only for it to fail. The CHS attempted to adapt eSports to TV, bringing to the competition a WWE style of production paired with an arguably poor choice of games and bizarre rules that left eSports viewers confused, and scared mainstream viewers away. Twitch, by offering a more straightforward way of presenting the competitions and allowing the competition to be the spectacle, rather than trying to create a spectacle around it, brought greater popularity to eSports.

In 2009, 161 eSports tournaments were held; by 2012, that increased to 696 tournaments, a number which has continued to rise. The prize money grew in a similar manner, as a $2 million prize money in 2009 saw an increase to $10 million in 2012. The real-time strategy era of games such as Starcraft and Warcraft 3 werewas coming to a kind of close, while games such as Heroes of Newerth, League of Legends, and DOTA 2, all games of the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) genre, were developing unprecedented player bases and drew greater viewership in tournaments.

Despite eSports making its way onto television in the late 1990s and during the 2000s, the difficulty of televising competitive gaming events came from battles over rights, different viewing mediums across the globe, and a lack of perceived interest. Twitch changed this, as the platform was developed to be a streaming platform for gaming and eSports. The platform helped users watch competitive gaming on a more personal level and increased the popularity of eSports. The broadcasts of CS:GO, League of Legends, and DOTA 2 made it to everyone, and gamers were able to make a living out of playing a game at home instead of drawing on the luck of just a professional career. With the platform's success, competitive gaming became more of a spectator sport, with a larger educated fanbase, and the platform was purchased by Amazon for $1 billion in 2014, after Amazon and Google had battled forto acquiringacquire the platform.

With the increased viewership of eSports globally came the rise of League of Legends as one of the largest games in eSports. The first League of Legends World Championship was held in 2011 in Sweden. The event featured a $100,000 prize pool, with first place winningfirst-place-winning team Fnatic winning the top prize of $50,000. In 2012, the second League of Legends World Championships were held at the Galen Center in Los Angeles, California with an attendance of 10,000 fans. A year later, the venue for the championship was the Staples Center with the finals played in front of a sell-out crowd and both years featured a top prize of $1 million.

As eSports and the various leagues in the sport grew, it became more mandatory towards the middle of the decade that developers were hands-on with the competitive scene building around its games. The level of developer involvement varies, but ultimately, it can deliver structure, which eSports needed in order to continue to develop. Third-party tournament organizers, such as ESL, also increased their proficiency, creating premium offline tournament series such as ESL One and the Intel Extreme Masters. Developments in in-game monetization also offered developers and tournament organizers a way to see more returns not previously possible. This led to games having a much longer lifespan and a continuous stream of new content to retain players.

Traditional sports have begun to acknowledge the growth and popularity of eSports and used the fledgling sport to attract new followers and invest in a dual ownership of established eSports organizations. This symbiotic relationship offers new opportunities for league growth. An example could be Team Liquid's ownership group securing a strategic partnership with Marvel Entertainment. And with the overall rise of Twitch and livestreaming of games and tournaments, these players have also begun to be influencers and offered a new audience for eSports to reach, with the players becoming the faces of consumer brands.

Some of the popularity of eSports, besides the familiarity of the games and the entertainment quality of competitive sports, is the accessibility of eSports. Both as a player, as more people can play video games compared to some sports that have a higher investment threshold for the average person to play, and as a viewer of eSports, as most competitions offer viewers multiple viewing options and are often live-streamedlivestreamed for free. Whereas traditional sports are generally locked into broadcasting deals that limit the viewing capabilities of the sports.

The base prize pool of the tournament in 2023 was USD $1.6 million with an additional 25% percent of all compendium sales added to the total prize pool. In 2023, this meant there was an added USD $1.78 million added to the prize pool, which meant USD $3.38 was spread among participants, with 45% percent of that prize pool going to the winning team.

The decision to create the OES came after an estimated 500 million people said they were interested specifically in eSports, with the majority of those people under the age of thirty-four. However, the newly-formed IOC Esports Commission noted that there was an importance to retainretaining the IOC's values, described as a red line with regard to titles to be included. This led to the first eSports Olympics series to feature games that were not traditional eSports titles but instead focused on simulation of sports events, such as Virtual Regatta and Virtual Taekwondo. Perhaps the most notable such game was the bespoke International Shooting Sport Federation Island created in Fortnite for 2023's OES. This is especially as the EOS has a primary goal to promote the development of "virtual and simulated sports games" that rules out many eSports titles (as well as the IOC being against violence). Further, the games have to be accessible, where most eSports titles are played competitively on high-end PCs.

The first OES was considered a success, gaining more than 500,000 participants and more than 6 million views. However, the OES also drew criticism from many in the eSports community due to the game choice, as most (if not all) of those games are not traditional eSports titles. Other eSports federations, such as the Asian Electronic Sports Federation (AESF)—which held the 2022 Asian Games eSports events—hasevents—have worked with publishers to create adaptations of popular games (including renaming PUBG Mobile to "Peace Elite Asian Games Version"), and included popular titles, such as League of Legends and Dota 2. To address this, the IOC is exploring the possibility of creating specific games for the OES.

