Just as modern sports and basket betting have evolved from some games, the culture of so-called cybersports has emerged from video games. In the context of sports, recent public discussions in the world have focused on the cybersport sector, the development of which is described here in more detail.
Audience
The key audience for eSports is the 15-25 year olds, i.e. people who can become cyber sports players themselves and who are also consumers of gaming devices and other products promoted by big companies during championships.
Popularity worldwide
Currently, eSports is not recognised in all countries, yet most at least participate in eSports by hosting various championships. The largest markets for digital games are China, USA and Japan.
Tournament prizes are increasing annually in most games and cybersport itself is gradually being recognised as an official sport in an increasing number of countries. Additionally, many countries have introduced a separate tax on winnings from cyber sports events. But the cybersport rules are separate for each country or game. The rules for the championships are set by the organizers.
Cybersport disciplines
As in traditional sport, titles in cybersport are awarded in a variety of ‘disciplines’. The main disciplines are:
- First Person Shooter (FPS) – A cyber game known as a first-person shooter. These include Wolfenstein, Doom, CounterStrike, Call of Duty or multiplayer first person shooters such as Overwatch and PlayerUnknown’s Battleground. There are also third-person shooters, including Grand Theft Auto (GTA);
- Real-time strategy games (RTS). Famous names for these games include Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty, or various developments of Warcraft, Command & Conquer and StarCraft;
- Combat Arena (Moba) online multiplayer games. They are also sometimes listed under RTS. Defense of the Ancients in Dota 2 bets Vulkan Bet and League of Legends (LoL) are popular Moba games;
- Sports and racing simulators such as FIFA, Madden NFL, NBA2k or iRacing and Project Cars.
- Arcade games. The first arcade game competitions to be presented in the media were Starcade in the United States in the early 1980s.
It is not easy to categorize all video games unambiguously into these disciplines, as they can be played in a variety of modes. This difficulty also exists in the recently very successful game Fortnite, which belongs to the King’s Game genre.
Cybersports and video games in sports
In Fortnite not only the cheerleader “Take the L” was popularized by French national football team striker Antoine Griezmann, but also the “The Floss” dance that many F-youth kickers already perform after scoring a goal.
The game was published by US developer Epic Games, which has been owned by Chinese technology group Tencent since 2012. Tencent has since been regarded as the world’s top-selling video game developer.
Licenses from sports organizations such as the world football association FIFA, the National Hockey League (NHL) or the National Football League (NFL) are used by game producer Electronic Arts (EA), which is also listed on the stock exchange, like Tencent, for their respective sports simulators.
