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EspañolELECTRONIC SPORTS
'Electronic sports', abbreviated 'e-sports' or 'eSports', is used as a general term to describe the play of video games as a professional sport. Less popular terms include 'competitive gaming', 'cybersports', 'cyber athletics' (used by the CPL) and 'V-Sports' (used by the GGL)
Games which are considered electronic sports normally belong to the first-person shooter, real-time strategy, or sports game genres. They are played competitively at both amateur and professional levels.
Playing electronic sports
Over the Internet
The easiest way to play an electronic sports match is over the Internet. General online play is subject to the lessened ability to detect cheating and the more unpredictable network latency not being the ideal environment for high level competition; however, due to its convenience, even players who are used to LAN games use Internet games for fun and practice.
Usually teams, or clans as they are called; will need to contact each other prior to matches. Internet Relay Chat is very popular for doing this due to the ability for each clan, league, or other gaming related organisation to set up its own chat channel on the network, making them easy to find. IRC has become so popular among gamers that the largest IRC network is Quakenet, a network originally created for players of the first-person shooter ''Quake'' and now used by players of many different games. The matches are then carried out on the server according to the rules of the leagues the teams are familiar with.
Popular online leagues include Cyberathlete Amateur League, CyberEvolution, Major League Gaming, ClanBase, and the Electronic Sports League.
The largest online gaming network used to compete is Battle.net, used to play Warcraft and Starcraft (two of the three oldest and biggest competitive games with Counter-Strike) online. Having over 12,000,000 active users with an average of 200,000 online at any given moment with peaks up to 400,000.
This service provided by Blizzard Entertainment is especially important for Warcraft 3 for which it features integrated ladders and advanced anti-cheating. The best of the one-one ladders compete in seasons stretching over a period of months, after which the top finishers gather at offline events to compete for a seasonal championship and tens of thousands of dollars in prize money.
Over a local area network
Playing over a LAN has a number of advantages: the network conditions are much better suited to playing computer games than on the Internet, and when the competitors are in the same building it is a lot harder to cheat without someone knowing (at professional events administrators will normally be present to ensure fair play). It is also a much more social atmosphere. Due to the advantages of LAN many gamers organize LAN parties or visit LAN centres and major tournaments are always conducted over LANs.
Electronic sports history
Arcade era
Video games have been played competitively since their inception.
Twin Galaxies is known for keeping track of high scores on Many "classic" arcade games, and they created the U.S. National Video Game Team in 1983. The team ran a number of competitions, including the 1987 Video Game Masters Tournament for Guinness World Records.
Nintendo held their World Championships in 1990, touring across the United States, with the finals in Oakland, California. There were 90 finalists, and the champion was Thor Aackerlund, with an approximate score of 2,800,000. The Nintendo championships are notable for the gold cartridges distributed to all of the finalists, which now fetch high prices on eBay. [1]
Blockbuster Video ran their own World Game Championships in the early 1990s, co-hosted by GamePro magazine. Citizens from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Chile were eligible to compete. Games from the 1994 championships included NBA Jam and Virtua Racing. [2]
Internet era
Formal events have grown dramatically since the first tournament in 1997. At the "Red Annihilation" tournament in May of that year, Quake co-creator John Carmack promised his own red Ferrari 328 GTS convertible to the winner, Dennis Fong aka "Thresh". In June of that year Angel Munoz launched his league for computer gamers, known as the Cyberathlete Professional League or CPL. Since then, the attendance and size of the venues for these events has grown and thousands of spectators typically connect over the internet to watch the final matches.[3]
In 2005 the CPL moved to a World Tour format. The 2005 CPL World Tour focused on the one-on-one deathmatch game Painkiller and had a total prize purse of $1,000,000. The winner of the CPL Grand Finals event, Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel, went home with the grand prize of $150,000, while Sander "Vo0" Kaasjager took home the MVP trophy for having the most tournament wins.
In the year 2000, the first World Cyber Games event was held in Seoul, Korea. There were competitions for Quake III, Starcraft, FIFA 2000, and Age of Empires II. The competition initially had 174 competitors from 17 different countries with a total prize purse of $20,000. In 2006, the prize purse had risen to $462,000, and the event had grown to 9 different competitions and 700 qualified participants from 70 different countries.
In 2003, the first Electronic Sports World Cup event was held, with a total of 358 participants from 37 countries, and a prize purse of € 150.000. By 2006, the event had grown to 547 qualified participants from 53 countries and a prize purse of $400,000. The event also featured the first competition with a game specifically made for it; Trackmania Nations.
The year also saw the launch of Major League Gaming, a console gaming competition. In 2006, Major League Gaming was the first televised console gaming league in the United States, with their Halo 2 Pro Series being broadcast by USA Network.
2006 saw the first season of the World Series of Video Games event, a spin off of the CPL World Tour format. The WSVG held world championships for Counter-Strike, Warcraft III, and Quake 4. The WSVG also held American championships for Halo 2, , and Project Gotham Racing 3.
