Professional eSports Competitions and Players

What is professional eSports?

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The word professional eSports refers to electronic sports, competitive gaming or professional video games’ competition. It is an electronic platform that all professional game players could compete against each other, through video games. For instance, League of Legends, DOTA 2, StarCraft II, etc. The video games’ industry is quickly becoming more mature and popular around the world. There are more people would like to join this industry. The most of them become developers, live streamers or regular gamers, but some of them choose to play video games, as their professions and identified as professional eSports players. Unlike the traditional way of competitive sports, eSports does not require all players physically competed between each other. All the eSports players would join the competitions online, either individually or several players formed a team, against other teams.

Reasons to be Professional

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According to a journal article from the Business Insider, ‘Here’s why pro gaming is exploding in popularity’, the author has mentioned there are three main reasons that why more and more game players want to be professionals. Firstly, the barrier to entry is much lower than other sports. All you need to do for the preparation to become a pro gamer is a computer and the Internet connection. Then, after hundreds of hours of practice by sitting in front of the computers, any regular gamers would have the chance to become professionals. Secondly, the professional gaming industry would never lose its attractions by keeping refreshing its games. Even players have failed to become professionals in one game, they can still try other games. Thirdly, for most of the players, winning the final prize and honorable title would make them become famous and rich through the spreading on media, even at a young age. Therefore, more and more young gamers choose to pursue the dream of playing professional sports.

This effect is similar to media advertisement, in David Croteau and William Hoynes’s book, ‘The Business of Media: Corporate Media and the Public Interest’, they have mentioned ‘Advertisers also have a stronger preference for younger audiences’. Within the eSports competitions, sponsors are also advertisers, the title of champions, cash prize, and a variety of popular games, would always attract more and more young gamers to join this industry, and makes the total population of eSports grow steadily.

Examples of the World-Famous eSports Competitions

1. WCG (World Cyber Games)

 

 

 

 

 

(Photo from: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/World_Cyber_Games)

In 2001, the World Cyber Games (WCG) held their first event in Seoul, South Korea. In 2013, the last WCG event held in Kunshan, China. Then, it officially closed at 2014 due to its management and sponsors’ issue. Over the 12 years of the WCG history, there were over 30 video games that were played in professional competition. More than 800 pro players from 70 countries and regions around the world, joined the WCG tournaments over the years. However, only less than 100 pro-players and their teams have claimed their title of the ‘WCG World champion’. In addition, the slogan of the WCG is ‘Beyond the Game’. This is also my favorite slogan among all the professional competition events.

2. CPL (Cyber-athlete Professional League)

(Photo from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberathlete_Professional_League)

The eSports competition of Cyber-athlete Professional League (CPL) was founded at 1997 in Dallas, Texas. This professional eSports’ tournaments have always been considered as the ‘world first professional eSports league’. Although the CPL had officially announced its closing in 2008, it re-started operation in 2010 and changed the name to CAL, which refers to Cyber-Athlete Amateur League. Personally, this is my favorite eSports’ sign compares with other two signs. It used a gamer’s character with a headphone, a mouse and only three letters, CPL, to represent its meaning. According to Hall’s reading, ‘Language can use signs to symbolize, stand for objects, people and events’. Unlike the other signs, the three letters of CPL might confuse some players who are not familiar with it, however, it is not difficult to understand by recognize the symbols, such as the headphone and the mouse.

3. ESWC (Electronic Sports World Cup)

(Photo from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Sports_World_Cup)

The first ESWC (Electronic Sports World Cup) was founded in France in 2002. The founders contain 11 countries around the globe. Among its history, over 700 professional players from 60 countries have joined the ESWC tournament. Since 2011, over 3,000,000 dollars of cash prize has been provided to share among the champions of each game.

 New Media’s influence on Professional eSports

According to the introduction of eSports on Wikipedia, the earliest professional video game competition took place in October 1972. At that time, only a few of players would like to become professionals. Most of the people have no idea what professional eSports means. However, since the 21st century, the huge development of new media has brought professional eSports in front the publics. In the book ‘Games and Gaming: An Introduction to New Media’, the author Larissa Hjorth has mentioned ‘In the twenty-first century, it is indeed game studies where the new media models and practices are being explored.’ The huge developments of digital technologies, Internet connections, Wi-Fi, computers, Mobil phones, even TVs, such new media have provided a new platform and more chances, for regular gamers to become professional players.

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESports

Jacobs, Harrison. “Here’s why pro gaming is exploding in popularity.” Business Insider. Business Insider, 25 May 2015. Web. 09 Aug. 2017.

Croteau, David, and William Hoynes. The business of media: corporate media and the public interest. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press, 2007. Print.

Hall, Stuart. Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London, England, Sage, 1997.

Hjorth, Larissa. Games and gaming: an introduction to new media. Oxford: Berg, 2011. Print.

Paul Tassi (20 December 2012). “2012: The Year of eSports”. Forbes. Retrieved 15 August 2013.

Annotation:

Summarize: In this journal article, it is mainly talks about in 2012, the professional game industry had been through a huge fans-booming, and became even more popular. This article mentioned why there are more and more people has started to watch some professional competitions, and how those competitions became more and more attractive.

Contextualize: The author of this article is called Paul Tassi, a news contributors of internet and video games. The audience of this article could be each game players, who are interested to watch the eSports competitions. This article might not influential than the previous one. However, this is the article that particularly recorded the of 2012, which the eSprots competitions became really popular among the world video game industry.

Assess: The reason why I recommended this article, because I can easily found out some connections between my own topic and the group’s topic. It mentioned how the professional competitions has become popular, and why do more and more people started to like it.