What is electronic sports?

Electronic sports (or esports) is a term for organized competitions, especially between professionals. The most common associated with electronic sports are , , , and . Tournaments such as the , the , and the provide both live broadcasts of the competition, and cash prizes to competitors.

Although esports have long been a part of , competitions have seen a large surge in popularity in recent years. While competitions before around the year 2000 were largely between amateurs, the proliferation of professional competitions and growing viewership now supports a significant number of professional players and teams, and many video game developers now build features into their games designed to facilitate such competition.

The increasing availability of online video streaming platforms, particularly , has become central to current esports competitions. In 2012, the most popular titles featured in professional competition were , , and . During 2013 and early 2014, the series also emerged as a popular title.

History of Esports

Early history (1972-1989)

The earliest known video game competition took place on October 19, 1972, at for the game , where students were invited to an "Intergalactic spacewar olympics" whose grand prize was a year's subscription for . The held by in 1980 was the earliest large scale video game competition, attracting more than 10,000 participants across the , establishing competitive gaming as a mainstream hobby.

Two players using the front-panel of a PDP-12 to play Spacewar at the

In the summer of 1981, founded a record keeping organization called . The organization went on to help promote video games and publicize its records through publications such as the Guinness Book of World Records, and in 1983 it created the . The team was involved in competitions, such as running the for and sponsoring the North American Video Game Challenge tournament.

During the 1970s and 1980s, electronic sports players and tournaments begun being featured in popular newspapers and magazines including and . One of the most well known players is , for his listing as holding the records for high scores in six games including and in the 1985 issue of the Guinness Book of World Records. Televised esports events aired during this period included the American show which ran between 1982 and 1984 airing a total of 133 episodes, on which contestants would attempt to beat each other's high scores on an arcade game. A video game tournament was included as part of TV show and tournaments were also featured as part of the plot of various films, including 1982's

Esports goes online (1990-1999)

In the 1990s, many games benefited from increasing , especially . For example, the 1988 game was an for up to 16 players, written almost entirely in . Netrek was the , the first Internet team game, the first Internet game to use metaservers to locate open game servers, and the first to have persistent user information. In 1993 it was credited by as "the first online sports game".

Large esports tournaments in the 1990s include the 1990 , which toured across the United States, and held its finals at in California. held a 2nd World Championships in 1994 for the called the . There were 132 finalists that played in the finals in San Diego, CA. Mike Iarossi took home 1st prize. also ran their own World Game Championships in the early 1990s, co-hosted by magazine. Citizens from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Chile were eligible to compete. Games from the 1994 championships included and .

Television shows featuring esports during this period included the British shows and the gameshow , which would show two children competing in various games in order to win points.

Rise of global tournaments (2000 onwards)

Recently, esports has gone through tremendous growth, incurring a large increase in both viewership and prize money. Although large tournaments were founded before the 21st century, the number and scope of tournaments has increased significantly, going from about 10 tournaments in 2000 to about 260 in 2010. Many of the largest tournaments today were founded during this period, including the , the , and . The proliferation of tournaments included experimentation with competitions outside traditional esports genres. For example, the September 2006 Worldwide Webgames Championship featured 71 contestants competing in for a $1 million grand prize.

This period was also the peak of televised esports. Television coverage was best established in , with competitions featuring and regularly televised by dedicated 24-hour cable TV game channels and . Elsewhere, esports television coverage was sporadic. The covered esports until its shutdown in 2009. The satellite television channel broadcast esports competitions from 2007 to 2009. The online esports only channel ESL TV briefly attempted a paid television model re-branded GIGA II from June 2006 to autumn 2007. The channel broadcast e-sport matches in a show called "Arena Online" for the Trophy. The channel hosted competitions in a show called from 2005 to 2008. broadcast the tournament for 2 seasons in 2007 and 2008. aired prerecorded footage of the 2007 tournament that was held in . The originally covered video games exclusively, but broadened its scope to cover technology and men's lifestyle, though has now shutdown. The Season 3 League of Legends World Championship, held in 2013, was held in a sold-out Staples Center. Its successor, the 2014 League of Legends World Championship in Seoul, South Korea had over 40,000 fans in attendance.

Esports titles by genre

Fighting games

were among the earliest games to be played in professional tournaments, with the founding of what would become the in 1995. Competitions in the genre are generally individual competitions in which both players providing input to the same machine. The genre originally focused on arcade play, but has gradually moved to console play as arcades have declined. The series, series, series, series, series, and series are amongst those fighting games played at a professional level. Important tournaments for the genre include the in the USA.

Fighting game enthusiasts generally prefer the moniker "competitive gaming", and often eschew the term "e-sports", citing cultural differences between the predominately PC-gaming esports communities and the older arcade-gaming community. Member of the fighting games community are generally especially cognizant of their connection to the old arcade-era competitions, wishing to prioritize the preservation the spirit of those competitions over simple monetization of fighting competitions.

