Matt Derzay
Mr. Reuter
A3 Economics
21 September 2015
The Rise of eSports
Video games are something most people play in their free time time for fun. Though some others take it a bit farther, it's not surprising that people can make a living by playing video games, they have been doing that for a couple decades now, but you probably never thought there were professional gamers.
ESports have continued to grow quite rapidly in the past decade, as you can see in the chart below the viewership of these competitions has grown exponentially in the 3 short years between 2010 and 2013 and continues to grow even today. Just like any traditional sport eSports create revenue not only from the viewership but from corporate sponsorships, ticket sales, merchandise, and entry fees.
In North America, corporate sponsorships are the biggest source of revenue for the eSports scene, because similar to nascar companies can sponsor a driver and put their brand logo on the car of the driver, except companies like to sponsor individuals or teams to advertise the company on the team’s jerseys or equipment. Or if the companies really want to go all out they will sponsor a tournament so they can name it after the company for more advertising. Second is merchandise, because the viewer or the consumers, like most other sports, wants to feel apart of the community that surrounds the specific team or individual and will buy merchandise to show their support. Other sources of revenue are the entry fees of all the participants and some of the larger tournaments are held in stadiums that hold thousands of people which adds to the total as well. All of this revenue adding up to make the reward of winning that much bigger, making the option of becoming a pro-gamer more and more legitimate.
A huge factor in the growth of eSports is the growth of Twitch. Twitch is a live-streaming platform recently bought by amazon. It is an easy to use tool to watch anything you want live. Twitch is also free to use so anyone can get equipment and begin streaming, and anyone can watch. As a viewer you are able to choose a directory of your favorite game and discover all of the people and tournaments that stream the content you're interested in. As the Twitch community grows the more and more people discover eSports.
As the years pass professional video games seems to become more and more like a professional sports. In fact, now the US government officially considers professional gamers a professional atheletes. This is huge when it comes to the growth outside of the US, because before for foreign gamers it could be difficult for them to get a visa and it would always work out, and telling the government you are a professional gamer wasn’t the best argument. Now since the government consider them as professional athletes there is really no reason for them to say when giving out visas. It is almost like they are removing a tariff that was a burden on the foreign imported goods, that caused so much trouble it almost isn’t worth going outside the US for.
ESports continues to grow not only in the US but all over the world. There are even some countries like Sweden and South Korea that broadcast competitions on national television. It’s amazing how this community can bring countries all around the world together and is exciting for what the near future could hold.
Works Cited
"The Rise of ESports in America - IGN." IGN. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Sept. 2015.
"ESports Market Brief: US Accounts for Almost Half of Total Viewership."SuperData Research. N.p., 04 May 2015. Web. 21 Sept. 2015.
"Report: More than 70 Million People Watch ESports Worldwide."OnGamers. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Sept. 2015.
It's hard to believe that something as simple as a video game could be bringing in more money then College football championships or the NBA finals games but I guess if there's that many people watching sports there could be that much more using twitch to watch video game championships. I'm also led to believe that because twitch is free there's probably a lot more advertisement causing for less action but being the only place to watch these championship people have no other choice and this will allow them to bring in a lot more money then suspected.
ReplyDeleteThis was a very interesting blog post, you think about how much revenue the sport generates each year depending on what it is being Football, or basketball or whatever, when in the long run the video games are the ones really "stealing" and generating the majority of the profit off of this type of business. Also it's very interesting in the sense that corporate sponsorship's generate the majority of the money eSports, just by allowing them to put their logo in the beginning of the video game or just by adding a logo on a jersey.
ReplyDeleteIt is pretty crazy that eSports has gotten to be this big. ESPN had a segment on some tournament that was happening in the summer, because it had a bigger prize pool then the Masters and many other huge tournaments in the sport world. This is only going to get bigger because companies are always looking to put there marketing dollars in the right place and if this continues to gain popularity then the opportunity cost that is holding companies back from advertising with gaming tournaments is going to look even smaller and they are going to jump in the market. I don't think it would be all that great seeing a video game on national TV, but it sure would be interesting if it was. I'm sure in the future a sports network will try it out to test out the ratings it gets and if it receives a huge draw, you never know, we could be seeing gaming tournaments on national television.
ReplyDeleteI think that this is an important topic to talk about because many people underestimate the money that can be gained from esports and professional gaming industries. You'd think that because gaming was originally a simple tool of entertainment for young minds that it wouldn't have blossomed into a real sport in which people who play video games are actual athletes. If it is popular and profitable then why shouldn't it be more recognized?
ReplyDeleteThis is very interesting to me. Usually the debate is whether football, or basketball, or baseball is more popular and who brings in the most revenue; Nobody would have ever thought that "eSports" would make just as much a valid argument as any of those. My question is, with eSports becoming more and more popular, and bringing in more revenue each year, what is going to happen with actual sports like football and basketball? Yeah, they are some of the most popular sports in the world, but if what you're saying is true, will more and more people switch over? I don't think it will happen for a long long time, if it ever does; but it's a possibility.
ReplyDeleteI really love the idea of E sports, It is something anyone with enough practice can get into and make a viable career out of it. I also know that unlike the NBA each E-sports team needs to win a certain amount of matches for them to exist at all. That means if they have a bad run they actually get replaced by another team, unlike the NBA and other sports where a bad team can fail again and again. This helps make E-sports extremely competitive, so only the best of the best can get in.
ReplyDeleteThis is pretty crazy how something as simple as video games can bring in such a profit. I never would have seen this coming, video game tournaments and how the governments considers them athletes, when i think about it, all you are doing is pushing buttons at the right time. Your not really playing the game physically you are playing through a virtual world. Not ripping on them they should not be considered athletes because it has nothing to do with athletics. But this was a very interesting blog post because it is something different and is an increasing in popularity around the world.
