The history of modern eSports goes back further than many would assume. Where electronic sports has its roots and how it evolved is explained by our guest author and expert Timo Schöber – head of the think tank Esportionary.
“The novel phenomenon of eSports”, “the youth culture of eSports is on the rise” or “the young sport of eSports is coming” are striking
headlines that anyone engaged with eSports has likely read in some form.
But is electronic sports really as young as the leading German media often suggest?
The emergence of eSports in a global context
In essence, one could begin a historical examination of eSports very early on. For example, with the competition in the shoot-’em-up game Space Invaders,
which electronic manufacturer Atari held in 1980. About 10,000 participants competed in this tournament. For those times, an enormous number.
On a clan level, one could reference the U.S. National Video Game Team, which can be seen as the first professional eSports team in history. The Nintendo World Championships of 1990 would also be a point of reference, held on the popular gaming console Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). After all, one could win golden Nintendo cartridges at this event, which still enjoy great popularity among collectors.
All these milestones in the history of video games in general, however, are not suitable points of reference if one wishes to look at the history of modern eSports. The present-day eSports industry operates in many ways with high professionalism, with numerous interactions among various market participants with and against one another.
Outside the professional scene, complex structures
have developed, such as volunteer clubs. Therefore, the starting point for such a multifaceted entity must be different from simple competitions without significant impact.
The starting point of modern eSports
The first milestone: For me, the beginning of modern eSports is marked by the career of American shooter player Johnathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel (link leads to Wikipedia).
Starting in 1998, Fatal1ty participated in various tournaments and competitions of the Quake series. He quickly earned the reputation of being an almost unbeatable player, who was the first eSports athlete in history to enjoy a worldwide status as a superstar.
However, Fatal1ty is significant not only due to his successes, such as victories at the Quake III World Championships. He can be seen as the first player who competed at an international top level across multiple video games
including Quake II, Quake III Arena, Doom 3, Unreal Tournament 2003, Alien vs. Predator 2, and Painkiller.
Another unique feature is his personal collaborations with sponsors and the establishment of his name as a brand. He collaborated with hardware manufacturers such as Creative Technology and Universal Abit. This later proved to be a pioneering method of marketing for clans and players. Computers and components were branded with the name “Fatal1ty”. He also made early bridges outside the IT and eSports industry, for example through a feature in Time Magazine in 2005.
The second milestone: The founding of the Korean e-Sports Association (KeSPA) in 2000.
The South Korean eSports association demonstrated how a professional
infrastructure should look, along with political collaboration and the integration of eSports into traditional sports structures. The founding process of KeSPA was accompanied by the South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism. This ensured that the association secured political recognition from the outset. Additionally, the association became a member of the South Korean Olympic Committee, ensuring collaboration with traditional sports.
A whole eSports industry has emerged around KeSPA – especially in the real-time strategy game StarCraft – complete with TV channels, expert panels, professional clans, and performance centers. Thus, the KeSPA stands as a reference and pioneer in professional eSports structures.
The third milestone: From both a German and international perspective, the third major milestone is the founding of the Electronic Sports League (ESL).
The ESL was founded like KeSPA in 2000, initially with a clear focus on Germany and Europe. Gradually, ESL expanded and grew. One important aspect of the professionalization of eSports was the introduction of the Trusted Principle.
This prevented players from hiding in the anonymity of the internet and simply creating a new ESL account in case of cheating violations. Instead, they had to verify their real identity by providing identification when registering for specific competitions.
Additionally, ESL was the first to demonstrate on a grand stage how a comprehensive and long-term collaboration with significant companies could work, such as through the Intel Friday Night Games as part of the German Championships, then known as the ESL Pro Series (EPS). On an international level, this was shown through the creation of the Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) tournament series. Nowadays, ESL is the largest eSports tournament organizer in the world.
Due to the mentioned developments, I place the emergence of modern eSports on an international level in the late 1990s,
especially from the year 2000 forward. Germany, on the other hand, had already been somewhat ahead on a clan level.
Germany as a breeding ground for eSports
Modern eSports in Germany was shaped early on by clans,
less by individual players.
With OCRANA (1996), SK Gaming (1997 as Schröt Kommando), pro-Gaming
(1998) and mTw (1998), clans emerged in Germany that at one point belonged to the international elite – and SK Gaming continues to do so to this day.
OCRANA, for example, was able to win the WC3L in 2002, the most important league at that time in the game Warcraft III; prior to that, they had already won the Eurocup in Unreal Tournament in 2001. SK Gaming won seven titles at the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) in Counter-Strike in the early to mid-2000s.
With the Schellhase twins, they had the world’s most successful FIFA players under contract – with a total of six world and ten European championship titles. Pro-Gaming made a name for itself largely thanks to its StarCraft player Frederik “FiSheYe” Keitel, who was able to achieve some success on the international stage despite South Korean dominance in this game. Historically, in clan mTw, the Danish Counter-Strike team is primarily recognized as outstanding, having won several major tournaments.
Thus, Germany is important for the development of international eSports not only because of the ESL but also due to its outstanding clan structures.
Reverse evolution
The rest is history. Gradually, eSports has become what we understand it to be today: full arenas with tens of thousands of spectators, millions of fans via online stream, and sometimes eight-figure prize pools.
While professional eSports has grown increasingly around the world,
partly exponentially, we find a peculiarity regarding electronic sports in terms of amateur sports. In traditional sports, a large grassroots base usually developed first, from which a small elite of professional athletes crystallized and evolved.
In eSports, it is the opposite. First, professional eSports emerged, from which an increasingly large amateur scene has developed since the mid-2010s, accounting for over 95% of eSports in total today.
The reason for this lies primarily in the differentiation of gaming and eSports. There has been a broad base of gamers for decades. However, gaming and eSports are different things, as eSports describes the competitive playing of video games from a sports perspective.
Gamers who wished to evolve into eSports athletes had to orient themselves towards what was then referred to as “Pro Gaming” in the early phases of modern eSports. Grassroots structures were hardly present, at most in the form of amateur leagues under ESL and comparable organizers or integrated leagues in the video games.
Since around 2014, grassroots clubs have been increasingly founded in Germany and other nations,
providing structures for eSports athletes that were previously reserved only for professional players. Examples include clubhouses, performance centers, and coaches.
While there had already been grassroots activities in the form of less professional clans or amateur competitions, a fully structured grassroots landscape has only emerged from the professional scene. Fans and hobby players wanted to emulate their idols, the professionals, and simultaneously advance eSports in general, for example, through societal and political engagement.
Furthermore, more and more eSports structures are being integrated into traditional sports clubs, allowing for synergies between traditional sports and eSports to be utilized, such as in areas like youth recruitment and corrective exercise.
Nearly 25 years of eSports
While we often find the striking headlines mentioned at the beginning of this article,
portraying eSports as something “novel”, modern
eSports is fundamentally much older than most might assume.
Electronic sports, especially as a professional sport, is now nearly 25 years old – and by no means a phenomenon of recent years.
The image presented by the leading media in Germany and other reporters requires correction in many areas. eSports has existed for much longer than is often portrayed.
