{"id":9983,"date":"2019-08-29T10:23:30","date_gmt":"2019-08-29T14:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/armchairarcade.com\/perspectives\/?p=9983"},"modified":"2019-08-29T10:26:59","modified_gmt":"2019-08-29T14:26:59","slug":"7-landmark-moments-that-highlights-the-astronomical-growth-of-esports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/armchairarcade.com\/perspectives\/2019\/08\/29\/7-landmark-moments-that-highlights-the-astronomical-growth-of-esports\/","title":{"rendered":"7 Landmark Moments That Highlights The Astronomical Growth of Esports"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The esports\nindustry has grown rapidly in recent years and it now boasts 454 million fans\nacross the world. It has allowed a number of gamers to turn professional and\nthe best of the bunch are now multimillionaires with huge fan bases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Its rise to\nprominence is remarkable when you consider that it was a niche, underground\npursuit a decade ago. These are the landmark moments that helped turn\ncompetitive gaming into the $1.1 billion industry it is today:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Intergalactic Spacewar Olympics, 1972<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first ever esports tournament took place at the Artificial\nIntelligence Lab at Stanford University in California. The year was 1972 and a\ngroup of gamers assembled around a PDP-10 computer to compete in the inaugural\nIntergalactic Spacewar Olympics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rolling\nStone magazine sponsored the event, offering a year\u2019s subscription to the\nwinner, while it sent reporter Stewart Brand to cover it. He produced an epic\n9,000-word feature on the events of the day, and he recently said he is not\nsurprised by esports meteoric rise in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt may seem extraordinary that you can now fill arenas with\npeople who want to watch videogames,\u201d said&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/culture\/culture-news\/stewart-brand-recalls-first-spacewar-video-game-tournament-187669\/\">Brand<\/a>.\n\u201cBut it\u2019s a perfectly reasonable outcome of what you could already see in\n1972.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>League of Legends Released, 2009<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Developers\nBrandon Beck and Marc Merrill turned the gaming industry on its head when they\nreleased League of Legends in 2009. They were frustrated by the speed with\nwhich studios abandoned popular titles to work on the next game in their\nproduction line. They decided to create a game that could enjoy longevity by\nnurturing a passionate community of fans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They set up\nRiot Games and the firm spent three years creating League of Legends, a\nmultiplayer online battle arena title. It was released on a free-to-play basis\nin 2009 and it proved to be a roaring success, hitting 100,000 current players\nwithin two months of launch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>LoL earns\nmoney through in-game microtransactions on cosmetic items that can personalise\nthe gaming experience. It has been a remarkably successful model and it brings\nin more than $1 billion per year for the studio, which still dedicates all of\nits attention to LoL.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are\n2,500 employees at Riot Games and they all work on LoL, constantly updating the\ngame to ensure it is fresh, dynamic and utilising all technological advances.\nIt has gone on to become the world\u2019s most popular esport, as screaming fans\npack into stadiums to watch the leading teams in action, while millions of\npeople stream the action from the comfort of their own homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>DreamHack\nWinter 2013<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Counter-Strike:\nGlobal Offensive was released to great fanfare in August 2012 and it quickly\nestablished itself as a key title in the first-person shooter genre. Developer\nValve teamed up with the organisers of the DreamHack Winter digital festival in\nJonkoping, Sweden, the following year to host the first ever CS:GO Major.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\nattracted the best 16 teams from around the world, divided them into groups of\nfour and let them battle it out as 145,000 concurrent Twitch viewers watched\non. Local team Fnatic vanquished Ninjas in Pyjamas in a gripping final, and the\ncommunity was able to see just how brilliant the CS:GO competitive scene could\nbecome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>High-speed\nbroadband was being rolled out around the world, Twitch was gaining traction\nand CS:GO hit the market at the perfect time. It went on to become the top FPS\ntitle in the esports scene and the Majors are now some of the world\u2019s most\npopular tournaments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The\nInternational 2014<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nInternational is the most prestigious Dota 2 tournament of the year and it\ncommanded pretty high prize pools in its early years. However, the prize money\non offer shot up into the stratosphere when Valve introduced its compendium\nmodel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Players buy\na battle pass and Valve funnels a portion of this cash into the prize purse for\nThe International. The compendium was launched in 2013, when the prize money\nrose to $2.9 million, but it really worked its magic the following year. The\nInternational 2014 carried a