There has been a constant debate between the supporters and critics of eSports about whether it’s right to consider it to be a sport or not. However, it was also decided to include eSports as a demonstration sport at the 2018 Asian Games and when the International Olympics Committee showed similar aspirations at the Olympics, things looked like they were headed in the right direction for eSports.
Here’s where we look at the progress eSports has made as it bids to make it bigger as a global sport by becoming a part of the Olympics. In turn, it could attract even more sponsors and that financial pull could help grow an industry and in turn allow careers to flourish around it.
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The ‘eSports as a Sport’ Debate
In more recent times, eSports has been gaining a surge in popularity owing to a host of factors. These include an increased computing and internet penetration globally resulting in greater inter-connectedness, the growth and development of online multiplayer video games and the growing economic and technological influence of emerging countries.
Globally, the market for eSports is increasing at a rapid pace – with projections that the global market will have revenues of over $2.1 billion in revenues by 2023 and increasing at a pace of nearly 16% per annum. The bulk of revenues (three quarters to be precise) coming from media rights and ownership.
In terms of audience, it’s estimated that there are some 495 million fans for the emerging sport – with the majority of the fan bases coming from populous markets like the United States, Brazil, China and India.
The World Cyber Games
Since being inaugurated in 2000, the World Cyber Games (WCG) has been the premier proving ground for up and coming eSports athletes to showcase their talent.
Hundreds of players from around the world engage in multi-title gaming competitions. Also, dubbed the “eSports Olympics”, many of the ceremonies and rituals are emulated from the actual Olympic Games – including official opening ceremonies medal awards of gold, silver and bronze categories, having an official mascot and also sporting a logo similar to that of the International Olympic Committee.
The World Cyber Games was initially created by International Cyber Marketing CEO Yooseop Oh with the financial support of South Korean giant Samsung and the Korean Ministry of Information and Communications and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
Apart from the promotion of eSports as a competitive sport, the platform also served to promote Samsung’s products and also helped various advertisers reach the young male segment who were generally left outside the confines of traditional advertising like television.
After the initial Games in 2000 hosted in Everland, Yongin, South Korea with 17 participating nations and 174 players, the Games were held every year since until 2014 when the then CEO of WGC, Brad Lee announced the closing of the tournament.
After a transfer of trademark and rights to Korean publisher Smilegate, the tournament was again re-launched in 2019 in Xi’an, China where 34 countries and 506 players competed for a total prize amount of $612,500. The 2020 games however, have yet to be confirmed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
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eSports at the Asian Games
The emerging sport got its first major breakthrough in international competitions when in 2018, the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) partnered with Chinese giant Alibaba to introduce eSports as a “demonstration sport” at the 2018 Asian Games held in Indonesia.
The OCA’s President, Ahmad Fahad Al-Sabah has stated that the decision demonstrates “the rapid development and popularity of this new form of sports participation among the youth.”
eSports was played in the Games from August 26 to September 1 and a total of six video games were played including: Arena of Valor, Clash Royale, Hearthstone, League of Legends, Pro Evolution Soccer, and StarCraft II.
18 countries participated in eSports at these games including hosts Indonesia.
Out of a total of 18 medals up for grabs (gold, silver and bronze), Vietnam claimed the most success winning 4 medals (though all were bronze) and were followed by China (2 gold and 1 silver) and Chinese Taipei/Taiwan (2 silver and 1 bronze).
With the Asian Games being the world’s second largest multi-sport event only second to the Olympics, the platform proved as a massive step forward for the legitimacy of eSports as a professional sport.
Furthermore in 2022, eSports has been announced as an official medal sport at the Games in Hangzhou, China.
eSports in the Southeast Asian Games
After the trialing of eSports in the Asian Games, the sport earned another cap in its feather by this time being recognized as a full medal-awarding sport in the Games sanctioned by the International Olympic Committee.
The Games were played from December 5-10 of 2019 and featured six popular games in three formats (PC, console and mobile) and included: Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Arena of Valor, Dota 2, Starcraft II, Tekken 7 and Hearthstone.
The chief sponsor for the eSports competition was Singapore-based gaming company Razer which provided the software, hardware and services support for the entire event. The competition was accredited and supervised by the Asian Electronic Sports Federation.
Out of the six competing nations, host Philippines claimed the most medal success by bagging 5 medals – including winning the most gold medals with 3. They were then followed up by Thailand who won 4 medals including 2 gold medals.
