The Origins of ESport
Competitive, organized video gaming has evolved from a five-man event for a Rolling Stone subscription to tournaments with prizes worth tens of millions of dollars (and as many viewers). The Verge reports that Dota 2's The International 2019 invited the world's best players to a tournament with a $34.3 million crowdfunded prize pool. CNBC claimed that the "League of Legends" World Championship finals in South Korea drew around 100 million unique viewers less than a year before that competition. In comparison, the Super Bowl the previous year drew slightly more than 98 million viewers. When Did Esports First Appear? Stanford University staged the inaugural video game competition in 1972. The "Intergalactic Spacewar Olympics" featured five pupils, with the victor earning a year's subscription to Rolling Stone. Spacewar was the first commercially accessible arcade game, and others quickly followed in its wake until Space Invaders dominated the market. It...