1. Early history (1972-1989)
One of the earliest known video game competitions took place on 19 October 1972 at
Stanford University for the game Spacewar. Stanford students were invited to the
Intergalactic Space War Olympics event, whose grand prize was an annual subscription to
Rolling Stone magazine. Bruce Baugmant won the five-player, round-robin tournament, and
Tovar and Robert E. Mass won the team competition. The Space Invaders video game
championship, organised by Atari in 1980, was the first large-scale video game competition,
which attracted more than 10,000 participants across the United States, establishing video
game competitions as a common hobby.
In the summer of 1980, Walter Day founded a high-scoring organisation called Twin
Galaxies. The organisation was dedicated to helping promote video games and publishing
its records through publications such as The Guinness Book of World Records, and in 1983
created the United States National Video Game Team. This team was involved in
competitions such as the Video Game Masters tournament to enter the Guinness Book of
World Records.
During the 1970s and 1980s, video game players and tournaments began to be featured on
internet sites and in popular magazines such as Life and Time. One of the most
recognisable arcade game players is Billy Mitchell, known for holding high score records in
six different games, including Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, being recorded in the 1985
edition of The Guinness Book of Records. During this period, esports events were broadcast
on television, including the show Starcade, which ran from 1982 to 1984, broadcasting a
total of 133 episodes, in which contestants would attempt to beat their opponents' high
scores in arcade games, and a video game tournament was included as part of a television
show, called That's Incredible!
Online video games (1990-1999)
In the 1990s, video games benefited from the rise of Internet connections, especially PC
games. For example, in 1988, Netrek was a 16-player Internet game. This was the third
Internet video game, as well as the first game to use meta servers and to have persistent
user information. In 1993, Netrek was recognised by Wired magazine as "the first online
video game sport".
Major esports tournaments took place in the 1990s, including the 1990 Nintendo World
Championship, which was held in various parts of the United States, with its finale at
Universal Studios Hollywood in California. Nintendo had a second world championship in
1994, called Nintendo PowerFest '94, which was attended by 132 finalists who played the
finals in San Diego (California), with Mike Larossi winning the first prize. Blockbuster Video
also had its own world video game championship in the early 1990s, co-organised by
GamePro magazine. Citizens of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia
and Chile were allowed to compete. Games in the 1994 championships included titles such
as NBA Jam and Virtua Racing.
2. Television shows broadcasting esports during this period included the British TV shows
GamesMaster and Bad Influence! as well as the Australian show A*mazing, which featured
two children competing in various Nintendo games to win points.
Some tournaments that took place in the late 1990s were the Cyberathlete Professional
League (CPL), QuakeCon, and the Professional Gamers League. Video games played in the
CPL included the Counter-Strike, Quake, and Warcraft series.
With the arrival of Starcraft in 1998 (compared unfavourably in 1996 to Warcraft II in its E3
presentation), esports began to be on the rise in some regions of the world, mostly in Asia.
Korea established itself as the "birthplace of esports" due to the huge popularity of
tournaments of the iconic game developed by Blizzard Entertainment.
3. Current Situation (2000-present)
South Korea has established different organisations in esports, licensing professional
players since 2000. Recognition of e-sports competitions outside South Korea came more
slowly. Besides South Korea, most competitions take place in Europe, North America and
China. In Japan, despite its large video game market, esports are relatively underdeveloped,
largely due to its laws against gambling or betting.15
The International, the Dota 2 tournament launched in 2011, is the biggest esports
tournament in terms of prize money, exceeding USD 40 million for the 2021 edition.
In 2013, Canadian Danny "Shiphtur" Le became the first professional League of Legends
player to receive a P-1A visa from the United States, a category for internationally
recognised athletes.1617
It is estimated that in 2013, approximately 71.5 million people around the world watched e-
sports competitions.18 The widespread availability of online streaming platforms, particularly
Twitch.tv, has been key to the growth and promotion of esports competitions.19
In 2015, the global esports market generated revenues of USD 325 million and by the end of
this year the amount of revenue is expected to be USD 493 million. The global audience for
esports in 2015 was 226 million people.20
In 2015, the most successful titles in professional competitions were Dota 2, League of
Legends (both in the MOBA genre) and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, a first-person
shooter.
The most played and most popular competitive games in 2016 were League of Legends,
Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
The highest-prized competitive game was The International 2016, by the game Dota 2, with
a total prize pool of $20.7 million, of which more than $9 million went to the winning team,
Wings Gaming.
In 2017, esports was a market growing at more than 40% annually worldwide and exceeding
$500 million in sales,21 leading to more and more companies sponsoring esports
competitions and more media coverage of the sport. Specifically, the global esports market
reached a turnover of USD 696 million worldwide.
