After a quick history overview from 1998 to 2014, we will analyze the main competitive Esports Games to show their common factors and specificities in order to better understand the paths which led them to success.

1. THE GAMES OF ESPORTS
Nicolas CERRATO – Gamoloco.com
GAME CONNECTION PARIS
October 2014

2. 1999
« Easy to learn,
lifetime to master. »
Zileas
Starcraft Broodwar
Beta Champion

3. 2008
Tom Cadwell
aka Zileas
is hired to lead the game
design department for a new
game called League of Legends

4. October 13th 2014
STEAM daily concurrent players peaks :
DotA 2 – 800 000
#1 on Steam
CS:GO – 200 000
#2 on Steam
TF2 – 90 000
#3 on Steam
CS – 30 000
#9, released in 2000
AC4 Black Flag – 3 700
#62, released in 2013, peak at 16k on Day 1
Source: SteamGraph.net

5. 2010 - 2014
League of Legends
7 000 000
6 000 000
5 000 000
4 000 000
3 000 000
2 000 000
League of Legends
7M CC Players daily peak
27M players/day
67M players/month

6. ESPORTS HISTORY
1/ BEFORE 1998
2/ 1998 – 2003
A NEW HOPE
3/ 2004 – 2009
THE LONG SLIDE
4/ 2010 – 2014
TO INFINITY & BEYOND

7. BEFORE 1998
Pong
Street Fighter
Any 1v1 game
Birth
of
Esports
In the 90’s:
Warcraft
Quake
Doom
Command & Conquer
Age of Empires

8. A NEW HOPE: 1998-2003
Starcraft, Counter-Strike & Quake 3 come out
Communities grow in sizes and activities
The Korean scene booms like crazy
New dreams are born:
« The NBA of video games »
MAIN GAMES
1/ Counter-Strike 2/ Starcraft 3/ Quake 3

9. THE LONG SLIDE: 2004-2009
Warcraft 3 and CS:Source
are disappointing games
DotA is played A LOT
but not considered for esports
Still no TV Shows to air the best matches
The 1st crisis for esports
MAIN GAMES
1/ Counter-Strike 2/ Warcraft 3 3/ COD

10. TO INFINITY & BEYOND: 2010-2014
Starcraft 2 is the sparkle but the
breakthrough comes with MOBA’s
Counter-Strike finally comes back to life
Console games start pushing hard
Game makers start to understand
what to do and how
Add streaming platforms to the mix
The NBA of video games is not so far

11. TO INFINITY & BEYOND: 2010-2014
MAIN GAMES
1/ League of Legends
2/ DotA
3/ Hearthstone
4/ Counter-Strike
5/ Call of Duty
6/ Starcraft
7/ Super Smash Bros
8/ Street Fighter
9/ Smite

12. THE GAMES OF ESPORTS
Starcraft / Warcraft
REAL-TIME STRATEGY
Counter-Strike
FIRST-PERSON SHOOTER
DotA
MULTIPLAYER ONLINE BATTLE ARENA
League of Legends
MULTIPLAYER ONLINE BATTLE ARENA

13. Starcraft/Warcraft
(Real-Time Strategy)
1994 - Warcraft: Orcs & Humans
1996 - Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness
1998 – Starcraft
1999 – The Korean Boom
2002 - Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos
2010 - Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty
2010 – Hard talks with the Korean actors
2012 – Launch of the WCS

14. Starcraft/Warcraft
(Real-Time Strategy)
 Blizzard didn’t expect the esports phenom,
especially not the Korean burst
 Esports-wise, Warcraft 3 is not as good as
Starcraft 1
 Starcraft 2 isn’t either
 Starcraft 2 never got the same success as
SC1 in Korea, League of Legends took over.

15. Counter-Strike
(First-Person Shooter)
1999 - Counter-Strike beta
2000 - Valve buys CS, hires creator Gooseman
#### - CS2 aborted, Gooseman leaves Valve
2003 - Counter-Strike 1.6
2004 – Counter-Strike: Source
2007 - CS 1.6 has 85k CC Players on AVG
2012 – Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
2013 - CS:GO finally takes over CS 1.6

16. Counter-Strike
(First-Person Shooter)
 After they bought CS and hired its
creator, Valve poorly handled the game and
the man
 Steam was built off of millions of CS fans
in need for the next update
 It took Valve 10 years to put CS back on
track
 The difference between failure & success
lies in a few game design tweaks

17. DotA
(Multiplayer Online Battle Arena)
2003 – DotA is a custom map for WC3
Designers: Eul / Guinsoo / Icefrog
Community Manager: Pendragon
2007 – DotA is played by millions each month
2009 – Valve hires Icefrog
2010 – Valve registers the DotA trademark
2011 – DotA 2 Beta
The International #1 by Valve
2013 – DotA 2
2014 – TI4 generates $40M+ in revenue

18. DotA
(Multiplayer Online Battle Arena)
 After they bought DotA, Valve got it right
this time and let the Maestro do his work
 DotA 2 has been growing constantly from
Day 1
 DotA 2 is a window for what the future of
esports and « game as a hobby » looks like

19. League of Legends
(Multiplayer Online Battle Arena)
2005 - Beck & Merrill decide to create LoL
2006 - Riot Games founded. Hires from the
DotA core team + WoW’s Lead Systems
Engineer + Zileas (2008)
2009 - League of Legends
2011 - Tencent acquires Riot Games for
$300M
2013 – 1K employees
32M watch the World Finals live
67M players/month

20. League of Legends
(Multiplayer Online Battle Arena)
« the most player-focused gaming
company in the world »
http://www.riotgames.com/about
"Baseball has been around for 110
years. I'm not saying League of
Legends will be around that long,
but we see the shelf life of LoL as
hopefully decades."
http://uk.ign.com/articles/2014/01/23/league-of-legends-will-last-decades-
riot-says

21. League of Legends
(Multiplayer Online Battle Arena)
« An Average player has spent
1 037 hours on League of Legends.
3 641 022 players took the test. »
www.wastedonlol.com

22. League of Legends
(Multiplayer Online Battle Arena)
 League of Legends has been constantly
growing since release
 Riot Games shows the kind of success
« game as a hobby » and esports can
achieve as a business
 There’s a huge gap between the ways of AAA
publishers and Riot Games’

23. SOME KEYS TO ESPORTS
 MASTERPIECE: The game has to be LEGENDARY
 GAME DESIGN: Powerful emotions generated
through interactions more than graphics
 CHALLENGE: Never-ending learning curve
 TIME: Not a 1 night stand but a passionate
life-long relationship
 RESPECT: At the core of said relationship
 MAGIC: Let the Maestro work the magic that
touches hearts & unconscious minds

24. WHAT’S NEXT FOR
ESPORTS?
KICKING A BALL ISN’T
EASY TO LEARN…
IT’S
INSTANT FUN!
AND IT’S THE CORE GAMEPLAY FOR
THE #1 SPORT IN THE WORLD

25. GAME MAKERS…
WORK YOUR MAGIC!

26. THE GAMES OF ESPORTS
Nicolas CERRATO – Gamoloco.com
GAME CONNECTION PARIS
October 2014