To hold eSports leagues, tournaments, and matches requires a certain amount of infrastructure, as there is with any sport. The difference with eSports compared to other sports is the level of technology required to hold these evensevents to create a seamless experience, and to raise eSports to the level of traditional sports. Unlike traditional sports, where a technical issue may impact the broadcasting of the game, or impact both teams being able to finish the game (such as when a jumbotron falls from an arena ceiling), the technology can dramatically impact players, such as professional gamers losing in a tournament because of latency issues. Similarly, network problems have seen competing gamers kicked off of a server or unable to connect, disqualifying them from a tournament overall.

The technical infrastructure begins with the gear used by an eSports player. Generally, this begins with a high-performance computer capable of running popular titles at high frame rates, for which they require high-quality computer displays capable of refreshing the active frame in milliseconds to reduce the latency between the action on the screen and the players' inputs. Similarly, the other peripherals used by eSports players can be considered similar to the equipment of players in traditional sports, where they do not make the player, but they can help the player reach a new level. These include gaming mice and keyboards, and a high-quality audio system (such a headset), which gives the player a chance to hear details in gamein-game, which can give them a competitive advantage.

But a computer is not enough. To make a succcessfulsuccessful eSports event, the eventit must be run locally on the game host and on each machine at the tournament. One key part of this set-upsetup is referred to as a heartbeating system. This system is a software package, which auto-detects moments through the game, which helps announcers and spectators get the most out of the viewing experience. On top of this heartbeating system, the game has to be monitored to ensure that the tournament is an even playing field for all competitors. This can include monitoring for latency or monitoring for potential instances of cheating. howeverHowever, these systems can be hardware intensive,hardware-intensive and can impact the player machines, or when held on the network, they can increase network lag.

A reliable network is a large part of a successful eSports tournament. The network is how players are able to play against each other, and offer a good experience for either virtual or in-person spectators. In many leagues, matches and pre-tournaments may not be held in an event space, but rather in a small studio or player's home (rarely are they held virtually, as the distance between a player and the server they play on will impact latency). Players rely on networks for low-latency competition, and with the shift toward cloud and mobile gaming network implementation is becoming of greater importance. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many eSports competitions were forced to shut down because of latency and connectivity inefficiencies, while some publishers were able to develop coherent network strategy,strategies and andkeepkeep their competitions open (notably, League of Legends was one of those able to continue).

Besides latency, bandwidth or network capacity is also incredibly important, especially as these tournaments or leagues work to increase their players and need networks capable of supporting those players. In many cases, a local-area network can be used to hostshost games (where possible), which can take advantage of high-performance fiber cables. However, in the case of cloud-based games and mobile games, this is not necessarily possible. Further, network bandwidth is important as some venues will use the same network to live-streamlivestream or otherwise broadcast the event.

Part of this was Twitch offering free-to-watch eSports entertainment, in the form of tournaments or live events and players livestreaming while playing games they were good at while talking to their community. This created the authentic and direct connection between an eSports star or streamer with the community as a hallmark of eSports. Which means for traditional paywalled broadcasting, eSports may never be as popular as the streaming numbers suggest it should be. However, it has led to other technologies developing to increase the possible revenue for streamers and for tournament holders while offering free-to-watch events.

It also offers a place for gamers and viewers to interact amongstwith each other and with professional streamers. By joining a streamer's online community, users can enjoy the same content and game with each other. This includes socializing services such as direct messaging and the ability to chat with other users watching the same channel.

YouTube offers a livestreaming portion of the platform, which started as YouTube Live and developed into YouTube Gaming, and has since been integrated directly into the YouTube platform without any distinguishing name. And though YouTube has been around longer than Twitch, the platform has never garnered the same level of interest and engagement from gamers and eSports. However, with the relative growth of eSports, YouTube has refocused on gaming and developing the features and reliability of a site like Twitch in order to directly to compete with Twitch.

With the increase in eSports, the push for advertising in eSports has grown. Most advertising has been digital or in-place, similar to advertising in other sports during live events. However, there has been a development of programmatic in-game advertising to bring online and offline worlds together, thatwhich can allow livestreams of online or offline tournaments to stream advertising that is region specificregion-specific or dependent on subscriber status. As well, through sponsorships, different eSports teams offer a chance for advertisers to create stronger branding mediums through the interactive streaming. This can include traditional sponsorships, such as wearing specific brands or consuming specific brands' products while broadcasting. And with the increased engagement between eSports fans and their favorite players or teams, it can offer a chance for brands to reach new levels of intimacy with potential customers.

With the increase in popularity of eSports, a new opportunity exists for in-game or in-stream betting. As these sports tend to be livestreamed, in-game betting offers a chance for viewers to engage in viewing in a new way, but also for eSports to generate new interest and opportunities. While most of the gambling is done through third-party websites or mobile applications, an integration into the streaming services would offer a new chance for micro wageringmicro-wagering on eSports tournaments. This could also be extended to a streamer and their playthrough of a game, offering a new way for viewers to engage and for streamers to generate revenue.

