E-sports

E-sports (abbreviation for Electronic Sports) is the hybrid name given to video games that are played competitively. E-sports can refer to team games or single-player "one versus one" games. It is debatable whether or not single-player games without direct competition are E-sports, for example, high scores on Donkey Kong. Games that are commonly considered an E-sport are games that can be performed in front of large audiences for a spectator experience similar to "normal" sports (football, baseball, etc). The four accepted genres that fit this criteria are First-Person Shooters, Real-Time Strategy games, Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas (MOBAs), and Fighting games.

Recently, American E-sports competitors became recognized as international athletes and became eligible for P-visas, the same type of visa given to Olympic athletes.

Examples

First-Person Shooters

First-Person Shooters were among the first games to make it into the large tournament scene. The first two prominent titles were Valve Software's Counter Strike and id Software's Quake.

Quake, released in 1996 with many subsequent releases, is an Arena Shooter played in a one vs one format on the PC. Players battle on small maps with a focus on power-ups and positioning. Quake was a popular game in the E-sports community because of the raw skill and hand-eye coordination needed to play the game at a professional level. Quake is still played today at E-sports competitions, most notably its recent rendition Quake Live makes an occasional appearance at the Intel Extreme Masters event.

Counter Strike was originally a mod of Half-Life distributed within a niche community. Eventually, the mod became so popular that Valve Software hired the creators of the mod to work for Valve full-time and create a feature release of the game. Counter Strike, unlike Quake, is played in a team format, specifically five versus five. The goal of the game is to either plant a bomb (as "Terrorists") or defend the two bomb plant sites (as "Counter-terrorists"). The game is played for a specific number of rounds where each round is won by either detonating/defusing the bomb or eliminating the entire enemy team. While individual skill is still a factor, Counter Strike is centralized on teamwork and communication. Each players screen can be spectated, allowing an audience to be brought directly into the action.

Other notable First-Person Shooters are Bungie/343i's Halo and Treyarch/Infinity Ward's Call of Duty both for the Xbox console. Both titles are most prominently played is a four vs four format.

Real-Time Strategy

Real-Time Strategy (RTS) games are commonly compared to a pianist playing chess. Two series of games have dominated the RTS scene: Warcraft and Starcraft (and Starcraft 2), both released by Blizzard Entertainment.

Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA)

Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas (MOBAs) originated as mods for RTS games.