From the Basement to Burbank
The Rise of the Esports Empire
Where it all began?
20 years ago if you were lucky you knew where to find a group of 8 to 10 kids locked in someone basement. they weren’t prisoners they were staring at a 75 pound CRT monitor until their eyes started to get blood shot. The gaming setup consisted of a PC, monitor, mouse, keyboard and a pair of tweezers to pull the lint off your mouse ball. Parents would begrudgingly agree to let you have “a few” friends over for the weekend so you could play video games. What you failed to mention is that the electrical bill would more than likely double for the month. At least you could save on your heating costs for the weekend. 3 extension cords, 2 box fans, 8 pizzas and 5 cases of lemonade later you had yourself a LAN Party. Everybody knew everybody and your primary goal for the weekend was to emerge victorious over every other person in that room. Your prize? bragging rights, a sense of superiority, and if you were really good probably swift kick to the balls from at least one of the other players. If you were really lucky you managed to find your way into “sponsored tournament’ which consisted of you sitting in a stuffy hotel closet and competing for your chance at a $100 prize. Fast forward to today…
They let us out of the basement!
Today your everyday LAN parties still happen, all be it much easier to pull off, but they are still a very large part of a gamers world. Our stuffy hotel closets have changed a bit when it comes to actual competitive play. There are arenas all over the world that have been built in support of esports and its growth. In the last 20 years esports has grown from a bunch of friends each throwing in $10 and winner takes home $100 to prize pools of over 20 million dollars. We have gone from behind the curtains to selling out the Staples Center faster than Justin Timberlake (well close at least). Last but not least we have gone from competitive gaming being something that “you darn kids keep wasting your time on” to an industry that is worth almost $900 million dollars. Now, I am calling out the last 20 years because right around the year 2000 is when we started to see the formation of some organized league play for these video games. Honestly esports as a serious competition didn’t really start to take off until about 2010, why do we think that is?
How the heck did all of this happen?
Well the first and obvious answer is the internet…yes we had the internet before 2010 but I am sure some of you remember waiting 45 minutes to download a 3mb song off of Napster! The real answer is the adoption and growth of high speed internet. By the year 2010 over 65% of homes in the united states had adopted broadband internet, that’s a heck of a lot more people in the gaming pool. Increased internet speeds allowed for more reliable game play from anywhere, you didn’t need to be on a dedicated LAN in order to play with your friends seamlessly. You could run other items on your computers in the background like Team Speak and not have to worry how much it was going to effect your ping. Most importantly, you weren’t going to get get booted from a game because you sister wanted to talk on the phone with her stupid boyfriend! But this can’t be the only thing right? Correct! Another contributor to the boom in esports was the rapid advancement of microchips over the last 10 years. These days my cell phone has more gaming potential than the computer I had back in 2000 did. With the rapid expansion of CPUs and GPUs the game developers were able to make some truly entertaining games that were not only fun to play but were also fun to watch.
Did you say fun to watch?
I did! enter Justin.tv. In 2007 the internet got a gift it never knew it wanted, Justin Kan and his colleges launched a service called Justin.tv. This service was a website that allowed all gamers the ability to broadcast live video content to any users willing to watch. It later became Twitch.tv a multi-platform streaming and viewing service now owned by Amazon. Twitch sees over 2 million broadcasters monthly and 15 million daily active users. Twitch has become the primary source for all gaming related video content. Regardless of the size of the event all Twitch requires is a camera and an internet connection this makes pretty much all competitive events available online for the viewers. Because of Twitch, now anybody in the world is able to watch their favorite teams and players compete at almost every level…for free!
Get off my lawn!
For 15 years now I have been singing the praises of esports. First I was that psycho old cat lady that nobody wanted to talk too because everything I said was crazy, but I stuck with it. 5 years later, my redemption came, esports was a thing right? Wrong…Here comes the “its just a fad”, or “flash in the pan and its dead” the struggle continues. In walks League of Legends and Dota 2, people start to notice! Some corporations realize that this thing is a gold mine and start sponsoring. Finally my crazy gibberish from the past 12 years is accepted in a real strategic conversation…had in a closet somewhere…6 people will pretend to listen to you and then act like it never happened. Why!? Because even at this point it was still too taboo to accept in the main stream. When will this change, I think we are just about there! The US is finally starting to accept esports as a legitimate, organized, body of driven gamers. We are the second largest consumer of competitive gaming content behind Asia. Our large corporations are stepping up to the plate with sponsorship’s and for the first time in our history we have a professional gaming stadium in Burbank California for the Overwatch League. For the first time in my life I can say this and I believe I will no longer be looked at like I have an alien growing out of my face. Esports is here to stay, it will continue to grow for as long as providers continue to provide valuable content. We are not going anywhere and for all you haters out there…GET OFF MY LAWN!
Iggy out!