It’s 2018. You just got home from your two hour commute from the City. You got your dream job right out of school. You toss your bag on the floor, hop into some comfortable pajamas, get yourself seated in your brand new gaming chair, turn on your PlayStation 4 and immediately join into a match on Fortnite. Life is good.
Not too long ago, electronic gaming was frowned upon by society. E-sports, or Electric Sports, are multiplayer video games that are played competitively across numerous platforms, typically by professional gamers. Be honest, how many times have you heard your parents, or some form of adult, explain to you that playing video games kills your brain, is a waste of time, and ultimately that you would never be able to make any money by playing?
E-sports are generally played in arenas around the world, where the audience can either attend to watch and support in person, or by watching live streams on Twitch, YouTube, or even Facebook Live. E-sports have existed since the 90’s; when computers became more advanced and the internet was becoming more available to users across the globe. E-sports are still being looked down as the physical aspect of gaming aren’t quite there – yet. Competitive gaming takes different types of skills that one would not usually connect in sports such as Football or Baseball. E-sports players have to focus on strict hand-eye coordination, and some of the top players in the world train for up to 14 hours a day.
E-Sports are all about the fans. Just like any other sport, the fans draw in the money. E-Sports have made it extremely entertaining and user friendly in terms of how to keep up to date with a fans favorite player or team. YouTube, Twitter, Twitch, Instagram – these are just a few of the platforms that produce content from professional streamers and players, to the everyday average gamer.
Below are the statistics of the top video games consumed over the past three years.
Well how have E-Sports grown? In 2018, the United Kingdom spent over $3.5 Billion on computer games alone, according to the BBC.
Take Tyler ”Ninja” Blevins for example. Ninja has been a professional gamer since the mid 2000’s, where he played the famous First Person Shooter ‘Halo”. Ninja makes his living off of streaming the most popular games to date, mostly Fortnite, on his Twitch account. In an interview done with ESPN, Ninja said that he makes over $500,000 a month in advertisements and donations by Twitch. That number does not include the multiple tournaments hosted by Ninja around the country. Earlier in 2018, Ninja earned the Best Content Creator Award for the 2018 Gaming Awards. Ninja has had a large number of famous celebrity cameos not only play games with him, but win tournaments with him as well. That list includes people such as Drake, Soulja Boy, Travis Scott, JuJu Smith Schuster, and Norm Macdonald. According to Fox Sports, SouljaBoy is in the early stages to start up his own E-Sports organization, with Ninja being his main business partner.
When the average person thinks of video games, they think of something like solitaire on the computer, or an Xbox. The first video game ever sold was Pong which was released by Atari in 1972. Video games have indulged so much deeper than what we think of at the base of the term. All video games include systems such as Nintendo’s, Gameboys, Sega Genesis, Game Cube, Dream Cast, PC, IOS, – yes that’s right, your smartphones are even considered gaming devices. As of November 20th, 2018, the most popular gaming system ever created was Sony’s PlayStation 2, raking in over 157 million units sold since its release in the early 2000’s.
We’ve only scratched the surface of Electronic Gaming; much like how we’ve only scraped the surface in any type of modernized technology. Only as of recent, Virtual Reality Gaming came out. That’s right – VIRTUAL REALITY VIDEO GAMES. Gaming is no longer just a means of passing by time. Gaming is the future of entertainment, and it appears to seem a large part of a profession many people will be able to make careers out of.
Vito Namio
Senior Television and Digital Media major
My name is Vito Namio. I am a Senior at Montclair State University. I am currently an Editor at Fox News. I also am a partial business owner of an Event Production Company where I have worked for 10 years.