prize pool of $10.9 million and that did wonders\nfor the perception of the esports industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was no longer a geeky pastime. Now&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/unikrn.com\/bet\">esports<\/a>&nbsp;offered gamers the opportunity to earn\nlife changing sums by displaying their prowess with a mouse and keypad. The\nprize money shot up to $18.4 million for The International 2015, $20.8 million\nin 2016, $24.7 million in 2017 and $25.5 million last year. The prize pool for\nThe International 2019 has already gone past the $30 million mark and that will\nmake it the richest esports tournament ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Invictus Rules the World, 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A\nrecord-breaking 205 million people streamed the Grand Final of the League of\nLegends World Championship last year. Most of them were in China and they were\noverjoyed to see their team, Invictus, beat European outfit Fnatic 3-0.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The LoL\nWorlds is always the most popular esports event of the year, but the massive\nChinese audience pushed it to new heights in 2018. It had far more viewers than\nbig sporting events like the Super Bowl, the tennis Grand Slams, the NBA Finals\nand the golfing majors. It showed just how big esports has become, and how\nimmense its potential is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Intel\nSigns $100 million Deal, 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A number of blue chip companies are piling into the esports scene, from MasterCard to Coca-Cola, but Intel has been its biggest supporter for a number of years. The Intel Extreme Masters was launched all the way back in 2006 and it remains the longest running tournament in the world of competitive gaming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"702\" height=\"387\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/armchairarcade.com\/perspectives\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Overwatch_League.png?resize=702%2C387&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-9985\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/armchairarcade.com\/perspectives\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Overwatch_League.png?w=702&amp;ssl=1 702w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/armchairarcade.com\/perspectives\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Overwatch_League.png?resize=150%2C83&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/armchairarcade.com\/perspectives\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Overwatch_League.png?resize=300%2C165&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 702px) 100vw, 702px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>In December 2018, Intel&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2018\/12\/13\/intel-signs-100-million-dollar-deal-with-esports-company-esl.html\">signed a $100 million deal<\/a>&nbsp;to extend its sponsorship of Electronic Sports League to\n2021. That is a crucial for the overall professionalism of the esports scene,\nas the cash is reinvested in infrastructure and prize money. It ensures that\nbig events are well organised and that teams are able to pay players handsome\nsalaries, and it also sets a high bar for other companies that want to get into\nthe esports space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Fortnite World Cup, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nproliferation of esports has allowed games like LoL, Dota 2 and CS:GO to enjoy\nunprecedented longevity in an otherwise fickle gaming industry. Fortnite developer\nEpic Games realised this, so it decided to pump $100 million into prize money\nfor Fortnite tournaments in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\nculminated at the Fortnite World Cup in New York City and the event proved to\nbe a tremendous success. A 16-year-old by the name of Bugha walked off with the\n$3 million first prize and newspapers around the world went nuts for the story.\nYou can now expect to see billions of teenagers spending eight hours per day\nplaying Fortnite in a bid to follow in his footsteps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The esports industry has grown rapidly in recent years and it now boasts 454 million fans across the world. It has allowed a number of gamers to turn professional and the best of the bunch are now multimillionaires with huge fan bases. Its rise to prominence is remarkable when you [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23578,"featured_media":9984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"7 Landmark Moments That Highlights The Astronomical Growth of Esports #esports #overwatch #fortnite #spacewar","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15],"tags":[1527,1404,2072,2188],"class_list":["post-9983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorial","tag-esport","tag-esports","tag-fortnite","tag-overwatch"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>7 Landmark Moments That Highlights The Astronomical Growth of Esports - Armchair Arcade<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/armchairarcade.com\/perspectives\/2019\/08\/29\/7-landmark-moments-that-highlights-the-astronomical-growth-of-esports\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"7 Landmark Moments That Highlights The Astronomical Growth of Esports - Armchair Arcade\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The esports industry has grown rapidly in recent years and it now boasts 454 million fans across the world. 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