Get in the Game

Chapter 7Good Luck Having Fun: The Rise of Esports

The beginning of esports is less well agreed‐upon than the proper casing (to be clear, it is “esports,” lowercase) but not quite as contentious as the debate around whether it is a sport. Some have argued that the origination date is closer to 1942, when pinball machines with flippers (i.e., human skill) were introduced.¹ While we'll rely on the more conventionally accepted start at the 1972 Spacewars! tournament at Stanford University, this still represents a considerable span of time for the development of a phenomenon that most view as only recently emergent. Like many new forms of media, extreme levels of hype were soon to follow—depending on the headlines one reads or the pundits one believes, you're equally likely to evaluate esports as the biggest opportunity in business, or mere puffery. As with so many things, the truth is somewhere in between, and more structured views of its evolution are the first necessary steps towards a more informed, and less hyperbolic, view.

Much like our foray into the history of gaming, our purpose here is not an exhaustive history so much as identifying the pivotal and business‐critical moments that propelled the phenomenon of esports towards the wider cultural acceptance it enjoys today. Along the way, our focus will be less an exhaustive accounting of every pivotal business deal, team, or personality, so much as extracting broader meaning applicable to how one should view and integrate ...