99-493: ESL Gaming GmbH (formerly known as Electronic Sports League ) is a German esports organizer and production company that produces video game competitions worldwide. ESL was the world's largest esports company in 2015, and the oldest that is still operational. Based in Cologne , Germany , ESL has eleven offices and multiple international TV studios globally. ESL is the largest esports company to broadcast on Twitch . In 2022, it
198-671: A Dota 2 championship at Madison Square Garden Theater. That same month, ESL partnered with ArenaNet to produce ESL Guild Wars 2 Pro League, which was one of seven official ESL Pro Leagues. ESL held its 10th arena event in November 2015 at the SAP Center in San Jose, California . The event had over 10 million viewers on Twitch and was the largest Counter-Strike event in America at that time. ESL partnered with Activision for
297-423: A mind sport . Former ESPN president John Skipper described esports in 2014 as a competition and "not a sport". In 2013 on an episode of Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel the panelist openly laughed at the topic. In addition, many in the fighting games community maintain a distinction between their competitive gaming competitions and the more commercially connected esports competitions of other genres. In
396-509: A complaint by MDJS . In November 2021 1xBet's subsidiary company, 1хCorр MV, filed for bankruptcy in a Curaçao court after it refused to refund a group of gamblers represented by the foundation for curaçao gaming victims. The company was declared bankrupt in June 2022 but continued to operate. The individuals state that 1xBet structurally deniеs the legitimate wins of players with millions of euros in unpaid winnings. In January 2023, 1xCorp MV
495-659: A gaming magazine. It also rented out servers for game competitions. In 2015, ESL's Intel Extreme Masters Katowice was at the time, the most watched esports event in history. The event had more than 100,000 in attendance and Twitch viewership was over one million. In July 2015, Modern Times Group (MTG) bought a 74 percent stake in ESL from its parent company, Turtle Entertainment, for $ 86 million. That same month, ESL announced its participation in "esports in Cinema," which would broadcast live esports events to over 1,500 movie theaters across
594-700: A high score record-keeping organization. The organization went on to help promote video games and publicize its records through publications such as the Guinness Book of World Records, and in 1983 it created the U.S. National Video Game Team . The team was involved in competitions, such as running the Video Game Masters Tournament for Guinness World Records and sponsoring the North American Video Game Challenge tournament. A multicity tour in 1983,
693-424: A large market, the law raised concerns about the future of esports within the country. Labeling competitive video games as a sport is a controversial topic. Proponents argue that esports are a fast-growing "non-traditional sport" which requires "careful planning, precise timing, and skillful execution". Others claim that sports involve physical fitness and physical training, and prefer to classify esports as
792-833: A major championship event. As of 2020, ESL hosts three titles for the ESL Pro Tour: Counter-Strike , StarCraft II and Warcraft III . The two major championship events for those titles are IEM Katowice 2021 (for the three titles) and ESL One Cologne 2020 (for Counter-Strike only). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic , ESL One Cologne was held online in August 2020. In 2023, ESL Pro Tour hosted tournaments for three titles: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive , Dota 2 , and StarCraft II . For Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, key events include IEM Katowice 2023, IEM Spring 2023, IEM Dallas 2023, IEM Cologne 2023, and
891-606: A marketing stunt to promote their early arcade snake game Hustle in the United States, involving the "Gremlin Girls" who were a duo of professional female arcade players called Sabrina Osment and Lynn Reid. The pair travelled across 19 American cities, where players could challenge them in best-of-three matches for a chance to win money. The duo were challenged by a total of 1,300 players, only about seven of whom managed to beat them. The golden age of arcade video games
990-576: A maximum two-year ban from ESL events. ESL worked with publisher Valve in August 2015 for ESL One Cologne 2015 at the Lanxess Arena where 16 teams competed in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. ESL implemented randomized drug testing at the event. All tests came back negative. The tournament had over 27 million viewers, making it the largest and most-watched CS:GO tournament at the time. In October 2015, ESL held
1089-457: A medal event at the 2022 edition ; esports around games such as Hearthstone , Starcraft II , and League of Legends were presented as an exhibition event at the 2018 Asian Games as a lead-in to the 2022 games. The 2019 Southeast Asian Games included six medal events for esports. Since 2018, World Sailing has held an eSailing World Championship that showed a main sports federation embracing esports. The Virtual Regatta race shadowing
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#17327728633981188-565: A new partnership with their National Olympic Committee . The proposal was ultimately approved by a unanimous vote on 23 July 2024. A number of games are popular among professional competitors. The tournaments which emerged in the mid-1990s coincided with the popularity of fighting games and first-person shooters , genres which still maintain a devoted fan base. In the 2000s, real-time strategy games became overwhelmingly popular in South Korean internet cafés , with crucial influence on
