In the Netflix series “Explained” the narrator introduces the level of impact and influence eSports has on the world today. Gamers from all over the world travel to a disclosed location multiple times throughout the year to participate in tournaments for hundreds of thousands of dollars. In 2017, 173,000 people attended the Counter Strike tournament in Poland, that’s more people than any Division I football program or even the NFL has ever attracted to games.
Today, esports or electronic sports is a global phenomenon in which millions of people across the world are fans and players. It features the opening ceremony at a Leauge of Legends tournament in Beijing, China in, Dota 2 international tournament in Seattle, Washington, and Counter Strike Local Offensive finale in Katowice, Poland, all of which took place in 2017. 60 million people watched the Leaugue of Legends Final in 2017. Director of Twitch Studios Marcus “djWHEAT” Graham says that hundreds of positions exist in the realm of esports, but you can break them down into specific genres: Real Time Strategy, Multi Online Battle Arenas, and Battle Royale (Explained 3:15). They are mostly First Person Shooter (FPS) games. In 1970s, Atari was the first company to invent arcade culture and it was very popular in late ’70s through the mid ’80s until personal game consoles became more popular (Explained 5:00). Former Pro Gamer Dennis “Thresh” Fong never lost a tournament and was considered the “Michael Jordan” of eSports. He played using a slow modem and introduced new strategies to FPS that had never been seen before. Interestingly enough, he actually won a Ferrari in one of his tournaments which put him and eSports on headlines around the world. Esports are a rejected as a sport by many traditional athletes, because it is not physically exhaustive, but these players have to display a tremendous amount of dexterity, cleverness, and reflexes to perform on a high level. Esports brings people of all audiences, religion, race, and culture together to bond over their shared passion.
Overall, I found the video very intriguing and enjoyable. The narrator introduced a lot of important figures in the world of esports that laid the foundation for it to be built into what it is today. It should be noted that 30 years ago when arcade culture was prominent in the U.S., nobody ever considered these gamers to be athletes, but today eSports players receive salaries and are referred to as athletes by many crowds. I think this is because digital media and online gaming have merged with rising trends of globalism to produce a higher demand in this field. Many of the entrepreneurs and athletes in eSports make a great deal of money, because people want to see them succeed and have fully invested in the product. How will eSports evolve over the next 10 years? Now that virtual reality video games are becoming more accessible to the public, how will this influence the eSports field moving forward?