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Taking eSports seriously
2012 was noteworthy for many reasons: The Mayan calendar change didnt kill us all, Wendys became the second-best selling hamburger chain, James Bond was at the Olympics, and eSports witnessed incredible increases in the amount of content consumed by viewers. Major League Gaming, the largest North American eSports organization, saw a rise in live viewership of 334% from 3.5 million to 11.7 million. The 2012 MLG Spring Championship alone generated 4.7 million viewers over the weekend, almost half of whom tuned in for the Sunday championship matches. With this unprecedented growth, eSports showed that it wasnt as niche as most people had assumed. It had arrived.
The biggest game franchises have already begun adding eSports features
If you're thinking this hasn't started yet, you're wrong. With more integrated eSports features than any other console offering to date, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 set a new standard for what console eSports offerings should provide. In addition to skill-based matchmaking and enabling streaming while in-game, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 allows players to commentate or shoutcast matches with ease. Tools are made available to players allowing them to listen in on team dialogue, switch between players, and choose between first-person, third-person, and overhead views of matches.
Games are being specifically designed for eSports
Weve seen a massive uptick in games billing themselves as eSports titles in recent years. League of Legends, World of Tanks, and Warface have been some new faces on the scene, while classic eSports titles like Street Fighter and Halo have taken steps to facilitate better competitive gaming experiences with online matchmaking and replay modes.
Everyone is making a MOBA
The Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) is a genre spawned by the WarCraft 3 mod Defense of the Ancients (DotA), and it is the perfect setup for an eSport. Being able to correctly read the enemy teams movements and effectively communicate with teammates, as well as knowing when to attack or retreat, are all vital parts of professional MOBA play. However, what really sells the genre is its accessibility to people of all skill levels. Most MOBA games rely on only six buttons and a mouse, making them very easy to pick up and play for just about anyone. This ease of entry into the MOBA world means that people who have had even a small amount of interaction with one can understand and appreciate professional gameplay.
Free-to-play is the future, and eSports is to thank/blame
Titles focused on professional gaming popularized the microtransaction-based free-to-play payment model and removed the negative impression many gamers had of these games. Initially, free-to-play implied a lack of polish or quality, but over time, the nature of the stigma changed as business model started becoming more popular with the eSports community.
eSports appeal forced next-gen consoles to adapt
Console manufacturers are forging new alliances with companies that handle streaming as well as integrating new technology to facilitate eSports operations on their hardware. Consolidating essential functions for eSports enthusiasts and professionals like streaming, viewing, messaging, and uploading all in one place eliminates a number of the difficulties involved in carrying out these tasks on current hardware. Those same activities on the machines we have today require a variety of expensive equipment. Capture cards and an internet connection that allows for an upload speed of at least 1.5 MB per second arent cheap. In addition to all of the equipment required for consoles, acquiring the knowledge of how to set it up and run the various programs can be a daunting task. Sonys answer to this problem lies in the PS4 "Share" button, which eliminates this problem by allowing players to begin streaming online with the press of a button. The deals Sony has inked with both Gaikai and Ustream are significant, as both ensure that streaming features will be running smoothly and intuitively on the PS4.
It created a new field of jobs in the games industry
One of the most overlooked aspects of eSports is that many people are employed both in front of the camera and behind the scenes at major tournaments and organizations. What the average gamer thinks of when they hear about professional gaming jobs are, naturally enough, the competitors. They travel the world competing in major tournaments for hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions of dollars. Then there are the shoutcasters who can quickly and accurately relay information in an entertaining manner.
In the future
This generation of consoles has seen an increasing focus on online connectivity, and that's facilitated the rising availability of competitive titles and the adoption of eSports content. The next-gen can only improve and expand the already thriving eSports community. By bringing these aspects to the console space, Microsofts and Sonys desire to tap into the previously PC-dominated market has already had a hand in shaping the end of our current console generation. Weve had a glimpse of what is to come with the PS4 announcement, but you can be sure that there are even greater things to come in which eSports will have an influence. The future of eSports looks fantastic.