1287-582: A paid television model renamed GIGA II from June 2006 to autumn 2007. The French channel Game One broadcast esports matches in a show called Arena Online for the Xfire Trophy. The United States channel ESPN2 hosted Madden NFL competitions in a show called Madden Nation from 2005 to 2008. DirecTV broadcast the Championship Gaming Series tournament for two seasons in 2007 and 2008. CBS aired prerecorded footage of
1386-547: A potential method to legitimize esports. A summit held by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in October 2017 acknowledged the growing popularity of esports, concluding that "Competitive 'esports' could be considered as a sporting activity, and the players involved prepare and train with an intensity which may be comparable to athletes in traditional sports" but would require any games used for
1485-529: A search for victims of 1xBet in Russia. The company has organized a service for filing applications to the investigative committee. They filed a lawsuit against the owner of the Russian version of 1xBet – bookmaker 1xStavka. In 2023, Morocco's National Judicial Police Brigade (BNPJ) opened a mass investigation into 1xBet among other gambling websites on charges of operating an illegal gambling enterprise following
1584-711: A surge in participation by professional gamers and spectators. By the 2010s, esports was a major part of the video game industry, with many game developers designing for and funding for tournaments and other events. Esports first became popular in East Asia , particularly in China and South Korea (which first licensed professional players in 2000) but less so in Japan , whose broad anti-gambling laws prohibit professional gaming tournaments. Esports are also popular in Europe and
1683-498: A three-year contract, which will see the two companies invest US$ 100,000,000 in esports, throughout 2024. In 2022, it was announced that ESL and esports platform FACEIT were being acquired for a combined US$ 1.5 billion by Savvy Games Group (SGG), a holding company owned by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund . The ESL purchase is worth $ 1.05 billion, while the FACEIT deal is worth $ 500 million; both deals are expected to close in
1782-508: A tournament held by several video game publishers to award prizes to many players but with JeSU offering these exemption licenses to the top dozen or so players that emerge, allowing them to compete in further esports events. The Tokyo Olympic Committee has also planned to arrange a number of esports events leading up to the 2020 games. With the IOC, five esports events were set as part of an Olympic Virtual Series from 13 May to 23 June 2021, ahead of
1881-430: Is a form of competition using video games . Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, played individually or as teams. Multiplayer competitions were long a part of video game culture , but were largely between amateurs until the late 2000s, when the advent of online streaming media platforms, particularly YouTube and Twitch , enabled
1980-600: Is also thought that the high unemployment rate at the time caused many people to look for things to do while out of work. Instrumental to this growth of esports in South Korea was the prevalence of the Komany-style internet café / LAN gaming center , known as a PC bang . The Korean e-Sports Association , an arm of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism , was founded in 2000 to promote and regulate esports in
2079-558: Is an online gambling company licensed by Curaçao eGaming License. It was founded in 2007, is based in Cyprus, and licensed in Curacao. The organisation operates a franchise business model. Following revelations into the company's finances, it is not allowed to operate in a variety of countries including the US, UK, Russia, France and Spain. International arrest warrants have been issued for
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#17327728633982178-503: Is made up of two teams for research and implementation. AnyKey has researched and implemented a code of conduct, which aims to address an inclusion policy for esports events and online broadcasts and the harassment issues underrepresented populations face. It has also created and hosted women's tournaments. The two teams continue to research and implement inclusion in the gaming community. Esports Esports ( / ˈ iː s p ɔːr t s / ), short for electronic sports ,
2277-514: Is the civilized expression about this. If you have egames where it's about killing somebody, this cannot be brought into line with our Olympic values." Due to that, the IOC suggested that they would approve more esports centered around games that simulate real sports, such as the NBA 2K or FIFA series. The issues around esports have not prevented the IOC from exploring what possibilities there are for incorporation into future Olympics. In July 2018,
2376-816: Is the world's longest-running global esports tournament series. After DreamHack merged with ESL in 2020, the DreamHack Open CS:GO events were renamed to ESL Challengers, the DreamHack Masters events were discontinued. The StarCraft II events retained the DreamHack name. ESL created the ESL Wire Anti Cheat software to combat online cheating in the increasingly competitive field. In 2015, ESL enhanced its tournament software by integrating Wargaming's "Battle API" into its tournaments. The API makes player and game data available through
