Mark Oakley looks at how gaming has gone from the bedroom to the arena
What were you doing on Sunday 29th March 2015? Personally, I was most likely keeping an eye on my two kids, trying my best to stop them from arguing. Again. Perhaps you were enjoying a Sunday roast, or perhaps you were playing some games on your PC, or maybe even working.
Four young men in Los Angeles were playing some games on that very Sunday. They were also working, in a way, earning a joint prize of $400,000 for their efforts.
Welcome to the world of e-sports.
The men in this particular instance were members of Team Denial, a pro team backed by an international professional gaming organisation based in the United States. Denial eSports has sponsored teams in various pro gaming events across the globe, with the line-up of players changing as and when required. Denial eSports has been putting forward teams for various gaming events for a few years now, taking in titles including Halo, League of Legends and, in this latest victory, Call of Duty.
The exact location of this big win was the Call of Duty World Championships, held over a long weekend in Los Angeles, and 32 teams were competing against each other for a shot at that grand prize. Team Denial’s backstory is much like the others in attendance that day. The only difference is that on this occasion, Denial won.
This is a world where button mashing, quick-thinking and teamwork really does win the day. For all those people who told you that sitting in front of your computer for hours on end did you no good, Team Denial and the other e-sports outfits are the counter argument. Events are now streamed on the internet and televised over in the States. In many respects, professional gaming has become as big as many other sports. There are packed arenas, pulse-racing encounters and even big-name signings.
It’s also backed by real money. At the beginning of July, a Swedish media outlet bought ESL (the Electronic Sports League), the largest e-sports organisation in the world, for a not insubstantial €78 million, giving it a majority stake in its financial holdings. In the first acquisition of its kind by a traditional media company, this marks a significant step in the continuing recognition of e-sports as a major industry.
According to community website e-Sports Earnings, this year has recorded $19.2m in prize money and rising so far, and the top-earning player of the year has earned over $288,000. In total, recorded prize money for e-sports events stands at over $133m.
All this money rolling about the place begs the question: how did e-sports become such a big deal?
Not Just A Game
E-sports is defined at dictionary.com as “competitive tournaments of video games, especially among professional gamers”. The preserve of professional gamers, we’re talking about people making money from playing games. And these gamers are young, sometimes teenagers.
Competitive, professional gaming really took off with the rise of broadband internet, as organisations such as America’s Major League Gaming took note of the financial opportunities that gaming provided. Organisations like the MLG and the Electronic Sports League saw the vast potential of the gaming marketplace, a potential which has only further increased as technology has improved beyond recognition from those early days of pro gaming.
The Electronic Sports League is arguably the biggest reason why e-sports has developed at the scale it has, certainly outside of America. This oldest e-sports league in the world is self-styled by digital entertainment company and holding company for the ESL, Turtle Entertainment, as the global e-sports leader. With over five million registered gamers, over a million teams and millions and millions of games played, it’s fair to say that the ESL is a major, major player in pro gaming circles.
Outside of the work put in by the tournament organisers and sponsors themselves, the industry needed a platform to have the gaming seen by a wider audience. Step forward Twitch. When it was launched in 2011, its dedication to live game streaming meant that gaming tournaments have helped its own popularity to grow alongside it. By reaching a ready and willing audience, e-sports have simply grown from strength to strength.
It’s undoubtedly more of a phenomenon in Asia and the United States, but while we’ve taken a while to catch up, we have also recognised the need to take it seriously here in the UK.
Gfinity Steps Up
Gfinity has become a big name in UK e-sports since it converted a section of Fulham Broadway’s Vue Cinema into a dedicated 600-person e-sports arena earlier this year.
Since March, Gfinity has been running its 2015 Championship with streaming of the gaming action featured on Twitch and at the Major League Gaming online channel. With a total prize fund of over $500,000 for the full calendar of events, this major competition will culminate in the end of season finale in September, and it’s become a hugely popular season, with over 30m online views across 25 countries at its halfway point.
More recently, the Arena has begun its hosting of the Call of Duty EU Pro League season, mimicking a similar event held for American gamers and pitting eight of the best Call of Duty teams in Europe against each other.
The introduction of the Gfinity Arena was a huge step for take-up of pro gaming in the UK, and it’s further proof of our increased recognition of just how far gaming has come in recent years.
