These days, a lot of people know and recognize esports as a legitimate sport. Yet, it took the entire esports communities and key figures to make them what they are right now. In fact, the whole history of esports began as early as the 1970s.

If you’re an avid gamer who loves esports games, you should know the history of esports and how it developed from the 1970s to recently.

It All Started As A College Competition

Some people consider the college students of Stanford University in 1972 the founders of esports as they pioneered esports as a legitimate video game competition.

In October 1972, Stanford University students competed in the Spacewar game to win the prize of one-year free subscription of Rolling Stone magazine. Although it seems like a trivial prize these days, it was a very significant prize and a lot of students participated in that event.

Spacewar itself is a game created by Steve Russel and a number of scientists and academics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, United States of America in 1962. Before the era of the Stanford students, video games in the 1950s were at their infancy with the release of games like Tennis For Two. Even in the 1970s when Pong was released, there was almost no such thing as a video game competition.

Things started to change when one of the biggest and organized video game competitions in the world occurred in 1980 with Atari’s Space Invaders Tournament. With the recorded participants at 10,000 people, it was one of the most popular competitions at that time and the number exceeded everyone’s attention.

Video game competition continued to grow in the 1990s with the more advanced PC industry and the release of PC games whose popularity was boosted with the help of internet connection. From then on, esports began to develop as a legitimate competition and rise up to become the esports that everyone knows today.

Giant video game companies like Nintendo and Blockbuster began to sponsor video game competitions, of which the games they were competing were mostly sports, racing and combat games. It was also in the 90s when more competitive console games began to appear such as the classic one-on-one 2D fighting game Super Street Fighter II.

In terms of the tournament, the first Street Fighter tournament occurred in 1996 in California. Titled “Battle by the Bay,” this annual competition started with only 40 people competing in the first tournament, then the competition evolved into Evolution Championship Series, an annual esports tournament that continues to this day.

Esports Continued to Grow Thanks to Internet

The majority of video games that the players competed in in the 1990s were FPS games, but then an RTS game called StarCraft: Brood War came out which planted the seed for the future of modern esports.

Perhaps the most important moment in the history of esports happened in 1997 with the Quake tournament that arguably became the first online esports competition. Quake is an FPS game with online features that managed to attract 2,000 participants during that competition with the prize being a second hand Ferrari car.

At the start of the 21st century, events like World Cyber Games and Electronic Sports World Cup brought about an even bigger revolution for esports. Major League Gaming (MLG) was held in 2002 and became the biggest esports league to this day.

But of all the places in the world, South Korea became the birthplace of modern esports thanks to their fast internet speed which helped develop the game centers and internet cafes in that country.

South Korea also held the first esports tournament in the world to be broadcast on television with the RTS game StarCraft: Brood War being the most popular game to be competed.

As a testament to the rapid growth of esports as a whole, 2012 MLG Spring Tournament recorded over 4 million viewers across the globe, beating the number of viewers during the 2012 NBA All-Stars Game.

One of the most popular games in esports is DOTA 2, a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) that manages to attract millions of viewers in the entire world. It has also become the esports with the biggest prize pool in the entire history of esports for the annual competition called The International.

Read Also:

• 4 Very Helpful DOTA 2 Softwares for Beginners

• 5 Best Character Skills for Free Fire Clash Squad Mode

• Eagle 365 and BOOM Esports Became Champions in 2020/21 APAC Predator League Grand Final

Mobile Games Popularize Esports Even More

After the success of PC MOBA games, the genre entered the mobile market and made esports competitions even more popular across the globe.

Games like Vainglory, Mobile Legends and Arena of Valor have hosted national and international competition throughout the world, including Indonesia.

Considering the ever-expansive industry that’s starting to gain even more exposure and awareness, there’s no doubt that esports is going to be even bigger. Even in Indonesia, the history of esports continues to grow each passing year with the increase of gamers in the country. Hopefully this positive growth of esports in Indonesia will help gamers to achieve success through this positive hobby.

And that’s about the end of the history of esports for now. Do you have some memorable personal history with esports in your life to this day? Also, at what age did you start to play esports game and what’s your first game?

Stick around for more gaming information and make sure to follow Dunia Games on Facebook and Instagram for the latest update!

You can also buy vouchers for various games like Mobile Legends, Free Fire, Call of Duty Mobile, and many more at lower prices by making your top-ups at Dunia Games!

Read Also >>> Back to Back Champion, TNC Predator Won 2020/21 DOTA 2 APAC Predator League!