2475-653: The 2020-2021 Vendee Globe was the first online game believe to have in excess of 1,000,000 unique users Ahead of The International 2021 , which was originally set to take place in Stockholm in 2020, the Swedish Sports Confederation voted in June 2021 to deny recognition of esports as a sporting event, which jeopardized plans for how Valve had arranged the event in regards to travel visas for international players. Valve had tried to work with Sweden to accommodate players, but eventually rescheduled
2574-542: The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris were in discussions with the IOC and the various professional esports organizations to consider esports for the event, citing the need to include these elements to keep the Olympics relevant to younger generations. Ultimately, the organization committee determined esports were premature to bring to the 2024 Games as medal events, but have not ruled out other activities related to esports during
2673-518: The Commonwealth Games Federation announced that esports would be included in the 2022 Commonwealth Games as a pilot event, with the possibility of it being a medal event in the 2026 Games . The inaugural Commonwealth Esports Championship had separate branding, medals, and organization and included both men and women's Dota 2 , eFootball , and Rocket League events. As a follow-up to 2021's Olympic Virtual Series,
2772-653: The National Anti-Doping Agency and the World Anti-Doping Agency to institute an anti-drug policy. It was the first international esports company to enforce anti-doping regulations. Random tests for the drugs prohibited by the World Anti-Doping Agency were implemented for its events. Punishments for the use of performance-enhancing drugs range from reduced prize money and tournament points to disqualification and
2871-700: The Nintendo PowerFest '94 . There were 132 finalists that played in the finals in San Diego , California. Mike Iarossi took home 1st prize. Blockbuster Video also ran their own World Game Championships in the early 1990s, co-hosted by GamePro magazine. Citizens from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Chile were eligible to compete. Games from the 1994 championships included NBA Jam and Virtua Racing . Television shows featuring esports during this period include
2970-551: The Tokyo Olympic Games Committee for the 2020 Summer Olympics, four esports organizations have worked with Japan's leading consumer organization to exempt esports tournaments from gambling law restrictions. Takeo Kawamura , a member of the Japanese House of Representatives and of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party , led a coalition of ruling and opposing politicians to support esports, called
3069-586: The digital collectible card game (DCCG) genre since its release in 2014. While it is common for video games to be designed with the experience of the player in game being the only priority, many successful esports games have been designed to be played professionally from the beginning. Developers may decide to add dedicated esports features, or even make design compromises to support high level competition. Games such as StarCraft II , League of Legends , and Dota 2 have all been designed, at least in part, to support professional competition. 1xBet 1xBet
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3168-671: The eGames , was held alongside the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro , though this was not supported by the IOC. During the Eighth Olympic Summit in December 2019, the IOC reiterated that it would only consider sports-simulating games for any official Olympic event, but it would look at two paths for such games in the future: those that promoted good physical and mental health lifestyles, and virtual reality and augmented reality games that included physical activity. In
3267-441: The "Electronic Circus", was used to feature these players in live challenges before audiences, and draw more people to video games. These video game players and tournaments were featured in well-circulated newspapers and popular magazines including Life and Time and became minor celebrities at the time, such as Billy Mitchell . Besides establishing the competitive nature of games, these types of promotional events all formed
3366-568: The 1990s led to the foundation of the international Evolution Championship Series (EVO) esports tournament in 1996. Large esports tournaments in the 1990s include the 1990 Nintendo World Championships , which toured across the United States, and held its finals at Universal Studios Hollywood in California. Nintendo held a 2nd World Championships in 1994 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System called
3465-433: The 1xBet gaming platform is visited by more than 3 million registered users each month. In December 2023, 1xBet began offering Cameroonian bettors the option of receiving winnings in cash and placing bets online, offline, or choosing a hybrid option. The company provides multiple payment methods and betting markets to cater to different preferences and enhance the overall convenience for users. In March 2024, 1xBet reduced
3564-471: The 2007 World Series of Video Games tournament that was held in Louisville, Kentucky . The G4 television channel originally covered video games exclusively, but broadened its scope to cover technology and men's lifestyle, though has now shutdown. During the 2010s, esports grew tremendously, incurring a large increase in both viewership and prize money. Although large tournaments were founded before
3663-523: The 2015 World Championship hosted by the International Esports Federation , an esports panel of guests from international sports society discussed the future recognition of esports as a legitimate sport. Russia was the first country that classified "cybersport" as an official sport discipline on 25 July 2001. After a series of reforms in Russian sports, it was classified as a sport again on 12 March 2004. In July 2006, it