Part of Tencent's interest is in developing a live-streaminglivestreaming competitor to Twitch. Previously, Twitch had been a popular live-streaminglivestreaming platform in China, until the platform ran afoul of the Great Firewall, and has since been excluded from China. Tencent owns a portion of Huya and DouYu and offered Huya part-owner Joyy to purchase 30 million shares of Huya in order to develop a live-streaminglivestreaming service for the Chinese market that is capable of competing with Twitch and YouTube.

As noted above, part of the physical side effects can come from the mental side effects of eSports. This can be especially true of players who experience an unpredictability of income, the need to be constantly entertaining, and the pressure of growing channels and presence can all be a source of constant stress for eSports players and live streamerslivestreamers. Especialy as many players survive exclusively on the revenue received from playing well or from streaming. The anxiety and stress this comes with can manifest in various ways, with common symptoms including: headaches, nausea, lightheadedness, dizziness, rapid heart rate, shortness of breath, chest pain, and feelings of dread.

Traditional sports have begun to acknowledge the growth and popularity of eSports and used the fledgling sport to attract new followers and invest in a dual ownership of established eSports organizations. This symbiotic relationship offers new opportunities for league growth. An example could be Team Liquid's ownership group securing a strategic partnership with Marvel Entertainment. And with the overall rise of Twitch and live-streaminglivestreaming of games and tournaments, these players have also begun to be influencers, and offered a new audience for eSports to reach, with the players becoming the faces of consumer brands.

The competitions and tournaments are fast growingfast-growing, with millions of followers—up to 380 million viewers worldwide, mostly from North America, China, and South Korea; billions of dollars have been invested in the growth. These events are offered often through streaming services and live events that have worked to turn casual gamers into serious stars capable of earning seven-figure tournament earnings and massive brand endorsements. For example, in 2017 the League of Legends World Championship drew more than 80 million viewers and made it one of the most popular eSports competitions.

An eSports tournament, as the name suggests, is a competition organized around a specific video game in which several teams or individuals compete (depending on the tournament's format, rule, or game). Generally, a tournament is completed in a few hours or a few days, often with 2two days being the timeline for longer tournaments.

Often tournaments offer large prize pools, while many leagues will have diverse revenue sharing models that allow teams to make money for competing in the league. Similarly, often in the leagues, players can stream their own play and make further money off of their streams or advertising deals on the part of the player. However, different leagues have different rules around additional streaming or brand deals dependent on the league's own broadcasting rights deals or the league's brand deals.

Similar to other sports, many professional eSports teams have coaches, analysts, and managers who work to get the most out of the players. Players of these games are (much like athletes), often experts of the game in which they are playing. While other leagues split a league based on gender, eSports has no such separation, offering greater accessibility and viewership.

The World Esports Association (WESA) is a group created by industry leaders in an attempt to further professionalize eSports. To do this, WESA works to increase player representation, standardize regulations, and create revenue shares for teams. Standardized regulations can be important,; as noted below, publishers and developers oftentypically exercise near total control over who can play a game (through bans), which can leave competitive players without an industry stream. WESA attempts to addresssaddress this power by creating an authentic framework to support eSports through the values of fairness, transparency, and integrity, while sharing growth between players, teams, and leagues. This gives players and teams more of a say in issues like schedules, while also working to provide greater stability, legal advice, and protection from economic uncertainties.

The International, often abbreviated as TI, is an annual tournament organized by Valve. In 2015, Valve increased theirits number of hosted events, and foundingfounded the Dota Major Championships, which incorporates The International into its structure. The International remains the biggest and most prestigious event on the Dota Pro Circuit. The International uses a point system based on officialofficially sponsored Regional Leagues and Majors to determine who is invited to compete. In 2023, unlike previous years, and speaking to the increased player pool, The International was split into two phases: a group stage and playoffs, where the top 8eight teams competed against each other.

The base prize pool of the tournament in 2023 was USD $1.6 million with an dditionaladditional 25% of all compendium sales added to the total prize pool. In 2023, this meant there was an added USD $1.78 million added to the prize pool, which meant USD $3.38 was spread among participants, with 45% of that prize pool going to the winning team.

In 2023, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced it would have an Olympic Esports Series (OES), a global and virtual simulated sports collaboration developed in collaboration with International Federations (IFs) and game publishers. The first OES began on March 1st1, 2023, when both professional and amateur players from around the world were invited to take part in qualification rounds across the featured games before a live, in-person finals would be held in June 2023 in Singapore.