Player contracts
On February 1 2003, SK Gaming became one of the first clubs in FPS gaming to legally bind players to their clan.[4] The specifics of their contracts are not disclosed; however, it is known from interviews that the contracts include a salary, which according to interviews was not large by itself, but the players are also entitled to shares of prize money. On May 18, 2004 they were the first western electronic sports club to receive a fee for a player transfer after rivals Team NoA bought SK Counter-Strike player Ola "elemeNt" Moum out of his contract. This also prevents players from leaving an organization for a rival before the end of their contract. However, teams are sometimes willing to let their players go on a loan deal to another side. The first eSports loan deal is thought to be that of Lukas "MohammedZaherSzah" Baranowski, a Battlefield 2 player, from Team Dignitas to Team Wilda in 2006.
Professional electronic sports Titles
A number of gaming titles have a professional gaming scene behind them. The top players can make a living playing the games on the marketing value they gain as a result. Hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars in prize money are turned out each year for competitors in these titles.
The most popular tournaments are those run by the Cyberathlete Professional League, the World Series of Video Games, the World Cyber Games, the World e-Sports Games, the Electronic Sports World Cup, and the Major League Gaming. The prize money for these events is mostly provided by the large technology corporations who sponsor the events; these same companies also sponsor many of the teams. A team sponsorship usually includes travel expenses and whatever equipment the company produces.
Counter-Strike
★ Counter-Strike - Tactical Team FPS (5vs5, PC)
Played all around the world with hot spots in the North America and Europe, there are a few dozen professional teams that gather at just as many tournaments all around the world every year. Without a uniting body in competitive gaming many of these claim to be the game's "World Championship" tournament.
While none of them stand out enough to justify this claim, six tournament finals are generally identified as being the "biggest". The six "Major tournaments" are listed below and are led by WCG (World Cyber Games) and the CPL (Cyberathlete Professional League).
Counter-Strike is seen as the competitive game with the biggest user base with a rough estimate of players online at any given moment ranging between 120,000 and 140,000.
Examples of professional teams are: SK Gaming, , Team 3D, NiP and Complexity.
FIFA
★ FIFA Football - Sports (PC)
FIFA Football is a part of the World Cyber Games since its beginning in 2000 and also at every regional WCG Tourney like the SEC or the Pan-American WCG. In 2003 a FIFA tournament was also held at the CPL Europe and is therefore the only sports game that has ever been part of a Cyberathlete Professional League competition.
Germany has the biggest FIFA Football community with two professional leagues (Electronic Sports League EPS and the World League eSport Bundesliga which is aired on the national TV-broadcaster ''Deutsches Sportfernsehen''). Besides Germany, South Korea is a strong FIFA Football nation with 3 World Cyber Games titles. There are also leagues in South Korea like the Ongamenet FifaLeague that are televised. In 2006 prizes with a value of over a quarter million US-Dollar were handed out to professional FIFA gamers.
Halo 2
★ Halo 2 - Tactical Team FPS (Xbox)
Halo 2 has a national professional scene in the United States of America. See Major League Gaming for more information.
Quake 4
★ Quake 4 - DeathMatch FPS (1vs1, PC)
Played professionally in western society, there are a dozen professional players signed to a few professional teams and a number of players marketing themselves through other means.
Four "world championships" took place using Quake 4 in the 2006 season. Most notable are those of the Electronic Sports World Cup and the World Series of Video Games as the game had a top tier status with these organizations, the game had the smallest status of all games played at the World Cyber Games and KODE5.
So far only the Electronic Sports World Cup has announced that they will be using Quake 4 again. It is generally expected that the World series of Video Games will do the same and its also seen as a potential candidate for a top status game at the World Cyber Games.
Quake 4 is seen as the smallest of all professional games, with online users measured at any given moment seeing very fluctuating results and is generally estimated in a three number range. A undisclosed amount of those users are not players but bots, and the total user base should fall between 1/200th to 1/1000th of other professional gaming scenes.
The most well known Quake 4 player is Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel, runner-up of the World Series of Video Games finals, who is ranked 6th in the Quake 4 world rankings.
Super Smash Bros. Melee
★ Super Smash Bros. Melee - Versus Fighting (1vs1, 2vs2, GameCube)
Super Smash Bros. Melee has a national professional scene in the United States of America. It was sponsored by Major League Gaming from 2004 to 2006. It is currently sponsored by Evolution Championship Series.
StarCraft
★ - Real-Time Strategy (1vs1, PC)
This game has found a home in South Korea where many play it professionally as spectator sport. This game is also now breaching acceptance into mainland Asian countries such as Vietnam and China. Starcraft, while very small in stature to its competition is the very first game to have been accepted into the World Cyber Games tournament and has a tournament at their events since inception.
WarCraft 3
★ - Real-Time Strategy (1vs1, PC)
Played professionally all around the world with hot spots in South-Korea, China and Germany, there are a few dozen "professional" teams. The game lacks a uniting body and has no definable world championship.
The finals of tournaments all around the world are considered to be the biggest tournaments to win. These include the six "Major tournaments" listed below as well as events organised by Blizzard Entertainment, televised Korean leagues, several tournaments held in China (IEST & WEF), ESL's WarCraft 3 Champions League and NGL One.
