Modern gaming has come a long way since Spacewar! in the 1960s. From casual multiplayer games to competitive esports, the evolution of competitive gaming has paved the way for the most extravagant prize pools in history. Esports has become a category in itself and continues to push the boundaries of human performance in video games.
Since then, esports has slowly created world records and made its own history. With millions of fans on Twitch, esports made history in 2023 by amassing 6.4 million viewers during the League of Legends 2023 World Championships.
Kyle Giersdorf, aka Bugha, won a whopping $3 million, the largest prize for a single esports player, when he won the first Fortnite World Cup in 2019. The Esports World Cup in Riyadh recently awarded $60 million in prize pool across different esports titles, making it the largest tournament in the world.
With such large viewership and prize pools, how did esports become what it is, and will it evolve further into something bigger? To answer this, we will have to look at its beginning.
A Brief History Of Esports
Rolling Stone magazine sponsored the first-ever video game tournament featuring Spacewar! in 1972. Since then, arcade games have been developed. Atari, a major video game developer and home computer company, held the first official and registered tournament in 1980, marking it as the first official esports event featuring Space Invaders.
As the 90s rolled in, companies like Nintendo conducted events like the Nintendo World Championships. Then, in 1996, QuakeCon finally made its tournament debut, pitting players against each other in Quake 1 and Doom games. Fighting games also surged in popularity during the 90s, and the Evolution Championship Series, or EVO, marked the first tournament for fighting games such as Street Fighter.
In 2011, Valve conducted the first International tournament for the video game Dota 2, with a grand prize of one million dollars. Fast-forward to 2024, and the Esports World Cup has combined the most popular esports titles in one event, making it the largest esports tournament in history.
Most Notable Moments in Esports
EVO Moment #37 - Daigo's Perfect Parry
EVO 2004 will go down as one of the best fighting games tournaments in history, not just because of its fantastic crowd but also because of two amazing gamers. Justin Wong and Daigo Umehara were toe-to-toe during the semi-finals of Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike when Daigo, playing as Ken, had his back up against the wall with just a sliver of health versus Justin's Chun Li. During that time, many avid fighting game fans thought Chun Li's Houyoku-sen was unparryable, considering it deals 17 hits.
Ready to deliver the final blow, Justin did Houyoku-sen, with many expecting Diago to lose. Diago then impressively parried each of the 17 hits perfectly without even having any chip damage. One hit connecting would immediately end the fight but Daigo did the unimaginable: he parried all 17 hits and countered it with Ken's very own Shippu Jinraikyaku special attack. The crowd went wild in amazement and they all knew that this was history being made before their eyes.
Diago did not manage to win the EVO 2004 but his perfect parry will always be considered to be one of the best moments in esports.
Shroud's Cloud9 Overtime During CEVO Season 5
Before Shroud became one of CSGO's most recognizable pro players, he started his career with Cloud9 back in 2014. One of the important tournaments that paved the way for the pro player was the CEVO Season 5 Professional tournament, which was eventually acquired by Gfinity in 2017.
In a finals match against Team iBUYPOWER, Cloud9 is down 14-15 with the hopes of putting the game on overtime to win a match in the series. Carefully and patiently, Shroud was able to lure the majority of Team iBUYPOWER into a choke point to tie the game 15-15.
Cloud9 wasn't able to win the tournament, falling to Team iBUYPOWER but Shroud's gameplay and tactics will always be remembered by the CSGO community.
11 Million Dollar Call - The International 2018
Dota 2 became the game with the biggest prize pool in esports history, with a whopping $40 million up for grabs during The International 2021. However, while the game had several iconic moments, OG's Cinderella story during The International 2018 will always be one of the best comebacks and wins in Dota 2.
It is game 4 of the grand finals and OG is down 1-2 against PSG.LGD. PSG winning this match will win them the most coveted Aegis of Champions and the $11 million grand prize. But Ceb from OG had a different plan, he brought the team together to make the comeback of their lives and turn the tides to win the game to push the series into game 5.
Just when the crowd thought that it was over for OG and almost everyone in his team was already dead from a prior team fight, Ceb jumped in using Axe and made the game-changing call that would etch their names forever in esports history. The same OG roster proceeded to win another Aegis the next year.
T1 and Faker’s Five-Time Worlds Championship Titles
Having two Dota 2 Aegis wins is one thing but having 5 League of Legends Worlds titles is in a different league (pun intended). Faker and T1 recently pulled off a mind-blowing feat: achieving 5 titles in League Of Legends' most prestigious esports tournaments.
Their journey to the 5th title wasn't easy. While the team and Faker had a great run during 2013-2016, they fell off from 2017 until 2022. Several roster changes and missed victories plagued the team but Faker bounced back by helping T1 secure another Worlds championship in 2023. Just last month, the team won their 5th Worlds title against Bilibili Gaming with a nail-biting series result of 3-2.
From their impressive run during the early years of the organization to falling out and having a huge comeback with two consecutive Worlds wins, T1 is set to create more League of Legends history as esports grows bigger with the Esports World Cup.
Esports Today and Tomorrow
With growing popularity, viewership, and prize pools, esports will continue to grow bigger for the years to come. In a forecast made by Statista, the global esports will have a projected revenue of $5.9 billion by the end of 2029. Many competitive titles across different gaming platforms are also entering the esports scene. This opens esports to many various audiences such as mobile gamers and other demographics.
The 2024 Esports World Cup had the largest combined prize pool in history, with $62.4 million. Whether this amount will grow in next year's iteration of the Esports World Cup is still unknown, but having that amount of prize money across different esports titles and bringing in the best esports organizations all over the world can be taken as a good sign that esports is heading in a positive and lucrative direction.
With several sponsors taking an interest in esports and how the Esports World Cup aims to elevate and celebrate esports as a whole, tournaments and competitions all over the world will continue to rise. New esports starts will make their debut and history will continue to be made.
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