The decision to create the OES came after an estaimtedestimated 500 million people said they were interested specifically in eSports, with the majority of those people under the age of 34thirty-four. However, the newly-formed IOC Esports Commission noted that there was an importance to retain the IOC's values, described as a red line with regard to titles to be included. This led to the first eSports Olympics series to feature games whichthat were not traditional eSports titles, but instead focused on simulation of sports events, such as Virtual Regatta and Virtual Taekwondo. Perhaps the most notable such game was the bespoke International Shooting Sport Federation Island created in Fortnite for 2023's OES. This is especially as the EOS has a primary goal to promote the development of "virtual and simulated sports games" that rules out many eSports titles (as well as the IOC being against violence). Further, the games have to be accessiblleaccessible, where most eSports titles are played competitively on high-end PCs.

The first OES was considered a success, gaining more than 500,000 participants and more than 6 million views. However, the OES also drew criticism from many in the eSports community due to the game choice, as most (if not all) of those games are not traditional eSports titles. Other eSports federations, such as the Asian Electronic Sports Federation (AESF) - which—which held the 2022 Asian Games eSports events - hasevents—has worked with publishers to create adaptations of popular games (including renaming PUBG Mobile to "Peace Elite Asian Games Version"), and included popular tittlestitles, such suchasas League of LegendsLeague of Legends and Dota 2Dota 2. To address this, the IOC is exploring the possibility of creating specific games for the OES.

• Tic Tac BowTic Tac Bow (where a player has to shoot targets on a 3 x 3 archery board and complete three in a row; Tic Tac BowTic Tac Bow is a free-to-play mobile game).
• WBSC eBASEBALL: Power ProsWBSC eBASEBALL: Power Pros (players play a whole game of baseball; the game is available on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4).
• Chess.comChess.com (an online chess platform).
• Zwift Zwift (a cycling game, which mixes digital and physical setups, which allows users to digitally cycle popular tracks through an app but also requires a physical cycling kit to simulate the experience).
• ForniteFornite (As noted above, it uses a specific area where users play in a shooting competition).
• JustDanceJustDance (A game where users mimic dance moves using motion controls; the game is available on phones or consoles).
• Gran TurismoGran Turismo (a racing simulation game made for PlayStation).
• Virtual RegattaVirtual Regatta (an online sailing race simulator whichthat started as a browser-based title but has since been developed into a mobile app).
• Virtual TaekwondVirtual Taekwondo (a taekwondo simulator where players fit sensors on their legs and compete against other taekwondo players; the World Taekwondo governing body curatecurates and overseeoversees matches for this event).
• Tennis ClashTennis Clash (a popular mobile game where players play tennis with the official ruleset of tennis; the International Tennis Federation oversaw the matches for this game).

The competitions and tournaments are fast growing, with millions of followers—up to 380 million viewers worldwide, mostly from North America, China, and South Korea; billions of dollars have been invested in the growth. These events are offered often through streaming services and live events that have worked to turn casual gamers into serious stars capable of earning seven-figure tournament earnings and massive brand endorsements. For example, in 2017 the League of Legends World Championship drew more than 80 million viewers and made it one of the most popular eSports competitions.

Two of the games that emerged from this growth in South Korea and are considered to be two of the first real eSports titles are Starcraft (1998)/Starcraft II (2010), developed by Activision Blizzard, and the Defense of the Ancients (DOTA) 2, published by Valve Corporation. DOTA 2 gave rise to a network of small scale tournaments that have evolved into massive organized competitions. However, in South Korea, Starcraft proved a more popular game and spawned the first developer-organized and sponsored gaming leagues, some of which continue today.

DOTA 2 has remained a popular game, and the DOTA 2 international championship boasted the largest prize pool of any eSports event, with the 2019 DOTA 2 International offering a prize pool of USD $13.5 million to the winner, out of a total prize pool of USD $30.8 million, more than traditional sports such as Golf and ultimate fighting. Other popular eSports games, based on prize money, competitors, and viewers, include the following:

Similar to other sports, many professional eSports teams have coaches, analysts, and managers who work to get the most out of the players. Players of these games are (much like athletes), often experts of the game in which they are playing. While other leagues split a league based on gender, eSports has no such separation, offering greater accessibility and viewership. There has been increased concern over the long-term physical toll of competing in eSports, similar to concerns with more physical sports. Some players, such as Faker, an eSports star, are reported to practice twelve to fifteen hours a day, which can come with health and addiction concerns.

eSports players have been found to be more likely to incur musculoskeletal injuries in their necks, backs, and upper extremities. As well, metabolic disturbances have been reported from excessive time spent in front of a computer monitor. Most of these problems come from poor posture and sedentary conditions. There are also concerns over addiction as some have suggested playing video games can be an addictive habit and have concerns over the development of social behavior disorders.

An eSports tournament, as the name suggests, is a competition organized around a specific video game in which several teams or individuals compete (depending on the tournament's format, rule, or game). Generally a tournament is completed in a few hours or a few days, often with 2 days being the timeline for longer tournaments.

The eSports league is technically a different form of competition, but realistically it is similar to the tournament, with comeptition played in small times or in a routine fashion. An eSports league can happen over a span of weeks or over a span of months. Players compete in the leagues, generally once a week, to accumulate either points or a win/loss ratio (depending on the game or league organization). The league can be divided into divisions, or allow any player to play. But the accumulation of points or a win/loss ratio tends to determine whether a player can compete in a tournament.

