Get in the Game

Chapter 6Multiplayer: An Introduction to Esports

Gaming in the more general sense has almost always been a social endeavor, and one where the socialization was shaped by competition. Some of the earliest known games, dating back as far as thousands of years ago, generally revolved around the concept of capturing game pieces from an opponent.¹ The first commercially successful electronic game, Pong, was likewise a competition between opponents. And while some of the most popular games to follow would occasionally pit the player against a computerized opponent, recorded high scores on these machines allowed for human opponents to measure themselves against each other in an asynchronous way. Importantly, the proliferation of arcade games in the 1970s introduced the norm of spectating video game play—teens would huddle around machines to compare skills while putting down a quarter to claim who was next in line.

In short, one shouldn't be terribly surprised that the professionalization of competitive video games, colloquially known as esports, has become a worldwide phenomenon. It was a bit of an inevitability—witnessing high levels of skill in any given endeavor is interesting in and of itself, but potentially more so when it is an area of personal interest. As video gaming becomes increasingly ensconced in popular culture, the interest in demonstrations of skill at the highest levels followed. The ludicrousness of the mere prospect of playing video games for a money became a fixation ...