E-Gaming Events Mark Growing Industry

E-gaming. What is that really? Until a few years ago, I hadn't heard much of it myself either.

I mean, I've always been an active gamer, and on our local LAN-Parties, I used to compete for 500 USD cash prices, in various games, mostly Counterstrike.

I think Counterstrike is the game, or mod actually, that started the whole thing. Half Life was released, and shortly after, Counter-strike came along as a mod, and grew to astonishing heights. The game itself is pretty basic. You are either a Terrorist or a Counter-terrorist, and you are supposed to kill the opposing team.

There are three modes, VIP (You escort a VIP from A to B, without the VIP getting killed by terrorists), Hostage (You save all the hostages), and Bomb, where terrorists are supposed to plant a bomb, and counterterrorists are doing their best to prevent this.

Now, this game has become big business. People are playing for 200,000 USD or more in cash prices. These games are held at large arenas, where thousands of competitors enroll, and only one team wins the big price.

Gamers are being sponsored by large Hardware-companies such as Intel, Creative, AMD, Radeon, NVIDIA, and can actually get a salary for training and promoting their team(S).

I bet you have heard of the game World of Warcraft? It's a game that took a relatively small industry, and had its way with it. After 4 years, they have 12 million players, all paying around 10USD/month to play.

Lately, they have also started E-games. The Arena mode has become big business with lots of items, cash prices and fame in the pot. Thousands of teams enroll, and only 3 are crowned winners.

A big television network has started a TV channel (HD) that has 24 hour gaming on it. News from events, interviews with teams, training videos, live feeds from competition etc.

It's hard to get to a point here, but I think it must be that the future is looking bright.

Until now we've seen large football-, baseball-, hockey-events etc on TV, and that doesn't seem to be a declining business. What happens when the gaming generation grows up and takes control? Will there be more virtual sports events on TV? Maybe, in 30 years, we all sit down to see Super Bowl, but this time, its 2 teams having their series final in Battlefield 4?

I sure as hell am excited. Are you?