Partnership with Commonwealth Games Federation
In May 2020, the recently created Global Esports Federation (financed by the Chinese conglomerate Tencent and launched in December 2019) signed an “exploratory partnership” with the Commonwealth Games Federation.
This marks an important step for the new body as it attempts to become the main voice for eSports and become a “global governing body” for the eSports ecosystem.
According to Chris Chan, the President of the Global Esports Federation:
“This partnership allows us to develop a pathway together for an inclusive, progressive, and visionary future for the youth and the entire Commonwealth – North to South, East to West – reaching across a third of the world’s population.”
Olympics Aspirations
The next logical step for eSports to assert its rising global prominence is invariably getting introduced as a sport in the Olympics – the world’s largest sporting event held every four years.
In 2016, the International eSports Federation (IESF), a South Korean based eSports organization along with the British government backed International eGames Committee (IEGC) lodged a request to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to enquire how eSports can be included into the Olympic Games.
As mentioned before, eSports got its first major international competitive recognition when it was announced as a demonstration sport in the 2018 Asian Games (it has already been declared that eSports will be a medal event in the 2022 Asian Games) and followed the next year as a full-medal awarding sport in the 2019 Southeast Asian Games.
The Paris Committee for the 2024 Olympics has recently expressed its interest in including eSports in the games once it receives the go-ahead to host the games.
According to International eSports Federation acting Secretary General Leopold Chung, the inclusion may initially be an exploratory one:
“It won’t be possible to be an official discipline, but to be a demonstration title within the Paris Olympics.”
Others like IOC President Thomas Bach remain more pessimistic. He is wary of the legitimacy of eSports, especially the violent nature and characteristics of many popular games mentioning that no games promoting violence would be permitted in the Olympics.
In October of 2018, the IOC stated that it was openly “exploring the possibility of including eSports” in future Games, before taking a U-turn on its stance and saying the very next month it could be “considered a sporting activity” however “must not infringe” on Olympic values in order to gain recognition”.
Regarding the degree of violence there are varying standards among game genres.
Some first-person and third-person shooter games like Call of Duty and Counter Strike Global Offensive are definitely high on aggressiveness and aim to realistically portray violence.
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On the other hand, there are games like Overwatch and Fortnite which are more fantasy-based shooters.
Going down a notch further are MOBA games like League of Legends, Starcraft II and Dota 2 which emphasize more strategy and less shooting action.
Apart from the aforementioned main genres, there are also other eSports games which have no inkling of violent themes.
Popular games like the card-based Heartstone and sports-simulations FIFA and NBA 2K as well as the fusion car-soccer game Rocket League have all been proposed as alternatives to the more mainstream titles in order to sway IOC favour.
A prominent supporter of inclusion of eSports into the Olympics, Jacob “Jake” Lyon (a professional Overwatch player for the Houston Outlaws) has argued that many current Olympic sports themselves either have origins of violence or continue to portray violent themes.
He pointed references to boxing, fencing and some biathlons to name a few examples.
Immense Benefits with Olympics Inclusion
For the eSports ecosystem, the biggest advantage for its inclusion into the Olympics would by far be to further promote the emerging sport into the mainstream – after all, the viewership for the Olympics is measured in the billions.
The sport would also have the honor of finally getting the status of a “real sport” in front of millions of people who were previously unaware of its existence.
For the IOC, their biggest gain would be finally being able to reach the lower-aged demographics – something they have sorely been missing out on due to lower attendances by millennials.
Regarding drawbacks, the eSports community may find it a difficult task to actually nominate which games they can submit to the IOC for competition.
Subject to meeting all of the IOC’s criteria, only then would the game get the stamp of approval and be ready for the event which may or may not be to the liking of the majority.
The IOC too, must decide on how to assess and validate games based on their compliance, degrees of violence, game themes and other considerations – which could lead to a number of potential games being left out resulting in a loss of viewership or support.
Ultimately, the meteoric rise of eSports is something which cannot be overlooked.
Though eSports remains fragmented and lacks a global voice – something which organizations like the Global Esports Federation are working to rectify – in the past few years, significant investment and attention has been given to the emerging sport and its potential, notable in large markets like the United States and China.
What once began as a tradition of group of players casually playing video games online together in community cyber cafes with LAN connections has now accelerated to regional, national and nowadays global competitions which are quickly gaining the attention of mass audiences.
With the Asian Games and Southeast Asian Games already showcasing the legitimacy of eSports, it is only a matter of time before the sport is inducted into the Olympics in order to lay the capstone and cement eSports place among the ranks of more traditional sports like football, rugby and tennis in the days to come.