Will the Growth of eSports Ever Slow Down?

It's safe to say that eSports has taken the world by storm. With an estimated 427 million viewers as of 2019, eSports is far from the small subculture it once was. Accessibility, technology and an ever-expanding gaming industry have allowed it to become the worldwide phenomenon it is in the modern day, and you can experience it live, with eSports tickets now available to buy and sell via StubHub!

Humble Beginnings in the World of Gaming

Organised online and offline gaming has been present in the gaming world for a significant period of time, although largely on an amateur level. It was as a result of professional participation and live streaming, where a mass audience could watch the best gamers in the world, that an enormous surge in popularity occurred in the late 2000s. By 2010, game developers were creating content aimed specifically at this market and the online business world caught on in a game-changing way. So where did it all begin? On 19th October 1972, Stanford University held perhaps the earliest known video game competition for Spacewar!, a space combat game developed by Steve Russell around ten years earlier. A Space Invaders Championship was later held in 1980, attracting more than 10,000 players and becoming one of the earliest mass-scale video game contests. By 2015, the eSports market had generated $325 million worth of revenue, which increased to almost $500 million the following year. Whether you're an avid fan or simply want to see what all the fuss is about, eSports tickets are now available to buy and sell via StubHub!

Bring Home the Money!

First-person shooter games, which revolve predominantly around gun-based combat in the first person, are one of the most popular eSports genres. Games like Call of Duty and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive are key examples of first-person shooters. The 2018 Call of Duty World League Championship handed out a total of $4.2 million in prize money, with $2 million awarded to the winners of the Black Ops tournament, Team EnVyUs, an eSports organisation based in Dallas, Texas. Real-time strategy and multi-player online battle arena are some of the other more popular genres in eSports, with games like League of Legends and Dota 2 being favoured more commonly. The International Dota 2 Championship is a hugely popular contest, as well as DreamHack competitions. Many eSports events are live streamed via sites such as Twitch.tv, and Panda.tv., although you are now able to see the action as part of a live audience, with eSports tickets available to buy and sell via StubHub today!