Children, teenagers and even adults love to play computer games. Some of them dream of entering the world of e-sports. What is the world of e-sports and what is its potential?
What is e-sport?
E-sport is a little known discipline in Poland. Sport is associated primarily as a healthy competition in various sports disciplines. However, e-sport is nothing but electronic sport and professional gaming. E-sports players are programmers who compete against each other in various single and multiplayer disciplines.
A brief history of e-sports
E-sports is a relatively young sport. It emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Back then, it was a very clumsy Western pastime that only began to take shape in the 1990s, when such titles as:
- Quake,
- StarCraft,
- Counter – Strike.
These games allowed competition over the Internet. In the early 1990s, events began to take place that attracted gaming fans, and these were:
- QuakeCON,
- Cyberathlete Professional League,
- Professional Gamers League.
In the early 21st century, the popularity of e-sports grew rapidly, gaining a special reputation in South Korea, thanks to dedicated TV channels and government e-sports activities.
E-sports TV channels were also very popular in other countries. The real growth of e-sports came in 2011 with the launch of Twitch, which offered free broadcasts of e-sports tournaments around the world.
A discipline is a game and a player is a player?
Any game offers the possibility of single-player or multiplayer competition, thus it can theoretically become a sport. For this to happen, a game must have:
- a large community of players,
- a continuous commitment from the developers,
- wealthy investors.
Factors that influence the popularity of a game are:
- the price of the game,
- the ability to enjoy entertainment at a basic level.
It is always important to distinguish between players who approach the game as a sporting competition and regular computer gamers.
A player who wants to become an e-sport must:
- consciously and consistently pursue team goals,
- be able to work in a team,
- have high resistance to stress,
- be in good physical shape.
The most popular disciplines in e-sports
In e-sports there is also a division into genres, so it is distinguished:
- shooters,
- multiplayer online battle arena,
- strategies,
- sports,
- brawlers
- other.
What is the future of e-sports?
The future of e-sports is very optimistic. Gaming events began to attract a lot of people, and television begins to see the potential of e-sports. It is becoming increasingly popular to advertise brands in gaming.
The future of e-sports in Poland
Poland is one of the four countries in Europe where e-sports disciplines have the most followers – currently there are over 2.8 million of them. This makes our country fourth in the world in terms of sports enthusiasts.
Polish e-sports has also a very large business potential. Two Poles – Filip “Neo” Kubski I Wiktor “Taz” Wojtas were 2017 among the 100 highest earning e-sportsmen in the world.
In Poland, e-sports are mainly of interest to people of generation X and Y, who are educated and wealthy. For them, e-sports has become a modern form of entertainment available in social media, which is a great place to advertise various products and services.
How do companies/brands use the potential of e-sports?
Nowadays, just putting a brand’s logo on a product is not sufficient advertising in e-sports, multidimensional activities are needed there. Multifaceted marketing activities generate big costs and even bigger profits.
E-sports shortens the distance between fan and idol, showing a new space for active marketing activities. The rapid development of e-sports in Poland and worldwide shows its huge potential.
