Daniel Mauleón - Esports Revolution

The Invictus Gaming, or iG, team members sat next to one another on a big stage in South Korea. Members had their own computers to play the video game. Across the stage in another booth was their in the game, Fnatic. Both teams were surrounded by fans filling a 50,000-seat stadium.

Invictus Gaming celebrates winning the International Dota 2 Championships.

The largest esports prize pool was for The International Dota 2 2018 Championships. The winners received more than $25 million combined, including more than $11 million to the first-place team.

The night started with an music performance. More than 200 million people watched the performanceonline and in person. There were fireworks, giant screens, and a dazzling trophy. Fans from around the world watched the teams compete for more than $800,000. Most were from China, rooting for iG, their countrys team.

iG continued their game play, eventually defeating their opponent and winning the tournament. The camera cut inside the player booth. Song Eui-jin, who uses the Rookie, was crying tears of joy. He was part of the first Chinese team to win the League of Legends World Championship. Even if youve never heard of it, the rise of esports is here.

Since the beginning of video games, players have always tried to be the best. In.

Many arcade games were not programmed with endings. Instead the game would loop until an error prevented the players from beating the level. These are often referred to as kill screens.

Video games made their way into living rooms with the Magnavox Odyssey console. Soon friends and families competed. Some players wanted to be the best in the country.

During the 1970s Atari became a leader in video games. In 1980 it held the first National Space Invaders Tournament. More than 10,000 players entered in cities across the U.S. were given two hours to play the game Space Invaders. The winner with the highest score received an Atari tabletop video game.

REALLY RETRO!

Magnavox released the first video-game console in 1972. The Magnavox Odyssey did not play sound and could only display black and white. To play, gamers twisted knobs on the controller. In 1977 the Atari 2600 was released. More than 25 million were sold. In 1985 the Japanese company Nintendo released its Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in the U.S. The console launched with 17 games, including the best-sellingSuper Mario Bros. By 1990, 30 percent of houses in the U.S. owned the NES.

As video games rose in popularity in the 1990s, competitive gaming did as well. Early competitions often centered around fighting games. Titles including Street Fighter and Tekken pitted two players against each other. Their characters would punch, kick, or shoot blasts of energy until they knocked out their opponent. To win, players memorized combos and practiced perfect timing.

The Evolution Championship Series (EVO) started in 1996. Originally it was called Battle by the Bay. Forty players gathered in an arcade in Sunnyvale, California. They competed in two different versions of Street Fighter II. At first, there were no prizes. But today, EVO players can compete for as much as $72,000. Now organizers select the most popular fighting games, from Super Smash Bros. to Soulcalibur, to play along with Street Fighter II.

Street Fighter II has eight different versions since its original release in 1991. The original World Warrior version sold 6.3 million copies.

Street Fighter V is a game in the Street Fighter series. It was released in 2016 .

The internet opened up many new avenues for the gaming community. It allowed players to share high scores, strategies, or events on forums. In the late 1990s, gamers used the internet to play each other online. In the 2010s players began games to let other fans watch from around the globe.

In May 1997 one of the earliest online tournaments began. It was called the Red Annihilation tournament. It tested the best players in Quake, a first-person shooter game played on the computer. During the first part of the tournament, about 2,000 players battled online. The top 16 players were invited to compete in person at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Atlanta, Georgia. The winner took home a Ferrari, originally owned by a cocreator of Quake.

Today, the Electronic Entertainment Expo is held in Los Angeles, California.

In the 1990s South Korea became the first country to have nationwide internet. This type of internet was much faster than previous versions. Afterward internet cafs appeared around the country. These cafs were filled with rent-by-the-hour computers. People used them to play games online.

In 2000 the South Korean government started an esports division called the Korean e-Sports Association, or KeSPA. The division works to grow esports by managing it within the country. Soon South Korea had dedicated channels just for watching esports. KeSPA also created , player and team resources, and more. Today many of the top players are South Korean. Thats likely because of how long esports has been a part of South Koreas culture.

a Star Craft esports tournament

The strategy game StarCraft was one of the most popular games in South Korea when it was released in 1998. The best StarCraft players competed in the Ongamenet Starleague, one of the earliest esports leagues.

In 2007 Justin Kan and some friends built a website, plugged webcams into his computer, and launched Justin.tv. The website featured a 24/7 live stream of his house. It also had a chat room. People watching the stream could talk to each other or to Justin. Eventually, he opened up the site so others could have their own streams.