Street Fighter

The has one of the earliest and longest running professional gaming scenes. Professional Street Fighter players include , who had two of his matches included in a 2011 list of "The 10 Best Moments in Pro-Gaming History".

An enthralled crowd watches the action at CEO 2014.

His early 1998 match against American player Alex Valle in ranked sixth and his 2004 comeback against American player Justin Wong in ranked first, while his 2009 grand finals match against Wong in at was listed as having "just missed the cut."

First-person shooters

focus on simulating a from a first person perspective, and may be either individual or team based. Less popular games include the PC game , which is featured in a few smaller leagues such as the , United Gaming Clans, and European Team Fortress 2 League.

Doom

The release of on December 10, 1993 marked the popularization of as a competitive esports genre. Doom spawned newsgroups, chat rooms and among the first known users of for gaming. Players connected to each other modem-to-modem and online competitive gaming was born.

Doom 3 tournament on QuakeCon 2004

Shortly after the release of Doom II on October 10, 1994, the pioneering matchmaking service (Dial up Wide Area Network Gaming Operations) firm launched their services. DWANGO, charged users the cost of a local telephone call to connect to their dial-up bulletin board services. With 20+ servers scattered throughout urban locations in North America DWANGO became the early hub of competitive gaming. Initially, online gaming was available only to those with superior internet connections. These included ISP employees, university/college students and large businesses. Early client side software includes iDoom, Kali and iFrag. To accompany the launch of Doom II, Microsoft held the first offline tournament for PC players, Deathmatch '95. Deathmatch '95 (aka Judgment Day Deathmatch 95 & Dwango's Deathmatch 95) was aimed to be a competitive offline gaming tournament featuring the most popular title of the year, Doom II. This format, with gamers attending a single location and using standardized hardware, has defined eSports competitions since.

Quake

Quake is a series 1v1 PC based games developed by . In 1996, id released the original , and launched . QuakeCon is an annual convention which hosts competitions for the series, and has become the largest LAN event in North America. The first offline Quake tournament, took place in May 1997. The winner, , going under the alias "Thresh", took home the prize of Quake co-creator 's own red convertible.

Quake 3 tournament

supported a small professional scene, with a dozen professional players signed to a few professional teams and a number of players marketing themselves through other means. Tournament play for Quake 4 peaked around 2006, with the game included in tournaments such as the , the before the league's demise, the , and KODE5. As of 2008, Quake 4 has fallen out of favor in competition for the previous game in the series, .

was released in 2010, primarily based on Quake III Arena. Quake Live was played in tournaments such as , , and . The popularity of the title declined after a couple years. In 2012, the last major tournament to host Quake competitions, the , decided to drop the title.

Counter-Strike

A Counter-Strike match in Electronic Sports World Cup 2007, Paris

The series is a series of team based first person shooters which began as a which was bought by and released from beta in 2000. Professional competition is centered in and in tournaments such as the , CEVO, , and the . The defunct league franchised teams with contracted players who played .

The most recent game in the series, , was released in 2012. Although it appears counter strike will not appear in the World Cyber Games 2013, the largest prize pool in the series' history has been announced for in Winter 2013.

Unreal Tournament

Beginning with the release of the first game in 1998, the series of first person shooters supported competitions in the early 2000s, such as the series' inclusion the World Cyber Games from 2001 through 2004. There are no longer major tournaments for the series, as it has been dropped from leagues such as the .

Halo

Halo 4 Tournament

The series is an exclusive first person shooter which has been featured prominently in the American league . The series has also been played internationally, such as the European Console League's event in July 2010 in Liverpool. The Australian Cyber League hosted a Pro Circuit with tournaments in several major cities in Australia, including a January 2009 event in . Partially due to changes to the series' design, Halo competitions have gone into steep decline by 2013, as the ACL only hosts Halo tournaments online, and the formerly staple MLG game was dropped from future competitions.

Call of Duty

The series is a first-person shooter that has been played as an esport primarily in theUnited States. It has been featured in MLG tournaments ever since

was introduced to the league in 2008.

Many teams compete in these tournaments to earn money or possibly a living. A well known example is Optic Gaming, a successful roster of the Optic organization. This team that has earned hundreds of thousands of dollars from these high-level leagues and tournaments. In June 2014, hosted by MLG will be featured in the Austin X Games.

Real-time strategy

Competitions involving traditional generally feature individual competitors competing on over a local area network or the internet. While not nearly as popular as other RTS games during this period, the series was played competitively as well, and was part of the World Cyber Games from 2000-2003, and 2007-2008.