ReplyDeleteI don’t follow too many eSports but I’ve seen a couple of tournaments as my brother has competed before, and I think it’s a cool community and just the fact that people can make money off of playing video games is pretty awesome. What I don’t think is fair though is the fact that we can call eSport competitors “athletes” as it requires little to no actual athletics. Real athletes actually work really hard to earn that title, while eSports players do work hard to become good at video games, it hardly seems like a level playing field (no pun intended). I agree that they should maybe get a prestigious title for doing so well in competitions, but perhaps “athlete” isn’t it. Awesome topic and super interesting to read about!
ReplyDeleteIt seems as though that the entertainment industry runs the country now-a-days in how if you are an actor or a football player you make millions more than the average person. It just seems that someone playing videogames should not make more than someone that makes a difference in the world. But People pay for what they want to see and we are only to blame.
ReplyDeleteTechnology is taking control of the world, that's the bottom line. Whether good or bad technology is becoming a part of every aspect of our lives. The main reason being that the world is fascinated with new technology, and developers are understanding how to pull in more and more crowds by extracting the things that humans are entertained by and putting all of the entertaining and addicting stuff right in front of you with as much ease as possible.
ReplyDeleteI think eSports is an innovative way to make money, and it also is a way for people to be apart of a community. Also, the whole idea of eSports is a smart idea because people who aren't actually athletes, can be considered athletes according to the writing. That's the one thing I disagree with because real athletes actually work hard.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea that gamers could have such an impact on a company. And its amazing that they are as big as they are now. Very interesting blog post.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea that gamers could have such an impact on a company. And its amazing that they are as big as they are now. Very interesting blog post.
ReplyDeleteI can actually relate to the whole esports community, If you didn't know I'm plan on going to college for graphic designing, and I spend time making professional designs such as advertisements and website layouts. I also designed a website for a call of duty esports team and now I make advertisements for that team and I get paid for it. Most people don't think about what is possible now a days... people are making money from playing a video game. Being a professional gamer is a great career, you get to sit home and play video games all day and you get a lot of money from it. Some people have made millions from just playing a video game with/against other people. Also esports has been growing like crazy in all areas such as call of duty, league of legends, dota, world of tanks.
ReplyDeleteI can definitely, say that eSports are becoming a lot more popular as we continue to become a technology driven society. As you said, the "US government officially considers professional gamers a professional atheletes." As eSports become more popular, perhaps in the future we will see competitions broadcast on television more often. Maybe far in the future we will see eSports in world-wide competitions similar to the Olympics.
ReplyDeleteIt is weird to think that esports are growing so rapidly, as someone who uses Twitch I know a little about esports but I hadn't realized it was growing at such a fast rate that even the government is starting to recognize professional gamer's as athletes. I also heard that even some colleges have professional escorts teams and are treated like any other professional athlete and its crazy to think that you can get a scholarship to play games.
ReplyDeleteI think this was really interesting as I had heard a little bit about professional gamers, but I had no idea how large the industry actually was. I've never heard of twitch as a platform but it sounds very useful and I'm sure will be a major part in the expansion of the industry. I thought overall this post was very informative and gave me insight into an industry I knew very little about.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a really interesting new addition to sports. It does add an extra reason to get involved in the sporting world. What is really fascinating is now every law getting involved with it. Rumors are going around about people being scammed on these sites. That is becoming a problem for the websites. Also, states are starting to rule it as gambling which will change the sites a lot. If I could I would put in a little money to see what I could win.
ReplyDeleteI knew that you could make a living off of playing video games, but I never knew how much revenue people made off of it. It's nice because now even people who don't usually like sports can say that they participate, but I wonder it it's causing havoc on immigration. I'll probably look up twitch later since I've never heard of it and I'm curious about it.
ReplyDeleteI never even thought of video games being a job for anyone so this topic was quite interesting to read! I also never knew that people could be sponsored by a company for just playing a game on TV. Although this is interesting, its kind of sad that now a days people can make a living by just sitting in a chair and playing an animated game. Overall, I thought you wrote about a cool topic that will interest a lot of people!
ReplyDeleteIt was interesting to see how much professional gaming has grew in just the past couple years. I think that it will continue to grow in the future. Esports opens up an entire new area for there to be professional athletes in. It was also interesting how much money was involved in professional gaming such as through advertising and merchandise sales.
ReplyDeleteI really like your topic, something that interests everyone. I feel like as Twitch becomes more and more popular, the more people are going to want to use it, which means the more money the company will make off of it. I am excited to see what Twitch has to bring more to in the future.
ReplyDeleteI think that this is really a interesting part of sports. The is a great reason to try making themselves known to the sports worlds. I always wondered how people could ever make a living from playing video games which is very interesting. I can honestly say that esports are becoming more and more popular.
ReplyDeleteI think this is very interesting because when most people could be going outside instead they are staying inside on video games. Not to be wrong but this is affecting society because soon people won't even be going outside anymore and they will be doing stuff inside with computer,tv etc. Even through it's weird that they are making more money than regular sports.
ReplyDeleteI think that this is really a interesting part of sports. The is a great reason to try making themselves known to the sports worlds. I always wondered how people could ever make a living from playing video games which is very interesting. I can honestly say that esports are becoming more and more popular.
ReplyDeleteThe rise of esports is very interesting. In addition to that I think that the idea of online tv will grow because of esports. I couldn't see esports being broadcasted on television so it will most likely grow the online sports/television viewing market. Esports also gives companies more marketing opportunities. The rise of esports will be something very interesting to see in the near future.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the interesting share about esports,.
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