Often tournaments offer large prize pools, while many leagues will have diverse revenue sharing models that allow teams to make money for competing in the league. Similarly, often in the leagues players can stream their own play and make further money off of their streams or advertising deals on part of the player. However, different leagues have different rules around additional streaming or brand deals dependent on the league's own broadcasting rights deals or the league's brand deals.

Similar to other sports, many professional eSports teams have coaches, analysts, and managers who work to get the most out of the players. Players of these games are (much like athletes), often experts of the game in which they are playing. While other leagues split a league based on gender, eSports has no such separation, offering greater accessibility and viewership.

The World Esports Association (WESA) is a group created by industry leaders in an attempt to further professionalize eSports. To do this, WESA works to increase player representation, standardize regulations, and create revenue shares for teams. Standardized regulations can be important, as noted below publishers and developers often exercise near total control over who can play a game (through bans) which can leave competitive players without an industry stream. WESA attempts to addresss this power by creating an authentic framework to support eSports through the values of fairness, transparency, and integrity, while sharing growth between players, teams, and leagues. This gives players and teams more of a say in issues like schedules, while also working to provide greater stability, legal advice, and protection from economic uncertainties.

The International, often abbreviated as TI, is an annual tournament organized by Valve. In 2015 Valve increased their number of hosted events, founding the Dota Major Championships which incorporates The International into its structure. The International remains the biggest and most prestigious event on the Dota Pro Circuit. The International uses a point system based on official sponsored Regional Leagues and Majors to determine who is invited to compete. In 2023, unlike previous years, and speaking to the increased player pool, The International was split into two phases: a group stage and playoffs where the top 8 teams competed against each other.

The International, often abbreviated as TI, is an annual tournament organized by Valve. In 2015 Valve increased their number of hosted events, founding the Dota Major Championships which incorporates The International into its structure. The International remains the biggest and most prestigious event on the Dota Pro Circuit.

The base prize pool of the tournament in 2023 was USD $1.6 million with an dditional 25% of all compendium sales added to the total prize pool. In 2023, this meant there was an added USD $1.78 million added to the prize pool, which meant USD $3.38 was spread among participants, with 45% of that prize pool going to the winning team.

In 2023, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced it would have an Olympic Esports Series (OES), a global and virtual simulated sports collaboration developed in collaboration with International Federations (IFs) and game publishers. The first OES began on March 1st 2023, when both professional and amateur players from around the world were invited to take part in qualification rounds across the featured games before a live, in-person finals would be held in June 2023 in Singapore.

The International 2022 was held in Singapore.

The decision to create the OES came after an estaimted 500 million people said they were interested specifically in eSports, with the majority of those people under the age of 34. However, the newly-formed IOC Esports Commission noted that there was an importance to retain the IOC's values, described as a red line with regard to titles to be included. This led to the first eSports Olympics series to feature games which were not traditional eSports titles, but instead focused on simulation of sports events, such as Virtual Regatta and Virtual Taekwondo. Perhaps the most notable such game was the bespoke International Shooting Sport Federation Island created in Fortnite for 2023's OES. This is especially as the EOS has a primary goal to promote the development of "virtual and simulated sports games" that rules out many eSports titles (as well as the IOC being against violence). Further, the games have to be accessiblle, where most eSports titles are played competitively on high-end PCs.

Currently The International has been held in North America, Western Europe and China.

The first OES was considered a success, gaining more than 500,000 participants and more than 6 million views. However, the OES also drew criticism from many in the eSports community due to the game choice, as most (if not all) of those games are not traditional eSports titles. Other eSports federations, such as the Asian Electronic Sports Federation (AESF) - which held the 2022 Asian Games eSports events - has worked with publishers to create adaptations of popular games (including renaming PUBG Mobile to "Peace Elite Asian Games Version"), and included popular tittles suchas League of Legends and Dota 2. To address this, the IOC is exploring the possibility of creating specific games for the OES.

The games included in the 2023 Olympic Esports Series included:

• Tic Tac Bow (where a player has to shoot targets on a 3 x 3 archery board and complete three in a row; Tic Tac Bow is a free-to-play mobile game).
• WBSC eBASEBALL: Power Pros (players play a whole game of baseball; game is available on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4).
• Chess.com (an online chess platform).
• Zwift (a cycling game which mixes digital and physical setups, which allows users to digitally cycle popular tracks through an app but also requires a physical cycling kit to simulate the experience).
• Fornite (As noted above, it uses a specific area where users play in a shooting competition).
• JustDance (A game where users mimic dance moves using motion controls; game is available on phones or consoles).
• Gran Turismo (a racing simulation game made for PlayStation).
• Virtual Regatta (an online sailing race simulator which started as a browser-based title but has since been developed into a mobile app).
• Virtual Taekwondo (a taekwondo simulator where players fit sensors on their legs and compete against other taekwondo players; the World Taekwondo governing body curate and oversee matches for this event).
• Tennis Clash (a popular mobile game where players play tennis with the official ruleset of tennis; the International Tennis Federation oversaw the matches for this game).