StarCraft: Brood War

was foundational in the establishment of e-sports, and along with StarCraft II, remains among the most popular series in competitive gaming. StarCraft competitions did especially well in , which remains central to the competitive scene as a whole. Professionals in Korea achieved a status similar to professional athletes. In the west, StarCraft enjoyed significantly less competitive popularity. StarCraft was the very first game to have been accepted into the tournament, and had a tournament at their events every year until it was replaced by StarCraft II in 2011. In Korea, prominent StarCraft competitions included the , the MBCGame StarCraft League, and Proleague. Finals for these league attracted tens of thousands of fans, and became very popular on Korean cable TV.

Warcraft III

has been played professionally all around the world, especially in South Korea, China, France, and Germany. Although the game never achieved the same competitive popularity of the original StarCraft, the game supported a few dozen professional teams. The game lacks a singular world championship, as there have been numerous large tournaments. Events have been organized by Blizzard Entertainment, have also been televised Korean leagues, and large tournaments have been held in China. Chinese players generally have used their own clients for online competition, due to a poor connection to the outside world. Notable Warcraft III players include: , Dae Hui "FoV" Cho, , and . In more recent times, Warcraft III competition has declined in popularity. Many professional Warcraft III players have since moved to , including Grubby and Moon. Despite this, Warcraft III continues to be played competitively, still appearing in events such as WCG 2013.

StarCraft II

The 2011 championship at .

After its release in 2010, competitions gradually replaced the prior Brood War competitions. For example, StarCraft II has replaced the original game in the WCG, and the initially Brood War-focused Proleague mixed StarCraft II into their competitions, before finally phasing out Brood War entirely. Initially, disagreements between Blizzard and Kespa prevented many players in Korea from moving to StarCraft II, but conditions improved, and were ultimately resolved by 2012.

Many leagues and e-sports organizations in Korea and across the world host StarCraft II tournaments, including the , , , , the and the .

In 2012, Blizzard Entertainment created the StarCraft II World Championship Series. In the tournament's , Korean player PartinG beat Creator to win the $100,000 grand prize. As of 2013, the WCS system divides players into three leagues: WCS Korea, WCS Europe, and WCS North America. Players earn points based on their performance in many different tournaments, including the ones mentioned above, and the 16 players with the most points advance to world championship at . In the 2013 grand finals, sOs beat the crowd favorite 4-1, winning the $100,000 grand prize. The 2nd place finish for Jaedong awarded him $45,000, making his total prizepool earnings $489,384.83, the highest of any eSports player in history.

Sports games

are games based on physical competitions. Along with the more popular games below, hosts an affiliated annual video game competition since 2010 known as the , which had a grand prize of $10,500 USD in 2011. The racing series supports esports competitions centered in France at the , but also at the , and the FuturTech Gaming League, for example.

FIFA

Kick-Off Event

is a generally individual competition available on consoles as well as PCs. FIFA has been an official game of the since its first tournament in 2001. In 2003, a FIFA tournament was also held at the first event of Europe. has the biggest FIFA Football community, hosting leagues such as the and the (which was aired on the national TV-broadcaster Deutsches Sportfernsehen before the league's cessation). There are also leagues in South Korea like the FifaLeague that are televised. The ESL continues to host FIFA competitions into 2013, as does the ESWC.

Multiplayer online battle arena

games are historically a spin off of real time strategy games, but are different enough that they are now generally considered a separate genre. While traditional RTS games feature many units controlled by a single player, MOBAs are typically team focused, the model being five players on a team, each controlling a single "hero" unit. MOBAs are generally played on personal computers. Other competitive MOBAs include .

Dota

A crowd watching a Dota 2 match during The International at Gamescom 2011.

The Dota franchise began as a fan-made Warcraft III named (DotA), released in 2003. The popularity of the original mod, both in casual and competitive play, encouraged to create a stand-alone sequel, . Together, the two games are amongst the most popular electronic sports games played professionally. These titles have been featured at major international tournaments, including , as well as the and the . Valve hosted Dota 2's public debut in 2011 at , which featured a US $1 million grand prize. In 2012, Valve hosted The International 2, which also had a million dollar grand prize. It was won by Chinese team . In 2013, The International 3 offered the largest prize pool for a single event in electronic sports history, totaling over $2.8 million USD.

Early in the development of Dota 2, Valve was legally opposed by Riot Games and Blizzard Entertainment, both of which voiced their opinions that the DotA name should have remained a community asset. On August 9, 2010, Riot filed an opposing trademark for "DOTA", in order to "protect the work that dozens of authors have done to create the game". Valve subsequently won the case, but was opposed by Blizzard, who filed a trademark with similar reasoning. On May 11, 2012, Blizzard and Valve announced that the dispute had been settled, with Valve retaining the commercial franchising rights to the term "Dota", while non-commercial usage of the name could still be utilized.

