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Special thanks Guillaume Benoit (Trainer @ Dsksupinfogame)
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ContentsIntroduction .................................................................................................................................................. 4
Lets talk about some major tournaments happening now ......................................................................... 5
WCG .......................................................................................................................................................... 5
Dreamhack ................................................................................................................................................ 5
MLG ........................................................................................................................................................... 6
ESWC ......................................................................................................................................................... 6
Lets talk about some major companies producing gaming peripherals ...................................................... 7
Razer ......................................................................................................................................................... 7
Steel Series ................................................................................................................................................ 7
Cooler Master ........................................................................................................................................... 7
How big is it? ................................................................................................................................................. 8
Currently famous spectator sport games. .................................................................................................... 9
Starcraft 2.................................................................................................................................................. 9
Dota 2 ........................................................................................................................................................ 9
Counter Strike ......................................................................................................................................... 10
League of Legends................................................................................................................................... 10
How important is it for the games? ............................................................................................................ 11
The connection of Peripherals and Spectator Sport ................................................................................... 11
Personnel opinion ....................................................................................................................................... 14
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................... 15
Bibliography ................................................................................................................................................ 16
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Introduction
E-Sports A term that entered the gaming industry around 12 years back. What is E-sport? Electronic
sports comprises the competitive play of video game with professional gamers involved ;lets go back to
1980 when Atari hosted The Space Invaders Tournament. It attracted more than 10,000 participants.
This was when competitive gaming was established. It was followed by Video Game Masters
Tournament and later World Championships held by Nintendo in 1990 and then 1994. December 10
1993 saw the release of Doom introducing Multi-player death match games with introduction of
newsgroups, chatrooms resulting in birth of online competitive gaming.
Quake released in 1996 and the co-creator John Carmack promised his Ferrari 328 GTS convertible to
the winner Dennis Fong aka Thresh. Dennis was known as Michael Jordan of video games
In the year 2000, the first World Cyber Games event was held in Seoul, Korea. There were competitions
forQuake III Arena,StarCraft,FIFA 2000, andAge of Empires II: the Age of Kings. The competition
initially had 174 competitors from 17 different countries with a total prize purse of $20,000. In 2006, the
prize purse had risen to $462,000, and the event had grown to 9 different competitions and 700
qualified participants from 70 different countries.
Today E-sport is among the fastest growing industries. The winners are role-models for the people
playing the games.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Cyber_Gameshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seoul,_Koreahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quake_III_Arenahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quake_III_Arenahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quake_III_Arenahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarCrafthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarCrafthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarCrafthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_2000http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_2000http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_2000http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Empires_II:_The_Age_of_Kingshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Empires_II:_The_Age_of_Kingshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Empires_II:_The_Age_of_Kingshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Empires_II:_The_Age_of_Kingshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_2000http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarCrafthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quake_III_Arenahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seoul,_Koreahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Cyber_Games7/29/2019 Thesis Final Avichal Singh F2 25thApr 2012 Final
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Lets talk about some major tournaments happening now
WCG
Wcg started off in 2000 and this is the description on their website.
The World Cyber Games is the worlds first Cyber Game Festival, designed to build a healthy cyber
culture.
The best gamers around the world gather into different cities to share the excitement and fun of the
game tournaments.
To lead the development of the digital entertainment culture by promotion harmony of humankind
through e-sports and its embodiment in the Cyber Culture Festival.
WCG is a comprehensive Digital Culture Festival, where language and cultural Festival barriers are
stripped away, and international exchange and harmony are promoted through extensive events
including tournaments, conferences, and exhibitions.
The tournament has been a vast success and other organizers have looked down to WCG in the past
following years.
78 countries participated in WCG 2008. The event lasted for only 4 days with 800 participants. Each and
every year WCG is successfully hosted. The show is streamed online for 4 days straight on WCG tv.
WCG is for now the most successful and famous E-Sport.
Dreamhack
Dreamhack boasts to be worlds largest computer festival. It holds the world record for the worlds
largest LAN party and computer festival and also held the record for worlds fastest Internet Connection
for a couple of years. There record was broken by worlds second largest LAN event The Gathering .
Talking of achievements in 2007 Dreamhack received a Diploma of honor from the municipality of
Jonkoping for being important to business, education and society of the local community. In winter 2011
they had a total number of 20,984 participants in the event of 72 hours.
The tournament can be viewed on Swedish National TV. The total number of viewers was over 1.6
million which is another record. The total prize money was 1 million SEK
Dreamhack started in 1994 with just 40 participants.