3762-744: The 2016 Call of Duty World League for the World League's Pro Division. In November 2015, ESL announced its acquisition of the E-Sports Entertainment Association (ESEA), promoters of the ESEA League , after previous collaborations: ESL uses the ESEA anti-cheat system for the ESL CS:GO Pro League. The ESEA platform is used for ESL events as well as offline finals. As of July 2016, ESL became a member of
3861-561: The 21st century, the number and scope of tournaments has increased significantly, going from about 10 tournaments in 2000 to about 260 in 2010. Many successful tournaments were founded during this period, including the World Cyber Games , the Intel Extreme Masters , and Major League Gaming . The proliferation of tournaments included experimentation with competitions outside traditional esports genres. For example,
3960-489: The API application. That same year, ESL released ESL Matchmaking which uses ESL's API to match competitors based on skill. Microsoft worked with ESL to create an Xbox app to use the ESL tournament system through Xbox Live on Xbox One in 2016. AnyKey is a diversity initiative created by ESL and Intel to include underrepresented members of the gaming community in competitions including women, LGBT people and people of color . AnyKey
4059-520: The Americas , which host regional and international events. The most common video game genres associated with esports are multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA), first-person shooter (FPS), fighting games , card , battle royales , and real-time strategy (RTS) games. Popular esports franchises include League of Legends , Dota , Counter-Strike , Valorant , Overwatch , Street Fighter , Super Smash Bros. and StarCraft . Among
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4158-748: The British shows GamesMaster and Bad Influence! ; the Australian game show A*mazing , where in the final round contestants competed in a video game face-off; and the Canadian game show Video & Arcade Top 10 . In the 1990s, many games benefited from increasing internet connectivity , especially PC games . Inspired by the fighting games Street Fighter II , Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting , id Software 's John Romero established competitive multiplayer in online games with Doom ' s deathmatch mode in 1993. Tournaments established in
4257-756: The ESL Pro Tour CS:GO in Sydney. For Dota 2, major tournaments include DreamLeague Season 19, DreamLeague Season 20, DreamLeague Season 21 and the Riyadh Masters. Notably, the Riyadh Masters is the third-largest esports tournament in terms of prize money, following the Fortnite World Championship and The International . ESL One refers to premier offline tournaments across a variety of games, like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2 , and are usually considered among
4356-524: The Esports Integrity Coalition (ESIC), a non-profit members' association to maintain integrity in professional esports. In 2017, ESL partnered with Mercedes-Benz for Hamburg DOTA 2 Major. In 2017, ESL partnered with Hulu to produce four esports series (Player v. Player, Bootcamp, Defining Moments and ESL Replay). In March 2021, ESL announced a partnership with 1xBet . On 28 April 2021, Intel and ESL renewed their partnership again in
4455-608: The French government started working on a project to regulate and recognize esports. The Games and Amusements Board of the Philippines started issuing athletic licenses to Filipino esports players who are vouched for by a professional esports team in July 2017. To help promote esports as a legitimate sport, several esports events have been run alongside more traditional international sports competitions. The 2007 Asian Indoor Games
4554-647: The Games. In September 2021, the Olympic Council of Asia announced eight esports games will officially debut as medal sports for the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou, China. In December 2021, the IOC confirmed its Olympic Virtual Series (OVS) will return in 2022. The first edition of the OVS which ran from 13 May to 23 June, featured nearly 250,000 participants and had more than two million entries. In January 2022,
4653-467: The German championship, began in 2002 and is the oldest esports league in existence. The ESL UK Premiership, another regional esports program, has been ESL's largest regional tournament since 2010. National Championships were established to spread local esports competition around the world. ESL National Championships were held for Battlefield 4 , Counter-Strike , Dota 2 , Halo , Hearthstone , Heroes of
4752-521: The IOC and the Global Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF) held a symposium and invited major figures in esports, including Epic Games ' Mark Rein , Blizzard Entertainment 's Mike Morhaime , and esports players Dario "TLO" Wünsch, Jacob "Jake" Lyon , and Se-yeon "Geguri" Kim , for these organizations "to gain a deeper understanding of esports, their impact and likely future development, so that [they] can jointly consider
4851-709: The IOC and the Singapore National Olympic Council held the inaugural Olympic Esports Week in Singapore in June 2023. Games featured at the event included: In June 2024, the IOC Executive Board announced the proposal to establish the Olympic Esports Games during the 142nd IOC Session held prior to the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, with the inaugural event to take place in 2025 at Saudi Arabia following