In 2018, it was said that esports, those macro video game competitions that are now on
everyone's lips, were here to stay. So much so that in 2018 they generated more than 900
million in revenue worldwide. Specifically, 905.6 million dollars, 38% more than in 2017.
Of these profits, 77% came from direct advertising (ads and sponsorships), because brands
invested 694 million in promoting this industry. Nearly 161 million was also earned from
media rights and content licensing, as well as ticket spending, which generated a further 96
million. The boom caused by Fortnite competitions started to generate huge views with
streamers such as Ninja or Tfue, bringing great visibility to the game with the Pro-Am E3
competition, held on 13 June, which brought together 50 celebrities and 50 professional
players, or the first competition exclusively for professional players at European level held on
29 September in Oslo (Polaris Lan Pro Series), with teams such as Gambit Esports, Team
Atlantis, Team Liquid, Cometa Team or Method. The top esports game in 2018 continued to
be League of Legends, and the top competition continued to be the League of Legends
Championship Series, with Team Liquid as the competition's champion. The second game to
4. overtake Dota2 is Counter Strike:Global Offensive, with competitions such as the Eleague
Major, featuring teams such as Astralis, Cloud9 and FaZe.
In 2019, esports continued to show excellent growth. Data from video games and esports
have announced that e-sports are already billionaires in 2019. In Spain alone, a profit of
more than 35 million euros was generated. Revenues during that year grew by 26.7%
compared to 2018, putting the figure above $1 billion, specifically 1096.23
However, despite the size of the numbers and the seemingly buoyant situation of esports,
the percentage growth in 2019 compared to 2018 is lower than the former compared to
2017. In the previous 12 months, the increase was 32%, slightly more than the 26.7%
predicted for this year.
Three games are battling it out for the Most Influential of 2019 award. This year, League of
Legends, Fortnite and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive share the lead in a computer games
top. In the summer of this year, the first Fortnite World Cup was held, with over $100 million
spent on prizes throughout the event. The winner in solo mode was Kyle Giersdorf, better
known as Bugha, pocketing $3 million. In the League of Legends World Final, it was FunPlus
Phoenix who won the title after beating G2 Esports in the final. In Counter-Strike: Global
Offensive it was Astralis who won the Eleague Major.
Olympic Games
In 2017, following the exponential growth of esports around the world, the possibility of
seeing esport competitions as a medal event for the Paris Olympics in 2024 is beginning to
be considered.24 The International Olympic Committee is due to make a final decision after
the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.25 Commission co-chair Tony Estanguet expressed strong
interest in the possibility of seeing esport at the Olympics, especially given the large number
of viewers among millennials and younger generations.26 In August 2018, Logitech CEO
Bracken P. Darrell said, "I think it's inevitable, I think it will be part of the Olympics [...] and I'll
make another prediction. I think it will be the biggest sport in the world".27 But it turned out
to be an opportunity scuttled a few months later by the DOSB (German Olympic Committee):
President Thomas Bach stressed that the Olympic Games would never consider esports as
part of it in the current situation because it is a sport/game that promotes violence and
discrimination. On the contrary, DOSB has also stated that esports cannot even be
considered a sporting activity, nor should it be called esports, but eGaming.28
Broadcasting Platforms
Twitch, YouTube and Facebook are the main platforms for streaming esports competitions in
the West. Mixer, which operated from 2016 to 2020, was also prominent in the past. In
China, Huya Live and Douyu stand out.
On Twitch, official ESL championships have been streamed since 2009,29 League of
Legends since 2012,30 Rocket League since 2016,31 Blizzard since 2017,32 and Fortnite
Battle Royale since 2017.3334
The Professional Video Game League is broadcast in Spain on Ubeat; previously it was
broadcast in Latin America on Movistar eSports Ubeat.
5. League of Legends Latin America is broadcast on TV Azteca.
Free Fire League Latin America is broadcast on Twitch, YouTube, Facebook and also on TV
Abierta and TV Cable channels.
Video games in e-Sports
Video games have shown the competitive side of users, leading to the search for the best
players within the game. However, these games have come out in small numbers; only
those that are commercially successful can engage in rewarding their participants and if the
game mechanics allow for it.
E-sports have become so popular that billions of users are watching others play games such
as League of Legends.35 Due to the popularity of these games, most interested parties use
data analytics to predict the best players and the outcome of various online games, such as
League of Legends.36 This is possible due to the sheer number of online games played
every day (League of Legends was reported to have 67 million monthly active players
worldwide in 2014).
