History of Esports and Top-Earning Esports Athletes

Birth of Esports:

Video games are competitive by their very nature. Yet where did these game tournaments come from? What is their origin story? And who are the top-earning Esport athletes right now?

People want to see who is the best in the games. Esports are watched by many.

1972 Stanford University Competition:

First Esport tournament back in the day. In Stanford University there was a competition for Spacewars. The winner got a year-long subscription to rolling stones magazine. The tournament had 10,000 participants, and media coverage of the event was enormous.

1980s Twin Galaxies Shines high score!

Video game companies like Twin Galaxies start recording high scores in their system. More specifically arcade games. This started the competitive nature of games. Guinness Book of World Record would record high scores of the best players. This only began to slow down once PC games were released. Arcade games grew less in popularity, once PC games took over.

The 1990s Get boosted with Internet connectivity!

Internet era was upon us! There was boosted competition when players could compete with others from around the world thanks to the internet. Nintendo and Blockbuster sponsored world championships. Nintendo World Championship toured around the United States and held a finals tournament in Holly wood California.

1991 Street Fighters and the era of 1 v 1 competitions:

Street Fighter II popularized 1v1 games instead of high-score games. Players would compete for face to face.

In 1997 Red Annihilation tournament happened which drew 2000 participants competing over the internet. 16 final participants would go to Electronic Entertainment Expo at World Congress Center. The winner of the tournament drove off with Ferrari 328 GTS, which was Dennis Thresh Fong.

1998 Starcraft making competition mainstream!

Competitive gaming was becoming mainstream, especially in China and Korea cause of the PC bangs and the financial crisis of 1997. Players would be sponsored by companies like Samsung and Telecommunication giant SK telecom. While Thresh was a minor celebrity in North America, the Starcraft players in South Korea were very big superstars who were seen by many on television.

2000 the dawn of Twitch.tv and Youtube!

When Starcraft 2 came out boasted 50 million viewers and 17.5 million on twitch.tv. Starcraft 2 was especially popular in South Korea

At the turn of the century, MOBA games came out with games like League of Legends, which were huge. Now the prize money is in the millions. For example, a single international tournament in 2017 was $24.6 million dollars.

The present moment where we at?

Games that are popular in Esports include League of Legends, Dota, Overwatch, Starcraft, and Counter strike.

454 million viewers by 2010 and revenues increased to $1 billion US. The central cause of the growth of Esports is YouTube and Twitch platforms, where people do streaming. Esports was prevalent in China, and South Korea, but not so much in Japan because they had anti-gambling laws that made it prohibited to have professional gaming tournaments, but things may change with time.

These are the top-earning Esport Athletes. Right now Dota 2 is considered to be the most lucrative game to get into, but who knows if it will continue to be the most lucrative in the future. Dota stands for the defense of the ancients. It is a MOBA game with 5 players vs 5 players, you destroy the enemy base. You can download it on steam. It is similar to League of Legends another MOBA game.

Top 10 in Earning E-Sport Athletes:

N0tail (Johan Sundstein): Captain of OG. A danish professional Dota 2 player. He won 4 major championships. Before he was playing Heroes of Newerth but transferred to Dota 2 because it wasn’t as popular. He has made $6915222.80

JerAx (Jesse Vainikka): Plays Dota 2, is a Finnish esports player earning $6470548.00. Played for OG and retired from Dota 2 in January 2020. He was also in military service for Finnish Navy

ana (Anathan Pham): Dota 2 player earned $6000411.96. Australian professional gamer. Is currently an inactive roster for OG.

Ceb (Sebastien Debs): Dota 2 player earned $5,505,197.41. French player. He is part of the OG roster and his team won multi-million dollar tournament in 2018 and 2019.

Topson (Topia Taavitsainen): Dota 2 player earned $5423,502.57. He is also part of OG roster and won the 2018 and 2019 international tournaments. He was originally studying to be an electrician but switched to cooking. His family was doubtful of him starting gaming as a career but after winning several tournaments they were supportive.

KuroKy (Kuro Takhasomi): Dota 2 player earned $5, 190,106.15. German Iranian Dota 2 player for Nigma. He has leg disabilities, which influences him to play video games more often.

Miracle- Amer Al-Barkawi: Dota 2 player earned $4,777,911,48. Jordan/Polish professional Dota 2 player. He is part of Team Nigma as well. He began his professional career at 16 of age.