4950-516: The IOC announced the appointment of the organization's first ever head of virtual sport, tasked with the development of virtual sport for the global Olympic body, increasing the organization's engagement with gaming communities, and overseeing the Olympic Virtual Series, IOC's first licensed non-physical sports event. The inaugural series included virtual baseball, cycling, rowing, esailing and motorsports events. In February 2022,
5049-517: The Japan esports Union, or JeSU. Kawamura said that they would be willing to pass laws to further exempt esports as needed so that esports athletes can make a living playing these sports. So far, this has resulted in the ability of esports players to obtain exemption licenses to allow them to play, a similar mechanism needed for professional athletes in other sports in Japan to play professionally. The first such licenses were given out in mid-July 2018, via
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#17327728633985148-490: The Ministry stating that they anticipate over 2 million such people in this profession in five years. In 2013, Canadian League of Legends player Danny "Shiphtur" Le became the first pro gamer to receive an American P-1A visa , a category designated for "Internationally Recognized Athletes". In 2014, Turkey's Ministry of Youth and Sports started issuing esports licenses to players certified as professionals. In 2016,
5247-513: The Olympics fitting "with the rules and regulations of the Olympic movement". Another article by Andy Stout suggests that 106 million people viewed the 2017 Worlds Esports competition . International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach has noted that the IOC is troubled by violent games and the lack of a global sanctioning body for esports. Bach acknowledged that many Olympic sports originated from violent combat, but stated that "sport
5346-502: The September 2006 FUN Technologies Worldwide Webgames Championship featured 71 contestants competing in casual games for a $ 1 million grand prize. The popularity and emergence of online streaming services have helped the growth of esports in this period, and are the most common method of watching tournaments. Twitch , an online streaming platform launched in 2011, routinely streams popular esports competitions. In 2013, viewers of
5445-457: The Storm , Mortal Kombat , Smite , StarCraft II , World of Tanks , and Rainbow Six . On 15 September 2023, ESL announced that they would be ending all National Championships by the beginning of 2024. ESL Meisterschaft: Autumn 2023 was the final tournament to be played, which ended on 16 December 2023. The ESL Pro Tour is a year-round circuit that uses a ranking system for qualification to
5544-486: The company's three founders, one of whom reportedly died in Switzerland in 2023. Amid these controversies, the company changed its focus to Africa, South America and India. 1xBet is one of the world's largest online casinos, accepting bets on amateur sporting events, including children's sports, broadcast live on its website. The company has also accepted betting on cockfighting. Despite the controversial nature of
5643-555: The company, it is a sponsor of FC Barcelona until 2029 and Paris Saint-Germain until 2025. The company was founded in Russia by Roman Semiokhin, Dmitry Kazorin, and a former Russian intelligence agent named Sergey Karshkov (d. June 2023). By 2021, their company had made more than US$ 655 mln in illegal gambling. In March 2020, 1xBet confirmed the company's expansion into the Mexican market following its approval for an operational licence. The company also announced its plan to focus on
5742-414: The competition. In 2015, the first Esports Arena was launched in Santa Ana, California , as the United States' first dedicated esports facility. The global esports audience reached 662.6 million in 2020, and 921 million in 2022. In 2021, China announced a law which forbade minors from playing video games, which they described as "spiritual opium", for more than three hours a week. With China being
5841-505: The concept of direct, tournament-level competition between two players. Previously, video games most often relied on high scores to determine the best player, but this changed with Street Fighter II , where players would instead challenge each other directly, "face-to-face", to determine the best player, paving the way for the competitive multiplayer and deathmatch modes found in modern action games . The popularity of fighting games such as Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom in
5940-449: The country. Physical viewership of esports competitions and the scope of events have increased in tandem with the growth of online viewership. In 2013, the Season 3 League of Legends World Championship was held in a sold-out Staples Center . The 2014 League of Legends World Championship in Seoul , South Korea, had over 40,000 fans in attendance and featured the band Imagine Dragons , and opening and closing ceremonies in addition to
6039-680: The country. Minister of Culture, Sports, and Tourism Park Jie-won coined the term "Esports" at the founding ceremony of the 21st Century Professional Game Association (currently Korean e-Sports Association ) in 2000. " Evo Moment 37 ", also known as the "Daigo Parry", refers to a portion of a Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike semi-final match held at Evolution Championship Series 2004 (Evo 2004) between Daigo Umehara (playing Ken Masters ) and Justin Wong (playing Chun-Li ). During this match, Umehara made an unexpected comeback by parrying 15 consecutive hits of Wong's "Super Art" move while having only one pixel of vitality . Umehara subsequently won
