Esports Chronology

Although esports has been very popular since the turn of the decade, we find its roots in the 1970s. Competition on video games has existed since the early days of video games and has been directly dependent on technological developments and the emergence of certain titles/games that have marked its history.

The 1990s saw the emergence of personal computers and personal Internet connections that allow players to confront anyone from home, anywhere in the world, at any time of the day or night. Video games competition is played on new types of games, in two distinct geographical areas: in North America on Shooting Games (FPS) such as Doom and Quake, and in South-Pacific Asia on Fighting Games (FGC) such as Street Fighter II in Japan, and on Real-Time Strategy Games (RTS) such as Starcraft Broodwar and Warcraft 3 in South Korea.

For about ten years, esports has developed in relative anonymity, bringing together a few thousand enthusiasts around the world and remaining schematically a niche activity. In 2008, the subprime financial crisis hit the sector hard, as its economic model was already at the time mainly dependent on private sponsorship. Investors gradually withdrew and many structures (organizers and teams) had to cease their activity due to lack of financial resources. This is a time of recession for esports during which the cashprizes of the competitions decrease.

With the beginning of the 2010’s, esports recover from the crisis thanks to the emergence of streaming platforms on the Internet. In the West, Owned TV, YouTube, Dailymotion and Justin TV, which has since become Twitch TV, make esports content accessible to everyone, where it was much more difficult to follow an event before. At the same time, two new games participate to increase the popularity of video games competitions: Starcraft II and League of Legends. Finally, the casters of these events whose mission is to make the virtual actions on the screen understandable for the audience and to entertain the matches become the first evangelizers of esports.

Finally, since 2014, esports has entered a phase of very clear acceleration of its growth, which gradually allows it to become mainstream and a mass entertainment. Amazon buying Twitch TV in 2014 sent a strong signal to all non-endemic brands that esports phenomenon deserves attention. New brands with unprecedented financial resources are investing in the industry, contributing to the professionalization of the sector and enabling the creation of new business opportunities. Competitive events are becoming more and more spectacular, attracting more and more fans, thus creating the interest of new brands whose interest is to reach this specific audience. This snowball effect is schematically at the origin of the success of the esport today.

Of course, the history of esports is intrinsically dependent on the cultural, political, institutional and societal choices of each country in the world. This history differs between Asia, North America and Europe, as well as between South Korea, United States and France. New esports geographical areas are also emerging (Oceania, South America and Africa) and inevitably constitute a new history of esports. It will therefore be important to observe their development in the coming years.

It is a real paradox that esports is a relatively recent practice but that its history is already so quickly forgotten and disregarded. The preservation and conservation of the esport’s tangible and intangible data is therefore a major challenge.

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