The Oxford Dictionary defines sport as "an activity involving physical exertion", however to many video gamers the physicality need only be the movement of fingers and thumbs. Now eSports - competitive video gaming - is shaking off its nerdy, unconventional stereotypes and hitting the mainstream market, partly due to its loyal fan base but largely due to its recent financial and commercial success. But what are e-Sports and why have they become so popular?
Competitive video gaming has been around since 1972, when 'Pong' pitted two players to stop a pixel-sized ball from crossing their side of the screen. However, it was during the noughties when videogames exploded away from their local origins with the power of the internet. The internet allowed online communities for games such as 'Dota 2' and 'League of Legends' (LOL) to socialise and hone their skills against each other. Nowadays gamers can view the spectacle of eSports online thanks to platforms such as Twitch, a game streaming site, which was acquired by Amazon for $970 million in 2014 and receives 55 million viewers monthly. This large viewership coupled with support from developers such as Valve - who committed over $18 million in prize money to the international Dota 2 tournament last year – has allowed eSports to break into the mainstream. Youtube now has a rival to Twitch's streaming service, ESPN has recently added eSports to its roster and tournaments are even making their way to television.
All of which is why 2016 is predicted be the year in which gamers are accepted into the world of sports. Chester King, marketing chief of the International eGames Committee (IEGC), a non-profit organisation set up "with the aim of positively shaping the future of competitive gaming" is attempting to bring eSports into the mainstream and show the media that "eSports is not a bad thing ". The IEGC will host a piggyback event in Rio de Janeiro during this year's summer Olympics in order to garner support for their Olympic style event in Pyeongchang, South Korea in 2018; the same year in which the city will host the Winter Olympics . The supposed parallel with the Olympic Games and eSports is an issue for some, who find it hard to shake off videogames' old stereotypes. The now ex-ESPN analyst Colin Cowherd joked that eAthlete Ogawa would be going home to live in his parents' house after a tournament win despite the fact that won over $11 million in prizemoney .
In spite of some negative reactions towards eSports, the sector will undergo vast changes this year. More eSports on television will result in the rise of celebrity e-Athletes and lead to more initiatives using them, such as Obamacare which used e-Athletes to encourage people to sign up to the health service . More significantly, advertisers will strive to open up new forms of marketing, directly targeting eSports' digital viewership. For example, 'Destiny' had in game items branded with the red and blue of Red Bull. The eSports industry is connecting to a new and relatively untapped market which is rapidly becoming mainstream: the video-gamer. Suddenly it is not only becoming socially acceptable to spend time twiddling a thumbstick, but a financially viable way to earn a living and even become a celebrity in the process. It is an exciting time to be a gamer and with the rise of eSports, 2016 promises to be a transformative year for those who play and watch videogames.
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