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MLG
Major League Gaming was founded in 2002 in NorthAmerica. It has been broadcasted on television,ESPN.COM. And other broadband sites. MLGs aim is to elevate computer and console game
tournaments to viable competive and spectator events. They currently hold games for Xbox 360, PC and
PS3.
ESWC
Starting in 2003 ESWC is a Lan event which has had a total prize of 1,721,000 from 2003 to 2010.
In 2003 ESWC had 150,000 players out of which 358 qualified for the finals. The total prize money was
156, 00.
In 2010 ESWC had a prize purse of214,500.
ESWC has a medal tally being followed since 2003 in which currently France, United States and South
Korea are the top three teams.
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Lets talk about some major companies producing gaming peripherals
RazerMeanwhile the market of gaming found a new branch gaming peripherals in 1999, Razera company
marked for its gaming products released Razer Boomslang. This marked the entry of gaming peripherals
with professional gaming in 2000. Professional gamers used these Gaming devices or say promoted
them at the very beginning. Other gamers saw this and started using it. And to their satisfaction it
turned out pretty good.
Razers tagline goes For gamers, By Gamers. All the products are made out of surveys and observation
on gamers and there comfort with the gaming devices. Razer has constantly taken feedback from the
gamers. A recent poll at facebook asked the Left hand gamers if they wanted Left handed Razer Naga
to be manufactured.
Steel Series
Following in Razers footsteps Steel Series was established in 2001 in Denmark. There products vary
from keyboards, mice, gaming surfaces and softwares. The entrance of SteelSeries in the market
marked a competition between Razer and SteelSeries. Today they are among the major manufacturers
and distributors for gaming peripherals.
I have noticed at a local gaming caf how fellow gamers boast about the smoothness of their new mice
and them also theres a fight between people who choose SteelSeries over Razer.
This competition will only grow further and with more companies jumping in.
Cooler Master
Cooler Master is a hardware manufacturer since 1992. Cooler Master saw the increase in the gaming
market for gaming peripherals; this led to a new branch Cooler Master Storm which manufactures
gaming devices for gamers since 2008. This was known as Arming the gaming revolution.
CoolerMaster did enter the gaming peripherals scene late but they did score a good percentage of the
market. There products were different from what Razer and Steel Series deliver.
Just like Cooler Master more companies may follow up and start manufacturing more gaming
peripherals when there is room for them.
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How big is it?
Talking of growth of competitive gaming I will take WCG into account.WCG which has grown
12 X from its origin in just 10 years. When WCG started it had just 17 countries, but now it has some 70
countries participating and the prize money is $462000 more than double from $20,000. I can show
more of these numbers.
WCG compromised of only 5 games in 2000, winning prizes of total $200,000 with 174 participants from
17 countries and only PC platform.
Currently WCG has 10 games, winning prize of more than $ 350, 00 with more than 500 participants and
about 60 countries. In 2009 the winning prize was $500, 00 and the participants reached 800 in WCG
2008 with 78 countries participating. Expanding to 78 countries in just few years has been a major
achievement for WCG. The tournament definitely proved that there can be a large number of people
who want to see how the best players in the game actually play. Live streaming through the internet
was available throughout the tournament.
A recent article at PCworld highlighted how big is the e-sport going to be in 2011
http://www.pcworld.com/article/214432/2011_the_year_of_esports.html
The article features an interview with a e-sport commentator MarcusDjWheat Graham. The interview
talks about how Marcus was involved in the E-Sport business.
Another Interview is with Greg IdrA fields. A professional Starcraft II player for Team Evil Geniuses. He
talks how the game Starcraft II is his full time job.
Wikipedia lists of total 22 International Professional leagues happening around the world for now.
All these tournaments are a proof of the growing industry for E-sport.
Back in the time people used to joke about that no one can make money with throwing a ball around.
Now we know how far Basketball has gone. E-sport is the future.
Major teams participation in E-sports
Fnatic is a team participating in Counter Strike, COD4, Dota 2, Starcraft 2, League of Legends, Halo and
Stracraft 2. They currently compromise of approximate 35 professional players. Fnatic has been
sponsored by SteelSeries and the team uses all the products made by SteelSeries.
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Currently famous spectator sport games.
Starcraft 2Coming back to gaming as a spectator sport I need to give an example to prove it. In Korea the
government provides 300 licenses to Starcraft players termed under professional. A recent article on
Cracked.com mentioned facts about Starcraft.
Starcraft is a career in Korea. In Korea there are 12 professional Starcraft team with top players having a
six figure salary. An average professional gamer makes more than an average Korean. In 2005 a total of
120,000 people gathered in a stadium. Even the Korean Air Force started their own team so that the
young men wont be disappointed while playing joining the Air-Force.