The National Association of Collegiate Esports (NACE) is a nonprofit membership association organized on behalf of the organization's member institutions. NACE works to develop the structure and tools necessary to advance collegiate eSports. This includes working to develop competition, a path to graduation, eligibility for eSports, and scholarships for collegiate athletes. NACE's member organizations include more than 240 colleges and universities across the United States. NACE also works to partner with high schools and other organizations to develop eSports combines and camps to help recruit prospective players.

For collegiate eSports players, there are several high-level competitions which are organized by NACE and the National Esports Collegiate Conference (NECC) and with publishers like Riot Games, Psyonix, and Activision Blizzard. In 2023, on the strength of various competitions, collegiate programs have been rated, with the top ten programs including Northwood University, Fisher College, St. Clair College, Oklahoma Christian University, Maryville University, University of Akron, Illinois State University, Drexel University, Boise State University, and the University of St. Thomas. These competitions include:

• Riot College League of Legends Championship (CLOL)
• Riot College VALORANT Championship (CVAL)
• Psyonix Collegiate Rocket League National and World Championships (CRL)
• College COD League Championship (CCL)
• Blizzard Overwatch Collegiate Championship Series Playoffs
• FACEIT CS:GO Collegiate Championship
• NACE Finals
• NECC Nationals

To hold eSports leagues, tournaments, and matches requires a certain amount of infrastructure, as there is with any sport. The difference with eSports compared to other sports is the level of technology required to hold these evens to create a seamless experience, and to raise eSports to the level of traditional sports. Unlike traditional sports, where a technical issue may impact the broadcasting of the game, or impact both teams being able to finish the game (such as when a jumbotron falls from an arena ceiling), the technology can dramatically impact players, such as professional gamers losing in a tournament because of latency issues. Similarly, network problems have seen competing gamers kicked off of a server or unable to connect, disqualifying them from a tournament overall.

The technical infrastructure begins with the gear used by an eSports player. Generally, this begins with a high-performance computer capable of running popular titles at high frame rates, for which they require high-quality computer displays capable of refreshing the active frame in milliseconds to reduce the latency between the action on the screen and the players inputs. Similarly, the other peripherals used by eSports players can be considered similar to the equipment of players in traditional sports, where they do not make the player, but they can help the player reach a new level. These include gaming mice and keyboards, and a high-quality audio system (such a headset) which gives the player a chance to hear details in game which can give them a competitive advantage.

But a computer is not enough. To make a succcessful eSports event, the event must be run locally on the game host and on each machine at the tournament. One key part of this set-up is referred to as a heartbeating system. This system is a software package which auto-detects moments through the game which helps announcers and spectators get the most out of the viewing experience. On top of this heartbeating system, the game has to be monitored to ensure that the tournament is an even playing field for all competitors. This can include monitoring for latency or monitoring for potential instances of cheating. however, these systems can be hardware intensive, and can impact the player machines, or when held on the network, increase network lag.

A reliable network is a large part of a successful eSports tournament. The network is how players are able to play against each other, and offer a good experience for either virtual or in-person spectators. In many leagues, matches and pre-tournaments may not be held in an event space, but rather in a small studio or player's home (rarely are they held virtually as the distance between a player and the server they play on will impact latency). Players rely on networks for low-latency competition, and with the shift toward cloud and mobile gaming network implementation is becoming of greater importance. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many eSports competitions were forced to shut down because of latency and connectivity inefficiencies, while some publishers were able to develop coherent network strategy, andkeep their competitions open (notably League of Legends was one of those able to continue).

Besides latency, bandwidth or network capacity is also incredibly important, especially as these tournaments or leagues work to increase their players and need networks capable of supporting those players. In many cases, a local-area network can be used to hosts games (where possible) which can take advantage of high-performance fiber cables. However, in the case of cloud-based games and mobile games, this is not necessarily possible. Further, network bandwidth is important as some venues will use the same network to live-stream or otherwise broadcast the event.

Much of the history of eSports and its growth has been based on the availability of the sport, both in the case of the games/technology and the availability for people to play—through affordable technology, community-based technology (PC Bangs), or the lowering cost of computers and mobile devices. Similar to this is the availability for broadcasting. Despite early failed attempts to bring eSports to television in various countries, with the exception of South Korea where eSports was very popular, it was not until Twitch arrived in 2011 that broadcasting and livestreaming eSports grew.

Part of this was Twitch offering free-to-watch eSports entertainment, in the form of tournaments or live events and players livestreaming while playing games they were good at while talking to their community. This created the authentic and direct connection between an eSports star or streamer with the community as a hallmark of eSports. Which means for traditional paywalled broadcasting, eSports may never be as popular as the streaming numbers suggest it should be. However, it has led to other technologies developing to increase the possible revenue for streamers and for tournament holders while offering free-to-watch events.