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#17327728633986138-771: The creation of the Halo Championship Series and a prize pool of US$ 50,000. Both Blizzard Entertainment and Riot Games have their own collegiate outreach programs with their North American Collegiate Championship. Since 2013 universities and colleges in the United States such as Robert Morris University Illinois and the University of Pikeville have recognized esports players as varsity level athletes and offer athletic scholarships . In 2017, Tespa , Blizzard Entertainment's collegiate esports division, unveiled its new initiative to provide scholarships and prizes for collegiate esports clubs competing in its tournaments worth US$ 1 million. Colleges have begun granting scholarships to students who qualify to play esports professionally for
6237-399: The development of esports worldwide. Competitions exist for many titles and genres, though the most popular games as of the early 2020s are Counter-Strike: Global Offensive , Call of Duty , League of Legends , Dota 2 , Fortnite , Rocket League , Valorant , Hearthstone , Super Smash Bros. Melee , StarCraft II and Overwatch . Hearthstone has also popularized
6336-448: The early 2010s, viewership was about 85% male and 15% female, with most viewers between the ages of 18 and 34. By the late 2010s, it was estimated that by 2020, the total audience of esports would grow to 454 million viewers, with revenue increasing to more than US$ 1 billion, with China accounting for 35% of the global esports revenue. The earliest known video game competition took place on 19 October 1972 at Stanford University for
6435-469: The esports betting market within the Latin American country. In March 2022, 1xBet expanded into the Chilean market by signing a partnership agreement with the Chilean football championship, with the company becoming part of the 138 matches of the 2022 season. In June 2023, 1xBet was named 'Sportsbook Operator of the Year' at the SiGMA Americas Awards. In October 2023, Congolese musician Maître Gims became an ambassador for 1xBet. As of November 2023,
6534-498: The esports scene, Nintendo hosted Wii Games Summer 2010. Spanning over a month, the tournament had over 400,000 participants, making it the largest and most expansive tournament in the company's history. In 2014 Nintendo hosted an invitational Super Smash Bros. for Wii U competitive tournament at the 2014 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) press conference that was streamed online on Twitch. Halo developers 343 Industries announced in 2014 plans to revive Halo as an esport with
6633-430: The event to Romania instead. The 2022 Commonwealth Games featured esports competitions as a pilot ahead of being a potential full medal event for 2026. In Greece , in March 2022 a law entered into force recognising and regulating esports and in June 2023, the relevant federation for esports has been officially given recognition and included in the list of sports federations. The Olympic Games are also seen as
6732-562: The event was cancelled as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic . After 2020, the CS:GO event of ESL One was merged into IEM brand. As of November 2022, ESL has hosted seven of the eighteen CS:GO Major tournaments, while the last one was IEM Rio Major 2022 . ESL Impact League was launched in 2022 to promote women's Counter-Strike:Global Offensive around the world, and is often held simultaneously with other ESL tournaments such as IEM and ESL Challengers. In 2022, 3 LAN tournaments were held in Dallas, Valencia and Jönköping. The Intel Extreme Masters
6831-466: The first round of license applications to legally operate in Brazil. Following an investigation by The Sunday Times in 2019, 1xBet's licence was rescinded by the UK Gambling Commission ( UKGC ) after revelations of involvement ‘promoting a " pornhub casino’, bets on children's sports and cockfighting, and advertising on illegal websites." 1xBet features on Russia's payment processor and Federal Tax Service blacklist. In 2024, Bellingcat and
6930-594: The following: ESL Play is an esports platform that provides tournaments and ladders across all games and skill levels. ESL Open, the first cup on the league ladder, is open to everyone, including beginners. ESL Major competitions have entry requirements, and winning on this level is required to earn a spot in ESL Pro competition. However, ESL Major also contains Go4 Cups, which are free tournaments open to everyone. Tournaments at this level require prior qualification. ESL National Championships were region-specific ESL Pro competitions held in various countries. ESL Meisterschaft,
7029-410: The game Spacewar . Stanford students were invited to an "Intergalactic spacewar olympics" whose grand prize was a year's subscription for Rolling Stone , with Bruce Baumgart winning the five-man-free-for-all tournament, and Slim Tovar and Robert E. Maas winning the team competition. Contemporary esports has roots in competitive face-to-face arcade video game competitions. A forerunner of esports
7128-709: The games. Each event in auto racing, baseball, cycling, rowing and sailing will be managed by an IOC-recognized governing body for the sport along with a video game publisher of a game for that sport. For example, the auto racing event will be based on the Gran Turismo series and overseen by the International Automobile Federation along with Polyphony Digital . The baseball, cycling, and esailing events will be based on eBaseball Powerful Pro Baseball 2020 , Zwift , and Virtual Regatta , respectively. The organization committee for
7227-524: The globe. Esports in Cinema included Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive coverage from ESL One Cologne 2015 and ESL One New York, as well as a documentary, "All Work All Play," which follows the rise of esports and highlights pro gamers as they work toward the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship. After a player publicly admitted Adderall use following ESL One Katowice 2015 , ESL worked with