Another fact is half of Starcraft (4.5 million out of 9.5 million) were sold in South Korea. There are an
estimated total 3.6 million active players of Starcraft 2.
Starcraft II is one big chunk of E-sport for the current time.
Dota 2
Recently Valve launched Dota 2 beta directly off with a tournament compromising of prize money more
than worth $1 million which is the biggest cash prize tourney for MOBAS ever (Until their competitors
League of Legend followed in with a tournament with worth $5 million as prize money) .Launching the
game with a tournament of this big scale Valve made a lot of news which resulted in free advertisementfor the game
The tournament was called The International which featured 16 of worlds best Dota teams competing
against each other. The winning team NaVi from Ukraine took the grand prize of $1 million and the
runner ups EHOME from china were rewarded with $250,000. These 16 teams were the best in the
business. This resulted in fans of Dota being drawn into live stream where they could see each and
every match live on there browser. Average 150, 000 players were watching the stream at any given
point of time. Dota 2 was just in closed beta at this particular time. Yes Valve did release a trailer like all
other games. But starting off with a tournament which compromises the best teams from around the
globe and big money acted like catalyst for the hype that was being created for the game. A competitor
League of Legends saw this as incoming threat and also as an ideal marketing strategy. League of
Legends conducted a series of tournaments which had total prize money of $5 billion. The average
estimated no. of players for the tournament was 147, 000 at any given time.
Well Dota2 is sure going to make some new records in the near future and others will follow.
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As of a personnel view, I myself watched the stream for at least 40 minutes. Apart from watching the
amazing display of the skills by these professional players I also wanted to play the game as soon as
possible. The tournament turned out to be a great success, there was discussion regarding the look of
the game, the prize money, the teams, characters in the game etc. All this created so much hype for the
game that Valve didnt have to do any advertising for the game. Almost all MOBA gamers know what
dota 2 now is.
Counter Strike
Coming to a different genre from Dota 2, Counter strike has been around for competitive gaming since
11 years. This FPS game was included in WCG in 2001. Counter Strike is a game where people who play
it love watching it too. The games are short and that is what keeps the spectators tugged in. Talking of
the spectator sport involved in an action shooter like Counter strikehttp://www.hltv.orgis the biggest
streaming website for the game and its sequels. Info like Number of Teams, top players,no. of people
spectating the games is easily available on the website. The site has developed itself and you can alsosee the info like what maps the current teams have been winning or what are the favorite maps of the
players and you can even download old replays of the games known as Demo. The site is the best
example for spectator stats for Counter strike.
League of Legends
After Dota 2 announced their tournament The International where prize money of $1 million was put
on for the winner. League of Legends a competitor to Dota 2 announced a season two prize of $5
million. League of Legends recently went past World of Warcraft in terms of record of most number of
active players for any game in the world. The $5 million prize made the scene more competitive.
League of Legends streamed the full tournament online.
The competition between Dota 2 and League of Legends has boosted the E-Sport in all terms. The
gamers from both the games now expect something bigger happening after one of the games have
organized an event.
This kind of competitions in E-sport where winning prize of millions is thrown in just to increase the
competition of the game tells us how one gaming company can affect others.
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How important is it for the games?Starcraft II came after 12 year of release of Starcraft I. Over the years Starcraft established a humongous
audience for Starcraft in E-sport and it boosted the numbers in terms of sales and professional gamers
when Starcraft II was released. Infact Starcraft is now so big that it can standalone apart from all the
other E-Sport and still be as famous it is.
Counter Strike 1.6 is still played even after 12 years of release. This is only because the game has been
involved in E-Sport throughout the years. The game was featured in WCG for all the 12 years and has
been since dominating the E-Sport scene started. It could be possibly the game which would have the
largest amount of players throughout the world. If we combine all those Local Cafs I bet CounterStrike
is more often played than other E-Sport.
As I stated above regarding League of Legends and Dota 2, they are in competition with each other andan event that happens for Dota 2 will affect the next event for League of Legends. This only leads to
promoting E-sport and helping more and more money being involved into games.
The connection of Peripherals and Spectator Sport
Now that we mentioned games which attract a lot of spectator sport like Counter Strike, Dota 2 and
Starcraft 2 now lets talk about the connection between them.
As I said earlier in the year 1999 Razer started the market of gaming peripherals with the introduction of
Razer mice named Boomslang.which started off the market for gaming devices in the Industry. Razer
came up with various products like Viper and Diamondback in 2004, Copperhead in 2005, Death adder
in 2006 etc. Companies like Steel Series and Cooler Master soon followed in. This resulted in products
like Gaming Mice, Keyboards, and Headsets, earphones, Mouse mats and even gaming speakers made in
the last 8 years by all these 3 major companies. Most of these were used for First Person Shooters -
All this was happening at the same time when Major tournaments like WCG were at their peak of their
audience. And it is still increasing in numbers in terms of revenue, players, prize money, etc.
