Dota 2 regularly has events around the world all throughout the year. So, a couple of friends and I started planning on something that we would be able to visit. At first, we were aiming for the ‘Manilla Majors’ but that plan fell-out due to other obligations.

Next, we heard about the then-upcoming ‘ESL One Genting’ event to be conducted at the end of January 2018 in Malaysia.

We all decided that this would be our thing. Learning from our first attempt, we did not waste any time. Bookings were made and we were on our way. I could barely contain myself, as this was also my first experience travelling abroad.

I did some reading up on what to expect and what to do while we’re there. Not much but hey, might as well while we were there, huh?

Visit Twin towers

Tasting the famous Malaysian dish ‘Nasi Lemak’

Roaming in Petaling Jaya

Coming back to the event, ESL One Genting is a Dota2 Minor tournament with a prize pool of $400,000 USD and 400 Dota 2 Pro Circuit points up for grabs. A total of 16 top tier teams were participating in the event.

The event was being conducted in ‘Resorts World Genting’ which is a hilltop resort near Kuala Lumpur. Here’s a fun fact: ‘Resorts World Genting’ is home to world’s largest hotel ‘First World’.

Finally, the day has come, where we were about to witness our first live game, though Navi (Natus Vincere; One of our personal favorites since they started playing ‘Dota 2’) was attending the event, due to poor performance in group stages they did not qualify for the Main event. This was a huge bummer as we’re hoping to see our favorites play on the Main event.

Disappointment aside, I wasn’t going to let this ruin my fun. So, I started rooting for my second favorite team ‘Team Liquid’. Liquid cruised through the Group stages and entered the Finals as clear favorites. Though Team liquid lost in finals but oh boy! What a series of games it was. Glad I got to see it live. Newbee took home the cup that day with 3-2.

The crowd went wild. Honestly, everybody was cheering after the finale. It didn’t just feel like a competitive event but a gathering of people celebrating their favorite game. Seeing so many people celebrating something you also love is just unreal. My cheers and screams might have died down in the crowd but my spirits were higher than ever.

I would like to share a few things to look out for while visiting an ESports event:

Meet and greet with famous eSport personalities.

Signing and photo sessions with teams and players.

Goodies and official merchandise.

Cosplays of popular video game characters.

Final thoughts, some people might say you are better off watching it on stream such as Twitch.tv with the comfort of being at home. But like any other sports event, nothing beats the stadium atmosphere with 30,000+ fans screaming and chanting their support to their favorite teams. The sudden roars and gasps on unexpected plays. This is something to be witnessed firsthand. A truly memorable experience and am glad we decided to do it.

Oh, and if you are wondering what the title means, Dota is affectionately called “Three lane highway” because of its three-lane gameplay.

The post A Three-Lane Highway to ESL One: Is it Really Worth Attending an eSports Event appeared first on iXie Gaming.

It has been significantly becoming popular these days, with a large amount of money spent on games, gaming equipment, and there are many games releasing in the market. Gaming companies are working their best to provide the best possible graphics, gameplay, art, sound, strategic physics and skills so that their game stands out in this competitive world of games. This in turn has made a sport out of it, hence the name e-Sport.

So what is E-Sport?

Electronic sports simply put are games being played on computers with the best players competing against each other to show their skills and strategy. The gamers themselves play the games and are live-streamed and watched by millions of people and enjoyed. It has been played for generations just like the physical sport.

Many PC games have benefited from increasing internet connectivity from the year of 1990.

In the 2000s the growth of e-Sport is thought to be influenced by the building internet network following the 1997 Asian financial crisis.  It is also thought that the high unemployment rate at the time caused many people to look for things to do while out of work. The development of e-Sport in South Korea was the prevalence of the Company-style internet cafe/LAN gaming centre, known as a PC bang.

To grow e-Sport gaming, many big companies joined hands with local Japanese gaming companies in 2014.

Professional leagues

e-Sport gaming involves the use of promotion and relegation to move sponsored teams leagues within the competition’s organization based on how the team fared in matches.