League of Legends

(LoL) is a multiplayer online battle arena video game developed and published by for Microsoft Windows, primarily inspired by Defense of the Ancients. It was released on October 27, 2009. In an early LoL tournament, the game was featured as a promotional title in the in Los Angeles. The victors were the Counter Logic Gaming team from North America, winning a $7,000 prize. LoL was added to the lineup for the 2011 Electronic Sports League season. were held at Summer 2011 in Sweden. The European team Fnatic defeated teams from Europe and the USA to win US$50,000 of the tournament's US$100,000 prize pool. According to Riot, the final match drew 210,000 concurrent viewers.

Riot announced a prize pool of US $5 million to be paid out over Season 2, allocated to tournaments featuring League of Legends. featured a prize pool of 2 million US dollars. Taipei Assassins of defeated Azubu Frost of in the grand finals, winning the 1 million dollar grand prize. During the quarterfinal match against Team Solomid, Azubu Frost player Woong looked at the spectator minimap, resulting in a fine that reduced their winnings by US$30,000. The League of Legends Season 2 World Finals match drew a peak of 1.1 million concurrent viewers, who observed the matches from Internet streams, Korean television, and Chinese television.

In season 3, the total prize pool was US $8 million. was held in Los Angeles, featuring a prize pool is $2 million with $1 million for first place. The team won the final, which took place at the on October 4. The event drew 1.4 million concurrent viewers during the final series.

Smite

is a third-person MOBA developed and published by . Prior to release, Smite was kept in an extended beta that resulted in over 74 million hours of playtime and the realization of a robust competitive community. Throughout the beta, Hi-Rez hosted a series of LAN and online events with cash prize pools. Smite was officially released in North America and western Europe on March 25, 2014.

The weekend following its release, Hi-Rez hosted a Smite Launch Tournament in Atlanta where the eight best teams from Europe and North America played for a prize pool of over $200,000 USD, half of which was raised by the community from sales of a character skin. Team Solo Mid from Europe won first place, with Team Dignitas from North America taking second place. Viewers at home could make their own predictions for a chance to win various prizes. According to Hi-Rez, the event drew more than 400,000 unique viewers worldwide. After the event, Hi-Rez added a custom-branded skin in honor of Team Solo Mid's victory.

In May 2014, Hi-Rez announced the Smite World Championship Series (SWC). The SWC began with three months of regional qualifiers, which will culminate into two separate $50,000 regional LAN events for Europe and North America. The Smite World Championship is currently scheduled for January 9-11, 2015 at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre in Atlanta, and will feature a prize pool starting at $600,000; however, that amount is expected to significantly increase prior to the event based on community contributions and exclusive content sales. Hi-Rez has revealed that the World Championship will feature teams from North America, Europe, China, Brazil, and Spanish-speaking Latin America.

Others

World of Warcraft

Blizzard's added PvP features to the game after its release, and was received enthusiastically as an eSport. The game was generally phased out of MLG between 2010 and 2011.

BlizzCon 2013 (WoW)

Blizzard continues to hold the World of Warcraft Arena Global Invitational annually. The prize pool for the 2013 World of Warcraft Arena Global Invitational totaled over $180,000.

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

is a digital from . It is already gaining popularity as an eSport with and hosting tournaments.

Top 100 Largest Overall Prize Pools

1.

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14 Teams

70 Players

2.

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8 Teams

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16 Teams

82 Players

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14 Teams

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11 Teams

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16.

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18.

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23.

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22 Teams

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28.

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32 Players

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31.

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8 Teams

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32.

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33.

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18 Teams

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58.

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32 Players

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61.

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3 Teams

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62.

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10 Teams

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83.

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31 Players

99.

$123,541.29

8 Teams

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100.

$122,777.85

32 Players

During our research work we tried to answer two questions which we are interested in:

-What are the advantages and disadvantages of esports?

- What percent of Russian people are involved in computer games?

- People of what age and sex prefer playing esport nowadays?

So, we came to the following conclusion: 72% of Scotsmen wear the kilt as a formal or ceremonial dress, 58% of them wear the kilt on weddings or other formal occasions. 89% of Scots prefer to wear the kilt on parades. It is reflected in our video - film, where you can see Pipe Bands and the Drummers in kilts. And the last column shows that 86% of Highlanders usually put their favourite kilt on when they take part in different traditional games or championships.

Also, we made the questionnaire and interviewed 105 pupils from 14 up to 16 years old. The results were following: 90% of female part of respondents want to wear multicolored skirts in stripes and checks. We were surprised that 30% of male part of respondents want to wear kilts. Boys explained their point of view only in one way: the kilt is national traditional clothes and that is why in spite of the fact that they would like to put it on once at least, they can`t do it, only because they live in Russia not in Scotland. So, the aim of our work is to show peculiarities of Scottish kilts and to explain their popularity among people.What is more this project show us that not only Scots like to wear kilts but there are also many people in Russia who would like to wear them with pleasure.

That`s all. Thanks for attention