The Twitch platform has offered tournament promoters the ability to push livestreams to viewers with minimal lag and without having to negotiate broadcasting deals or market towards potential viewers, as most viewers and Twitch became synonymous with eSports and video game streaming. And for consumers, anyone with a PC became able to broadcast users playing games and develop communities around them playing games, becoming influencers. With Twitch's integration into consoles, players were also able to broadcast themselves playing a game with a push of a button.

Twitch is also a platform designed specifically for viewing games and engaging with a gaming-centric community. This has included the development of a "cheering" method, or an in-site economy, which allows users to purchase Bits and donate them to their favorite streamers. Through the acquisition with Amazon, Amazon released Prime Gaming, which gave Amazon Prime members exclusive Twitch benefits, such as additional emotes and the ability to subscribe to one streamer per month.

In another part of the company's strategy to grow into eSports, YouTube signed exclusive deals with popular creators like Jack "CouRage" Dunlop, Rachell "Valkyrae" Hofstetter, Elliott "Muselk" Watkins, and Lannan "LazarBeam" Eacott. Each of these streamers is expected to bring thousands of live viewers to YouTube when they stream. And each streamer could bring millions of views from highlight compilations uploaded as traditional YouTube videos. YouTube's exclusivity strategy is similar to traditional broadcasting strategies for fighting over rights to mainstream sports and other content generation. With an important caveat being that both Twitch and YouTube are free for users to watch content on.

YouTube has faced problems developing the platform for livestreaming, as there have been noted problems with YouTube's recommendation engine and with viewers finding a stream they are looking for. YouTube has worked to create an experience for streamers closer to those found on Twitch, but the platform's past as a video-on-demand platform can prove challenging for developing livestreaming or gamer-centric features. And as the failed Mixer platform showed, developing features and options for fans and viewers is important for the game streaming audience.

Because developers hold the sole intellectual property rights to their titles, they are the sole entities that determine who has access to a game and at what quality the game is accessible. This makes the distribution and access of eSports different from traditional sports. Part of this infrastructure can be the development of dedicated regional servers, which are required to make regional play a possibility, and high latency from a distance to a server can render eSports unplayable.

The development of eSports in Africa is an example of the role developers can play in the maturation of eSports. There has been a lack of development in terms of infrastructure for eSports in the continent and developers have not properly penetrated the continent. Riot Games, for example, has decided to not make an African server for many years, often claiming that there is not enough demand to justify the cost of the servers. Theoretically, players in Africa can play through North American or European servers, but the latency would prevent those players from competing effectively.

The impact of publishers and developers can also be negative. While the build the games and they develop the infrastructure in many cases, they can also ban players and even teams. For example, in 2016, Riot Games banned many players in League of Legends, leading to the sale of League Championship Series teams and Challenger Series teams because their key players were banned.

Publishers have developed a business model known as "Games-as-a-Service" where players can play a base game for free, and the game features in game purchases in order to generate revenue. Many of these purchases are for aesthetic upgrades commonly known as "skins" which do not impact game performance but allow players to express themselves. Skins have become so popular that some incidents of children being bullied over their skins (or their lack of). Games-of-a-Service can also include the development of "season passes" which players have to purchase to play the most current skins and loot available during that period. In some cases, the season pass can open up new places to play, such as new maps, which may become part of the base game after the season ends.

Games-as-a-Service has helped developers and eSports in two main ways: first, by generally being free-to-play, a large group of players are often attracted to the game (as there is little to no risk compared to purchasing a full-price game); and, once there is a certain player base, a not insignificant amount of that player base will want to pay for cosmetic add-ons, new features, in-game currencies, and other in-app purchases to enhance their experience. This allows the developer to keep a game, espeically an online game, going for far longer than a single purchase model, earning a combination of revenues, and often attracting enough players to create enough popularity around the game to give it the potential to become an eSports title, which in turn increases the popularity of the game.

However, there have been criticisms of the Games-as-a-Service model as more and more developers have tried to foster the model on games where it does not work (such as single-player, story-based games where content packs might be sold after a player has already purchased the game). For every successful Games-as-a-Service title - such as World of Warcraft, Fornite, Apex Legends, and Destiny 2 - there are at least three titles which tried to apply the business model to a game where it does not work. In some cases, developers have been criticized for cynically building a game only for the business model, failing to build a game players genuinely enjoy.

With the rise of eSports, there has been a rise in the concern over potential health side effects of excessive game playing. Withe many players practicing for long periods of the day, even when not in competition, eSports has health concerns based on over-use. Despite the sport seeming like it would be impossible to get injured in, the sedentary nature and repetitive movements, and the lifestyle of eSports, which can include increased consumption of caffeine and sugar, lack of exercise, and poor posture which can complicate otherwise straightforward health concerns.

