In Czech, we sometimes also come across the term electronic sport, but only in older articles or publications. The word “PC” is a bit misleading in the definition given that there are games that are contested via consoles, i.e. Xbox and Playstation, and always have been. The first race was held on arcade machines and Atari consoles.
Despite the dubious Czech definition, e-sport is getting more and more recognition, even in the territory of the Czech Republic. The first tournaments were held in a really intimate atmosphere, but now you can watch them live in huge halls or online. Lots of bookmakers offer sports betting and also live broadcasts. For example, the Betano company focuses not only on sports such as football and basketball, but also gives space to e-sports. Fans of Dota 2 or perhaps Counter-Strike will get their money’s worth.
E-sports
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It was born in the seventies
Ten years after Space Invaders was created in 1962, the first ever documented multiplayer match took place at Stanford University. The winner received a year’s subscription to Rolling Stones magazine. It didn’t take long for the number of competitors to rise to a respectable 10,000, which of course attracted the public, and although the market had to dig itself out of a crisis that almost laid it low in the 1980s, it eventually rose stronger than ever. He can thank the Japanese companies Nintendo and Sega for this, which awakened a new wave of interest in games in people, and especially the title Quake, inspired by the Czech game was released in full version quite recently.
The first-person shooter was perfect for e-sports, because it is fast, it was really fluid in its time and the individual maps managed to impress. As the Internet began to spread into American homes in the 1990s, players who had fallen for Quake and were able to traverse maps with admirable skill could easily compete against each other. Of course, the creator of the title, ID Software, knew about this, and therefore in 1997 organized one of the first tournaments of this type.
By a million dollars
In the early 2000s, it became increasingly common for eSports tournaments to have solid prizes for winners, for example the Worldwide Webgames Championship offered $1 million in 2006. Although these were still not huge events, as a rule, everything took place in gaming rooms with the best available equipment, but the main boost for the scene was just around the corner – the launch of Twitch. At the time, it was still JustinTV, but apart from South Korea, e-sports had not yet found its way to television, so Twitch suddenly became the medium where e-sports fans concentrated. Czech combat sports, for example, still face similar vicissitudes today, which people have to attend directly or be content with online transmission via the Internet.
E-sports
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Since 2011, Twitch has been an integral part of e-sports. Thanks to him, thousands and thousands of people around the world can watch tournaments in League of Legends or Dota, which brought the coveted respect to e-sports. And once something is popular and gaining respect, suddenly it is not difficult at all to find sponsors for tournaments and for the players or teams themselves. Thus, nothing prevented the professional scene from growing, which continues to this day, when events such as Riot Games’ Worlds or Valve’s The International are held.
What is the future?
While single player games have been dying and dying out a bit lately sometimes even bizarre piecesthe future of eSports is bright. It cannot be said otherwise, as eSports tournaments are becoming more and more popular and have even gained recognition in other sports industries. She used to look down on the players through her fingers, but thanks to the amount of money that has started to flow in e-sports, people’s curiosity about how it all works has also grown. So it soon became clear what was behind the success of each team, and that behind it were hours and hours of training, a strictly balanced rest and physical exercise, so that the players did not suffer from the guilt of sitting in front of the computer. Opening up behind the scenes has shifted the perception of esports in the right direction.
Source: eurozpravy.cz
