The earliest known video game competition took place on 19 October 1972 at Stanford University for the game Spacewar.
Stanford students were invited to an "Intergalactic spacewar olympics" whose grand prize was a year's subscription for Rolling Stone, with Bruce Baumgart winning the
five-man-free-for-all tournament and Tovar and Robert E.
Maas winning the Team Competition. The Space Invaders Championship held by Atari in 1980 was the earliest large scale video game competition, attracting more
than 10,000 participants across the United States, establishing competitive gaming as a mainstream hobby. In the summer of 1980, Walter Day founded a high score record keeping
organization called Twin Galaxies.
The organization went on to help promote video games and publicize its records through publications such as the Guinness Book of World Records,
and in 1983 it created the U.S. National Video Game Team. The team was involved in competitions,
such as running the Video Game Masters Tournament for Guinness World Records and sponsoring the North American Video Game Challenge tournament.
During the 1970s and 1980s, video game players and tournaments began being featured in popular websites and magazines including Life and Time. One of the most well
known classic arcade game players is Billy Mitchell, for his listing as holding the records for high scores in six games including Pac-Man and Donkey Kong in the 1985
issue of the Guinness Book of World Records.
Televised eSports events aired during this period included the American show Starcade which ran between 1982 and 1984 airing
a total of 133 episodes, on which contestants would attempt to beat each other's high scores on an arcade game. A video game tournament was included
as part of TV show That's Incredible!, and tournaments were also featured as part of the plot of various films, including 1982's Tron.
In the 1990s, many games benefited from increasing internet connectivity, especially PC games. For example, the 1988 game Netrek was an Internet game for up to 16 players,
written almost entirely in cross-platform open source software. Netrek was the third Internet game, the first Internet game to use metaservers to locate open game servers,
and the first to have persistent user information.
In 1993 it was credited by Wired Magazine as "the first online sports game".
eSports (also known as electronic sports, esports, e-sports, competitive (video) gaming, professional (video) gaming, or pro gaming) are a form of competition using
video games. Most commonly, eSports take the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players. The most common video
game genres associated with eSports are real-time strategy, fighting, first-person shooter (FPS), and multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA). Tournaments such as The
International, the League of Legends World Championship, the Evolution Championship Series and the Intel Extreme Masters provide live broadcasts of the competition,
and prize money to competitors.Although organized online and offline competitions have long been a part of video game culture, these were largely between amateurs until the late 2000s.
Many game developers now actively design toward a professional eSport subculture.
The genre of fighting games and arcade game fighters have also been popular in amateur tournaments, although the fighting game community has often distanced
themselves from the eSports label.
In the mid-2010s, the most successful titles featured in professional competition were the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games Dota 2
and League of Legends, and the first person shooter game Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Other games with significant earnings include Smite, StarCraft II, Call of Duty,
Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone and Overwatch.
In 2013, it was estimated that approximately 71.5 million people worldwide watched eSports. The increasing availability of online streaming media platforms,
particularly Twitch.tv, has become central to the growth and promotion of eSports competitions. Demographically, Major League Gaming has reported viewership that is
approximately 85% male and 15% female, with a majority of viewers between the ages of 18 and 34. Despite this, several female personalities within eSports are hopeful
about the increasing presence of female gamers. South Korea has several established eSports organizations, which have licensed pro gamers since the year 2000.
Recognition of eSports competitions outside South Korea has come somewhat slower. Along with South Korea, most competitions take place in Europe, North America and China.
Despite its large video game market, eSports in Japan is relatively underdeveloped, which has been attributed largely to its broad anti-gambling laws which prohibit paid
professional gaming tournaments.