7326-524: The government encouraged esports, stating that by participating in esports, players were also "training the body for China". Furthermore, by early 2019, China recognized esports players as an official profession within the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security 's Occupation Skill Testing Authority recommendations, as well as professional gaming operators, those that distribute and manage esports games. By July 2019, more than 100,000 people had registered themselves as professional gamers under this, with
7425-690: The late 1990s include the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL), QuakeCon , and the Professional Gamers League . PC games played at the CPL included the Counter-Strike series, Quake series, StarCraft , and Warcraft . The growth of esports in South Korea is thought to have been influenced by the mass building of broadband Internet networks following the 1997 Asian financial crisis . It
7524-409: The late 2010s, leaders in Japan became involved in helping bring esports to the 2020 Summer Olympics and beyond, given the country's reputation as a major video game industry centre. Esports in Japan had not flourished due to the country's anti-gambling laws that also prevent paid professional gaming tournaments, but there were efforts starting in late 2017 to eliminate this issue. At the suggestion of
7623-523: The match. "Evo Moment #37" is frequently described as the most iconic and memorable moment in the history of competitive video gaming. Being at one point the most-watched competitive gaming moment of all time, it has been compared to sports moments such as Babe Ruth's called shot and the Miracle on Ice . In April 2006, the G7 teams federation were formed by seven prominent Counter-Strike teams. The goal of
7722-462: The minimum deposit and withdrawal amounts for clients in the Republic of Congo . Despite criminal prosecution in several countries, 1xBet secures major sponsorship contracts, for example, it remains the sponsor of FC Barcelona until 2029 and sponsors FC Paris Saint-Germain in seasons 2022–25. As of 2024, the monthly average number of visitors to its platform exceeds 5 mln, the company has passed
7821-757: The most popular tournaments are the League of Legends World Championship , Dota 2 's International , the fighting game-specific Evolution Championship Series (EVO) and Intel Extreme Masters . Many other competitions use a series of league play with sponsored teams, such as the Overwatch League . Although the legitimacy of esports as a true sporting competition remains in question, they have been featured alongside traditional sports in some multinational events in Asia. The International Olympic Committee has discussed their inclusion in future Olympic events. In
7920-523: The most prestigious events for each game. ESL One events are often selected to be part of the Valve -sponsored CS:GO Major series . The ESL Counter-Strike Majors have been: EMS One Katowice 2014 , ESL One Cologne 2014 , ESL One Katowice 2015 , ESL One Cologne 2015 , ESL One Cologne 2016 , IEM Katowice 2019 . ESL were originally set to host a major in Rio de Janeiro in 2020 under the ESL One brand, until
8019-413: The names of the supposed creators of 1xBet. These are "Sergey Karshkov", "Roman Semiokhin" and "Dmitry Kazorin". All three have Cypriot citizenship. The trio are suspected of organizing the online bookmaker 1xBet, and are defendants in a criminal case, with penalty of imprisonment. A number of estates in Russia with a total value of 1.5 billion rubles were seized. In 2021, Parlan Law Firm announced
8118-421: The nature of the marketing and promotion that formed the basis of modern esports. In 1984, Konami and Centuri jointly held an international Track & Field arcade game competition that drew more than a million players from across Japan and North America. Play Meter in 1984 called it "the coin-op event of the year" and an "event on a scale never before achieved in the industry". As of 2016 , it holds
8217-457: The organization was to increase stability in the esports world, particularly in standardizing player transfers and working with leagues and organizations. The founding members were 4Kings , Fnatic , Made in Brazil , Mousesports , NiP , SK-Gaming , and Team 3D . The organization only lasted until 2009 before dissolving. The 2000s was a popular time for televised esports. Television coverage
8316-616: The platform Josimar reported that 1xBet allegedly organized thousands of live-streamed amateur games involving fake teams and children as young as 14 years old. In early 2020, awareness was raised of an unlawful practice, an international arrest warrant was issued by Russian authorities. Later, in August 2020, the Directorate of the Investigative Committee for the Russian Bryansk Region released
8415-467: The platform watched 12 billion minutes of video on the service, with the two most popular Twitch broadcasters being League of Legends and Dota 2 . During one day of The International, Twitch recorded 4.5 million unique views, with each viewer watching for an average of two hours. The modern esports boom has also seen a rise in video games companies embracing the esports potential of their products. After many years of ignoring and at times suppressing
8514-633: The plot of various films, including 1982's Tron . In the UK, the BBC game show First Class included competitive video game rounds featuring the contemporary arcade games, such as Hyper Sports , 720° and Paperboy . In the United States, the Amusement Players Association held its first U.S. National Video Game Team competition in January 1987, where Vs. Super Mario Bros.