With the rise in popularity of eSports, there has been increased concern over the long-term physical toll of competing in eSports, similar to concerns with more physical sports. Some players, such as Faker, an eSports star, are reported to practice twelve to fifteen hours a day, which can come with health and addiction concerns. Many of the potential physical side effects come from overuse, with the most prevalent ailments being eye strain and wrist and hand discomfort. These are similar conditions to those seen in sedentary desk jobs, but with an inclusion of injuries common of intense dexterous actions.

eSports players have been found to be more likely to incur musculoskeletal injuries in their necks, backs, and upper extremities. As well, metabolic disturbances have been reported from excessive time spent in front of a computer monitor. Most of these problems come from poor posture and sedentary conditions. There are also concerns over addiction as some have suggested playing video games can be an addictive habit and have concerns over the development of social behavior disorders.

As noted above, part of the physical side effects can come from the mental side effects of eSports. This can be especially true of players who experience an unpredictability of income, the need to be constantly entertaining, and the pressure of growing channels and presence can all be a source of constant stress for eSports players and live streamers. Especialy as many players survive exclusively on the revenue received from playing well or from streaming. The anxiety and stress this comes with can manifest in various ways, with common symptoms including: headaches, nausea, lightheadedness, dizziness, rapid heart rate, shortness of breath, chest pain, and feelings of dread.

Along with these side effects, studies into eSports playing and streaming have shown to cause addiction to technology, aggressive behaviors, sleep disorders, and a hindrance to social relationships, the development of emotional intelligence, and school performance (where applicable). This is consistent with other addiction behaviors and patterns. And, as "Gaming disorder" has been defined in the World Health Organization's 11th Revision of International Classification of Diseases as a pattern of behavior characterized by impaired control over gaming, increasing priority given to gaming over other interests and activities, and a continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences. Playing as an eSports athlete obviously exposes an individual to these types of addictions.

The 2021 Worlds announced the five cities that are playing host to the championship across China. These cities include Shanghai, Qingdao, Wuhan, Chengdu, and Shenzhen. The competition culminates in the grand finals on November at the Universiade Sports Centre in Shenzhen, China, capable of seating 60,000 people. This marks the third time the Worlds is held in China, including in 2020 and 2017. The tournament, previous to COVID-19 concerns and restrictions, was expected to head to North America, which has been pushed to 2022 for the resumption of normal fan experience and a reduction of COVID-19 restrictions.

The International, often abbreviated as TI, is an annual tournament organized by Valve. In 2015 Valve increased their number of hosted events, founding the Dota Major Championships which incorporates The International into its structure. The International remains the biggest and most prestigious event on the Dota Pro Circuit.

The International 2022 was held in Singapore.

Currently The International has been held in North America, Western Europe and China.

ESL and its related leagues, such as the ESL Pro League/ESL ESEA Pro League, began as a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) professional sports league. The league is a non-developer league, meaning they license the titles for their competitions. It is considered a premier professional league and is one of the major professional leagues in eSports. The league began as a venture between the Electronic Sports League and E-Sports Entertainment Association League (ESEA) with the inaugural season of the league starting on May 4, 2015. The joint venture brought $1 million in prize money for the first two seasons. These original seasons covered Europe and North America, but have since expanded to include Asia, Oceania, and South America before being contracted into the four regions: Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Oceania.

By season seven the ESL expanded and the teams went from twenty-four to forty. To reduce some of the league's complexity, by season nine, the South and North America regions were integrated into a single region. Thirteen of the teams in the ESL Pro League automatically qualify through a Permanent Partner Status, a revenue-sharing system ESL operating with the organizations of these thirteen teams. Of the other eleven teams that qualify for the twenty-four team finals, six qualify through the ESL world ranking, which measures team results from all significant tournaments; the remaining five qualify through regional qualifications. These regional qualifications occur through regional ESEA Premier Seasons, with two taking place for every ESL season.

The League of Legends (LoL) World Championships, abbreviated as Worlds or LoL Worlds, is an annual professional world championship tournament hosted by Riot Games. Through the seasons, teams compete to participate in the World Championships, where invited teams compete for the champion title, the Summoner's Cup, and a multi-million dollar championship prize. The 2018, the LOL World's final's peak viewership was 99.6 million people, breaking a record previously set in 2017 by the same tournament.

Tencent was founded in 1998 and headquartered in Shenzhen, China with a focus on developing technology and software, including communication and social services. This includes the development of video games and other interactive entertainment experiences. For video games, Tencent is the largest video game vendor in the world. The division of Tencent for video games, Tencent Games, was founded in 2003 to focus on the development of video games. Since then, the company has developed popular games in the Chinese market, including the 2015 online battle arena game Honor of Kings, which was the highest-grossing game in 2017 and had an international game released named Arena of Valor in the same year.

In 2011, Tencent Games also started hosting online multiplayer games, such as Call of Duty Online, which consisted of previous Call of Duty games with added content, and the game League of Legends and Ring of Elysium, and a part ownership of Fortnite. This is through Tencent's subsidiary developer Riot Games. Tencent also is a developer and marketer of the mobile version of PUBG, licensed by Krafton, the original developer of the PUBG PC game. The company's overall eSports ecosystem in China revolves around League of Legends, Honor of Kings, and Peacekeeper Elite. And each of those titles also has franchise leagues.