How did esports become so popular?

The modern world has seen many examples of rather niche entertainments becoming so popular that it grows into a whole new business world even the biggest brands can invest in. Competitive video games are one of such promising industries. Now, professional gamers can have a stable and, should we say, very substantial income not only from prize pools, but also from various contracts with big brands out there. But how did esports become so popular?

The roots of Esports date back to the 1970s. It was in 1972 when students of Stamford University and the workers of it’s Computer Laboratory decided to hold a competition In the game called Space War. The main prize was a yearly subscription to The Rolling Stones Magazine. To attract more participants they have decided to give them cost-free beverages. This can be referred to as the starting point of the development of the multimillion-dollar industry we know today, even though the game itself is barely known today. Later on, in 1980 Atari held the competition in their own title Space Invaders where the participant count was reaching almost 10,000. 

A pivotal point of the development of esports was the creation of LAN connections and personal computers. This was when video games became especially popular too, with the first competitive FPS being Doom, by ID Software. Later in the 90s the competitive events were using popular titles like Quake and in 2000’s it was the time for Unreal Tournament. If you have followed the esports scene from this time on, you can recall the first competitive games of the 21st century including Half-Life and later on Counter-Strike — the multiplayer FPS shooter, derived from the former.

Over time the varieties of Esports became numerous. Game development company Blizzard created their Starcraft, a real-time strategy game, which has a modern iteration with the name of Starcraft 2. The first big international league was started in 2000 in Seoul, called the World Cyber Games. It included four disciplines: Starcraft, FIFA 2000, Quake 3 Arena and Age of Empires 2. A year later Unreal Tournament and Counter-Strike joined this list. There was even a time when esports was also being broadcasted on TV channels. Tournament operator Major League Gaming, located in the US, used to hold competitions in Call of Duty and Halo 2 and had it covered on cable.

The accessibility of esports

Esports started to grow together with the growth of the video game industry. People can watch or broadcast their favorite games and generate revenue from their hobby, what else can gamers dream of? In fact, many have made this a full-time job and have collected enormous fame throughout their business. Streamers, casters and analysts also have huge fanbases, meaning that esports is not only the business of tournament organizers and professional gamers, but other faces too. 

Now, esports now needs more creative thinkers, artistic individualities and, of course, skillful players who could demonstrate their might and attract millions of viewers, making deals with top brands. At the end of the day, there are plenty of other reasons for why esports is popular in our times, so let’s explore it from multiple angles.

Accessibility is also the priority when a developer is creating a competitive game, which could become an esports discipline in the long run. Today’s esports scene consists mostly of free to play games, like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, League of Legends, Valorant, Call of Duty: Warzone, FIFA Series, Rocket League, as well as some titles in mobile esports, i.e. battle royales like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Fortnite and others. All of them require you to have a PC or a smartphone, but that’s it, no extra costs are needed, as there are no pay-to-win mechanics. As a conclusion, esports is so popular because of the accessibility for all the people to compete.

The Variety of esports games

Popularity of esports has another reasonable cause too: competitive games are suitable for different tastes and for people having different cultural backgrounds. Sportspeople usually like to try out sports simulations competitively on their mobile gadgets or personal computers. Others might find peace diving into an imaginary world of magic. The rest may find it highly entertaining to try out their hand-eye coordination hitting the targets in shooter games. There is room for many, even for those keen on card games (Hearthstone anyone?). 

Even though gamers usually share the tasks in different games (such as simply destroying the enemy base), the approach of one developer can bring more success than that of the original publisher. The fundamental difference regarding this could be even just the design aesthetics of a competitive game. One could have a photorealistic environment and complex mechanics to follow, while the other is cartoonish and has easy to grasp details. Now the idea is obvious — how esports become popular are hugely dependent on the approach of game developers, who can try to add more creative varieties, or hybrids, to say so, in the world of virtual competitiveness.

The rising quality of esports games and newer additions

In order to keep engaging larger communities, esports are entering various video game genres. As mentioned before, people have different tastes and preferences. For some, it is highly satisfying to shoot-and-loot, for others, setting down a strategy for winning a card or MOBA game is what drives interest. 

But what keeps esports titles in trend is how they are being polished and ready-made for the upcoming generations. Enhancing the graphics, fixing bugs, adding content…developers have a lot to do to keep a competitive game going nowadays. In general, they tend to also add some paid content, in the form of weapon, item and character skins, which motivates people to grind even more. 

Expanding esports communities

It is essential for the success of esports titles to have 2-sides communicating with each other. Of course, it is about the contact of the esports community and the title developers. The community might have some ideas that the creative team of the owners did not consider important enough to dive deeper into beforehand. It is the feedback that makes the developers aware on how to further develop their competitive games, which features to add, which ones to remove or rework. That’s where game patches become the saviors of this or that month. Take for example Riot’s League of Legends: the patches here are released on a regular basis. Every time the devs are addressing different champions, to make sure that the meta is not ruined and the balance is there too.

Making Bets on Esports

Esports betting is a growing business, which could, after some time, even surpass traditional sports betting. You can learn about how to bet on esports in a short period. To be able to predict esports match results, you need to follow the teams on and off the stage. This could help in understanding their tactics in various scenarios. Esports betting has become so massive, that even casino betting platforms have integrated it as a popular category. Betting on winner, loser, over and under totals is as easy as it is in traditional sports, so the transition could be way faster, if you have a fundamental knowledge in the former.

To answer how esports became popular, one can come up with these points:

• the accessibility;

• the variety;

• the rising quality of esports games;

• expanding esports communities;

• making bets on esports.