WarCraft 3 is seen as the competitive game with the second biggest userbase with an amount of players online at Battle.net ranging between 70,000 and 100,000 at any given moment. It must also be noted that the Chinese scene, which has over three million players, uses their own clients for online competition due to a poor connection to the outside world.
Wiki articles about Warcraft 3 competitions include a historical overview of "world championships" as well as a ranking based on them and a number of player biographies such as: Xiaofeng "Sky" Li, Dae Hui "FoV" Cho, Jang "Spirit Moon" Jae Ho, Fredrik "MaDFroG" Johansson and Manuel "Grubby" Schenkhuizen.
World of Warcraft
★ World of Warcraft - Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing (PC)
World of Warcraft is part of the World Series of Video Games as of 2007. World of Warcraft is the first MMORPG with a professional gaming scene. It has caused frictions amongst the wider gaming community, with questions about the skill required to play the game compared to other competitive titles.
Main international electronic sports titles per genre
Traditionally, each genre has one specific dominant game that major tournaments and players feature and focus on. These games are subject to change per season, depending on which tournaments adopt which games for each year. The trends for global electronic sports in previous years are listed below.
2007
★ Counter-Strike - Tactical Team First Person Shooter (5vs5, PC)
★ Quake 4 - DeathMatch FPS (1vs1, PC)
★ - Real-Time Strategy (1vs1, PC)
★ FIFA 07 - Sports (1vs1, PC)
★ Project Gotham Racing 3 - Racing (1vs1, Xbox 360)
★ Dead or Alive 4 - Fighting (1vs1, Xbox 360)
★ F.E.A.R. - DeathMatch FPS (1vs1, PC)
★ World of Warcraft - Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing (3vs3, PC)
★ Halo 2 - Tactical Team First Person Shooter (4vs4, Xbox)
2006
★ Counter-Strike - Tactical Team FPS (5vs5, PC)
★ Quake 4 - DeathMatch FPS (1vs1, PC)
★ - Real-Time Strategy (1vs1, PC)
★ FIFA 06 - Sports (1vs1, PC)
★ Project Gotham Racing 3 - Racing (1vs1, Xbox 360)
★ Dead or Alive 4 - Fighting (1vs1, Xbox 360)
★ - Real-Time Strategy (1vs1, PC)
2005
★ Counter-Strike - Tactical Team FPS (5vs5, PC)
★ Painkiller - DeathMatch FPS (1vs1, PC)
★ - Real-Time Strategy (1vs1, PC)
★ FIFA Football 2005 - Sports (1vs1, PC)
★ - Racing (1vs1, PC)
★ Dead or Alive Ultimate - Fighting (1vs1, Xbox)
★ - Real-Time Strategy (1vs1, PC)
2004
★ Counter-Strike - Tactical Team FPS (5vs5, PC)
★ Unreal Tournament 2004 - DeathMatch FPS (1vs1, PC)
★ - Real-Time Strategy (1vs1, PC)
★ FIFA Football 2004 - Sports (1vs1, PC)
★ Project Gotham Racing 2 - Racing (1vs1, Xbox)
Other competitions
In September 2006 FUN Technologies held the first WorldWide Web Games for a $1 million prize. The competition had 71 contestants and featured the casual games ''Bejeweled 2'', ''Solitaire'', and ''Zuma''. The champion was 21-year-old Kavitha Yalavarthi of Odessa, Texas. [5]
Media coverage
The main medium for electronic sports coverage is the Internet. Electronic sports websites generally focus on professional tournaments and the top level amateur games, leaving the other games to be covered by the leagues themselves or smaller game-specific community websites if at all.
Mainstream coverage in North America and Europe has increased, and more mainstream news websites are starting to regularly provide some coverage of the major events with occasional television coverage.
In South Korea, electronic sports and events are regularly televised by Ongamenet and MBC Game. The most frequent games in South Korean electronic sports are the real-time strategy games StarCraft and Warcraft III. The South Korean scene is often cited as an example of popularised electronic sports by those who would like to see a similar level of popularity in the west.
In Germany, GIGA Television's majority of shows are covering e-sports. A sister channel called ''GIGA II'' features e-sports only. In the UK, Xleague.tv broadcasts on SKY channel 279, showing both features on eSports and broadcasting matches from its online leagues and tournaments, which for the purpose of television shows, are shot from its studio rather than played online.
Professional Leagues
★ Clanbase (International)
★ World Cyber Games (International)
★ Electronic Sports World Cup (International)
★ World Series of Video Games (International)
★ Cyberathlete Professional League (International)
★ Championship Gaming Series (International)
★ World e-Sports Games (International)
★ Major League Gaming (North America)
★ NGL One (Europe)
★ ESL Extreme Masters (Europe)
★ ESL Pro Series (Germany)
References
1. NES Player ([1])
2. GamePro Magazine, June 1994 ([2])
3. CPL: Game Informer
4. [3]
5. GameSpot, September 11, 2006 ([4])
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