I remember it like it was just recently. The qualifiers were held in an indoor football arena, the weather was hot, it was the month of May outside. The organizers stretched a huge canvas and hung a fairly powerful projector, however, the clarity of the picture left much to be desired, and the room was too bright. A tribune was built for spectators, there were no more than 150-200 seats, and all the game lovers were accommodated there. There was no scene as such, the players sat in separate zones, hidden from view. There were also commentators, because of which the visit to this event was deposited in my memory. I went to look at Counter-Strike 1.6, as well as at WC3. True, I didn’t particularly remember the games, I was impressed, however, as I remember now, -5 from one of the players, Train card, street. He was left alone, with AWP and USP, if memory serves. He laid down the entire enemy team during the reload time between shots. The fire led in different directions. It was powerful and then incomprehensible to me. But when the Starcraft games began, the hall was simply blown up. Two people were supposed to comment on the games, of course, these people understood the subject that they covered. But one of the commentators got sick, so they invited the guy who covered CS for us for co-casting to help. As it turned out, he was far from Starcraft, but he was doing well with fantasy. I will never forget these comments.
Scene: Terrans are playing against Zerg. Terran goes into marines, zerg into dog rush. Of course, during the meeting, a bloody mess begins. CS caster comments:
“Here, some dogs are running at these men in space suits. Wow! what a slaughter begins. God, the whole screen is covered in blood! I do not understand what is going on! Just look at this! How much blood! And they say that CS is a cruel game! Here is a cruel game, Lord, it injures the psyche of children, it must be banned!”
The second caster could only laugh quietly and cover his face with his hands, because he could not stop his "colleague". This guy made that day, definitely.
jerk
That all changed in the last few years when the justin.tv team launched the Twitch.tv service. At the same time, the Leage Of Legends https://apexmap.io/league-of-legends-betting discipline from Riot games began to gain momentum, Valve began developing Dota 2, a full-fledged custom map project for Warcraft 3 TFT. A new CS was also released - Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. But still, I will still give the main role in all this to the Twitch.tv service. Thanks to him, big money has finally come to esports. When manufacturers of accessories and equipment saw that 10-15 thousand people of the same language group watched the broadcasts, they began to actively advertise their products, as well as sponsor all kinds of leagues and tournaments. By receiving advertising time and placing their logos during broadcasts, companies gave tens, and now hundreds of thousands of dollars to form prize money and organize tournaments. At the moment, hundreds of thousands of people around the world watch game broadcasts. The industry is growing, keyboards are selling.
The last major event was Asus ROG held in Sweden. By the way, some games, in particular, the games of the Swedish Dota 2 team Alliance, were broadcast on a local popular TV channel, which gives hope for eSports to be taken to a new level of production.
It's no secret that Asians look much further than the rest of the world and know how to work for the future. So, in South Korea, esports activities are very prestigious, and in China there is a whole state. esports development and player support program. In the United States, professional players have been equated with ordinary athletes, which makes it easier for them to enter the United States and obtain visas. This industry has already gone beyond "playing in computer clubs" and moved to a different, qualitatively new level. Campsites are organized for the teams, where they live, train and communicate with each other for months. Many admit that esports is essentially no different from classic sports: the same grueling workouts every day, the search for new solutions, hard work, and even professional hand injuries and health problems due to many hours of playing (professional players train, often 10-14 hours a day for months).
There is also an opinion among the people that a professional player is some kind of small bespectacled pimply plant that does not live a real life. This is far from true. A well-known example is Artyom "sLivko" Garavtsov from virtus.pro, Starcraft 2 discipline.