8613-537: The record for the largest organized video game competition of all time, according to Guinness World Records . Televised esports events aired during this period included the American show Starcade which ran from 1982 to 1984 airing a total of 133 episodes, on which contestants would attempt to beat each other's high scores on an arcade game. A video game tournament was included as part of TV show That's Incredible! , and tournaments were also featured as part of
8712-419: The school. Colleges such as Columbia College , Robert Morris University , and Indiana Institute of Technology have taken part in this. In 2018, Harrisburg University of Science and Technology began a tuition scholarship program for esports players. In 2014, the largest independent esports league, Electronic Sports League , partnered with the local brand Japan Competitive Gaming to try and grow esports in
8811-722: The second quarter of 2022, subject to regulatory approval. As part of the acquisition, ESL and FACEIT are set to merge and form the ESL FaceIt Group. The new company will be headed by ESL CEO Craig Levine and FACEIT CEO Niccolo Maisto, while ESL co-founder Ralf Reichert will serve as executive chairman. ESL hosts competitions around the globe, partnering with publishers such as Blizzard Entertainment , Riot Games , Valve , Microsoft , Wargaming and multiple others to facilitate thousands of gaming competitions annually. ESL competitors are supported on both national and international levels. Some of their more notable competitions include
8910-506: The tournament "proved to be the biggest event ever" in the arcade game industry, and was attended by members from leading Japanese newspapers and leisure industry companies. Sega stressed "the importance of such tournaments to foster better business relationships between the maker-location-customer and create an atmosphere of competition on TV amusement games". In 1977, Gremlin Industries (a year before being acquired by Sega) held
9009-564: The ways in which [they] may collaborate to the mutual benefit of all of sport in the years ahead". The IOC has tested the potential for esports through exhibition games. With support from the IOC, Intel sponsored exhibition esports events for StarCraft II and Steep prior to the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang , and five South Korean esports players were part of the Olympic Torch relay. A similar exhibition showcase,
9108-576: Was announced that ESL and esports platform FACEIT were acquired by Savvy Games Group (SGG), a holding company owned by Saudi Arabia 's Public Investment Fund . As part of the acquisition, the two companies merged to form the ESL FACEIT Group. The Electronic Sports League was launched in 2000 as the successor to the Deutsche Clanliga , which was founded in 1997 by Jens Hilgers . The company began with an online gaming league and
9207-480: Was best established in South Korea, with StarCraft and Warcraft III competitions regularly televised by dedicated 24-hour cable TV game channels Ongamenet and MBCGame . Elsewhere, esports television coverage was sporadic. The German GIGA Television covered esports until its shutdown in 2009. The United Kingdom satellite television channel XLEAGUE.TV broadcast esports competitions from 2007 to 2009. The online esports only channel ESL TV briefly attempted
9306-633: Was held by Sega in 1974, the All Japan TV Game Championships, a nationwide arcade video game tournament in Japan. The tournament was intended by Sega to promote the play and sales of video games in the country. There were local tournaments held in 300 locations across Japan, and then sixteen finalists from across the country competed in the final elimination rounds at Tokyo 's Hotel Pacific. Prizes awarded included television sets ( color and black-and-white ), cassette tape recorders and transistor radios . According to Sega,
9405-462: Was heralded by Taito 's Space Invaders in 1978, which popularized the use of a persistent high score for all players. Several video games in the next several years followed suit, adding other means of tracking high scores such with high score tables that included the players' initials in games like Asteroids in 1979. High score-chasing became a popular activity and a means of competition. The Space Invaders Championship held by Atari in 1980
9504-498: Was popular among competitive arcade players. The 1988 game Netrek was an Internet game for up to 16 players, written almost entirely in cross-platform open-source software . Netrek was the third Internet game , the first Internet game to use metaservers to locate open game servers, and the first to have persistent user information . In 1993 it was credited by Wired Magazine as "the first online sports game". The fighting game Street Fighter II (1991) popularized
9603-434: Was removed from a list of sport disciplines because it did not fit the new sport standards. On 7 July 2016, The Ministry of Sport decided to add cybersport into the sport registry and on 13 April 2017, esports become an official sport discipline once again. China was another one of the first countries to recognize esports as a real sport in 2003, despite concerns at the time that video games were addictive. Through this,
9702-516: Was the earliest large scale video game competition, attracting more than 10,000 participants across the United States, establishing competitive gaming as a mainstream hobby. It was won by Rebecca Heineman . Walter Day , owner of an arcade in Iowa, had taken it upon himself to travel across the United States to record the high scores on various games in 1980, and on his return, founded Twin Galaxies ,
9801-692: Was the first notable multi-sport competition including esports as an official medal-winning event, alongside other traditional sports, and the later editions of the Asian Indoor Games , as well as its successor the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games , have always included esports as an official medal event or an exhibition event up to now. Moreover, the Asian Games , which is the Asian top-level multi-sport competition, also included esports as
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