Where Do I Sign Up?
If you’re interested in professional gaming, there are some fairly obvious but very important points to consider.
Professional gaming is very much like any sport. You’ll first have to pick your game, then get to know it inside out, and study and practise like never before. This isn’t for the keen gamer who enjoys playing every evening; this is for the kind of gamer who enjoys learning the subtleties of the game, learning its intricacies and tricks, knowing the very make-up of the game. This is for real money, and it’s a short career – typically three or four years. For those who make it, though, the rewards can be great.
You’ll also need to find a team, as this is a team sport. You can go into events as a solo free agent or with a ready-made or partially made team of your own. Either way, you won’t get anywhere on your own.
As for where to sign, you could register your interest at the ESL website – play.eslgaming.com/uk. Pick the league you want to play in and sign up. If you want to register a team of you and your mates, get all of them to sign up and register for whatever league you want to play in. From there, it’s a case of playing in various ‘Ladders’ or amateur tournaments and honing your skills. Gain exposure within the community and get online, and you might be lucky enough to be contacted by a pro team. Essentially, as a free agent, it’s all about putting yourself out there and using the online community and the likes of YouTube and social media to showcase your gaming skills.
In terms of financial rewards, while the big tournaments do indeed pay big, there are lots of other tournaments still offering decent prizes within the major e-sports leagues. For example, here in the UK the ESL UK Premiership for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and League of Legends is a competition open to all UK residents with a competitive qualifying structure to get yourself on board. The event will be streamed live on Twitch, and the prize pot is £10,000, which is not too shabby.
Away from the ESL, you can also take part in Gfinity’s line-up of tournaments by signing up on its website at www.gfinity.net. With over 100 online tournaments every month, there are cash prizes to be won if you’re good enough.
As for getting big sponsorship, that’s really again a case of getting good at it and getting your name out there. Bottom line is that sponsors will come calling if you and your team make waves in the gaming world. The more noise you’re making, the more likely you’re going to be heard. Play lots, win big, work your way up the community and then maybe you’ll be in with a chance.
Just be aware, it might not be all sunshine and roses. It’s really, really difficult to get truly, competitively great at gaming. As in any sport, long hours and the pressures of remaining competitive are par for the course.
The Games And The Stars
In terms of the games that are most often played, there’s very much a common theme. Shooters, such as Call of Duty and CounterStrike, take place alongside multiplayer online battle arena titles, such as the frighteningly popular League of Legends and more recently Dota 2.
Dota 2 has become a very big deal indeed, with prize money for this year’s ‘The International’ event sitting at a ridiculous $15m – Valve has smartly used crowdfunding of a compendium of in-game items to build up the pot. The tournament itself will be taking place this August in Seattle and will see 16 invited teams do their stuff on the big stage.
Some of those teams will include Europe’s Team Secret, topping the Dota 2 league table at the time of writing and recent winners of a major ESL Dota 2 tournament in Frankfurt.
Team Invictus is another big name in Dota 2 circles, having won the $1m prize pot in 2012. The individual rosters of these teams change over time, but Team Invictus still has some of the big players in the game, including ‘BurNIng’ Zhilei Xu, described as one of the best, most experienced Dota 2 gamers in the world with several awards to his name.
In League of Legends, Faker is a name that is revered the world over. The 19-year-old Korean became a legend himself when he was featured in ESPN’s first ever e-sports issue of its magazine. He has dominated the sport in recent years, becoming a global e-sports phenomenon in his own right.
Then there’s Manuel ‘Grubby’ Schenkhuizen, a Dutch e-sports icon who has won multiple Warcraft 3 world championships in becoming one of most famous pro players.
E-sports Scandals
Just like in other sports, e-sports hasn’t been without its fair share of scandals.
In 2010, several players of StarCraft were found guilty of fixing matches for financial gain. They were fined and banned from gaming.
Collusion has been found to happen elsewhere, most notably at the Major League Gaming Summer Championship in 2012, where some teams were told that they couldn’t have their prize money because of their colluding.
Over the years, Valve has been forced to ban various pro CounterStrike players found of fixing matches for financial gain. And in one of the most high-profile stories surrounding wrongdoing in League of Legends, South Korea gamer Min-Ki attempted suicide after he admitting to match fixing in 2014.