Blizzard Entertainments announced the Overwatch League in which the Overwatch game was played. The league was announced in 2016 with its inaugural regular season featuring twelve teams. Starting in January 2018, players were getting an annual salary and benefits and had to share the prize-winning across the team. The first season (2018) had a prize pool of $3.5 million with US$1 million to the team winning in the postseason

How big are E-Sport gaming tournaments?

e-Sports tournaments are tournaments where players can earn a huge prize pool by competing against others. The International 2014’s top team won a cheque of over $ 5,000,000, which sounds massive for being an awesome gamer. Some of the large companies like Valve and Steam conduct these tourneys in an arena with a capacity of 17000 people.

Riot’s League of Legends world championship and MLG Pro Circuit makes huge pay-outs for the best teams. Prizes include gaming gears, PC’s etc for the gamers. They even include a lucky draw for the audience. E-Sport is making a big mark in the world by offering various attractive prizes to anyone who can stand out in this arena. It’s rumoured that E-Sport may be a part of the Olympics in the future.

Here are some of the most popular E-Sport teams

Given the vastly appealing prize money, there came many E-Sport teams playing many competitive games which have gained huge fan bases watching the teams and cheering along.

The most well-known E-Sport team would be the Team Liquid which won the ” International 2014’s Major” and there are many teams in specific e-Sport games, such as Cloud9, Fnatic, Natus Vincere, Vitrus Pro, SK gaming, Ninjas in Pyjamas and the list goes on.

Which genre of games are there and what kind of games are played?

Video games which are played in professional competitions come under few major genres. The main titles are fighting games, first-person shooters, real-time strategy, or multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) with MOBA being heavily popular in terms of viewership.

The following games are currently played in E-Sport arena

Fighting games genre includes Streetfighter, Super smash bros, Marvel vs Capcom, Tekken etc.

First person shooters are one of the most popular genres in which Counter-Strike: Global Offensive being the top most played game in E-Sport over some MOBA games like League of Legends and Dota 2. Overwatch, Crossfire, Battle fiend series, Rainbow Six: Siege are the games played in these tournaments.

Then comes the moderately popular real-time strategy games such as StarCraft: Brood War, Warcraft 3,     StarCraft 2.

Sport games are also played here like FIFA series, NBA 2K, Rocket League but are not popular genres compared to the above ones.

Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA): When it comes to E-Sport, the top genres of games are played from MOBA. The games such as League of Legends, Smite, Heroes of Storms, Heroes of Newerth, Clash Royale (mobile platform).

Many other genres are also played but they are not as famous as the genres mentioned above.

Who are the major e-Sport tournament organizers?

Here are a few major titles that are being played by some organizations.

For Counter-Strike – CEVO – Empowering Gamers, Growing Communities

ESL – Electronic Sport League

PGL- Pro-Gaming League

ESEA- E-Sports Entertainment Association League is an e-Sports game organizer. It’s widely used for organizing online tournaments because it is considered as an anti-cheat software.

FACE IT.

DotA-2 joindotA, E-Sportal, Valve – It hosts all the Major for DotA2

League of Legends Riot (creator of League of Legends -LOL) hosts the most notable competitions such as the LCS(League of Legends Championship Series).

How does e-Sport make money?

Most big tournaments pay for travel and hotel now so the organizers are just playing the role player mainly. But merchandise and sponsorship would be the biggest source of income I guess.

For example, the CSGO Cloud9 team made $225,000 in prize money in 2015 but they definitely made a lot more through sponsorships.

However, the most popular e-Sports games have been shown to fulfil all of the requirements necessary for defining them as sports with little exception. These games are comparable to any traditional sport in terms of the magnitude of viewership/spectatorship, professionalism, competition and rivalry between teams/organizations/fan bases, as well as the methods of consumption. As e-Sports consumption has grown tremendously from the rapid growth of the internet and information technologies, this has piqued the interest of potential investors who may serve as sponsors for the e-Sports market. In addition to giving e-Sports the respect that it deserves classifying it as a sport could lead to e-Sports competitions being aired on sports channels such as ESPN further increasing awareness. If deemed an official sport the increased recognition can lead to more marketing and sponsorship opportunities allowing the industry to grow to even greater heights.

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