Top players have used these mice, headsets in all the tournaments mentioned above which makes other
players see and buy it. The market expands in a similar fashion. I have personnely used these accessories
and I must say they are made in-order to maximize the experience of the player. I shall take Razer
Naga as an example for how it differentiates from common mice. Released in 2009 Naga was a mouse
built for playing MMOs and RPGs. The mouse has 17 buttons where a special action can be attached to
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each of them. The mice has some 5600 DPI whereas a normal mice would have just 500 -600 DPI. The
mice can also store info (which is profiles of the players) with 64 kb inbuilt memory.
A hardcore gamer would any day prefer Razer Naga over a normal Mice.
Somewhat same kind of information would be delivered if I compare a gaming headgear to a normalone.
All this Information has led to widespread use of gaming devices throughout the word. And now I hardly
see anyone who is playing professionally using a normal mice or headset.
The industry has evolved accordingly by the feedback received by the gamers.
Over the past years Razer and Steel Series have been releasing products based on the games that are
being released. You can find Razer Naga in World of Warcraftedition. A Razer Deathadder Dragon age
2 edition and a Razer Imperator Battlefield 3 edition.
Some of the Razer Mats which signify different games. Most of these games are competitive games.
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Some of SteeSeries products which signify different games and also professional teams.
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The products that you see above not only promote a game/team but also make gamers buy the product
just because they support/like that particular game.
The usual sponsors for the gaming teams are the companies like Razer, Steelseries etc and alsohardware companies like mSi and Eizo. The teams are growing day by day and so does the sponsors this
will result in more companies being attached to the E-sport scene. Which eventually results in the
market growing bigger and bigger.
Today almost anyone who plays any of the above mentioned games knows how big the scene could be if
they become good at that particular game. Due to E-sport professional gaming is a career now. It may
not apply for each and every country but it is surely growing. A good Starcraft player earns a lot just
because of Professional gaming.
Most gamers today can turn gaming into a career once they get really good at it and by turning ti a
career it does not mean that one should only play games, one can be a commentator or into the
management staff for a event(which is a very hard task) or even a translator. E-Sport has opened new
job opportunities for the masses.
Personnel opinionI have been a player of Counter Strike: Source for over 4 years. I had myself joined a professional team
and had participated in Local tournaments and as well International tournaments (only once).
I had myself used gaming peripherals and I must say that once I was used to the game CS then I decided
to buy myself a gaming mice and it greatly boosted my performance. I have not taken part in any majortournament as the scene in India for E-sport is yet to be developed. But anyway I had first-hand
experience, at many places I have noticed failure of management which shows how important event
management could be for E-sport.
A recent failure In India was India gaming Carnival they promised winning prizes of worth Rs 1.5 cr but
utterly failed to deliver as managers. Many games got cancelled and many international teams like
Moscow 5 were pissed off at the management and the organizers. Such incidents only bring shame to a
country and should be avoided at all cost. Management is the key to organize any tournament.
In my college my friends play Il-2 a flight simulation. Most of the times we have good matches we record
them and then we watch them later to see some epic dog fight between two of our comrades.
If ever there would be game based on flight simulation with extreme skill required I am sure that I would
be one of the people viewing it.
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Conclusion
E-sport is growing. It is growing Big. There already half-a-dozen articles over the net which site that E-
Sport is the future. Moreover the events have been successful over the years and in terms of revenue
and each and every number.
This will only grow further with more tournaments being organized and more gamers being added
everyday and more companies joining in to produce Gaming Peripherals.
All this research has invoked me to stick to the news of E-sports and revolution in design for Gaming
peripherals. The companies are surpassing the boundaries of development and now they are coming up
with better and better products.
Events like Dreamhack and the gathering are in competition are to compete against each other.
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Bibliography
www.cracked.com -info for Starcraft II
www.wiki.com -info
www.google.com -info
www.fnatic.com -team info
www.steelseries.com -device info
www.razer.com -device info
www.kotaku.com -facts
http://www.cracked.com/http://www.cracked.com/http://www.wiki.com/http://www.wiki.com/http://www.google.com/http://www.google.com/http://www.fnatic.com/http://www.fnatic.com/http://www.steelseries.com/http://www.steelseries.com/http://www.razer.com/http://www.razer.com/http://www.kotaku.com/http://www.kotaku.com/http://www.kotaku.com/http://www.razer.com/http://www.steelseries.com/http://www.fnatic.com/http://www.google.com/http://www.wiki.com/http://www.cracked.com/