n 2000, CPL’s Quake 3 tournament offered a $ 100,000 prize (about £ 75,000, A $ 140,000), with the winner – Johnathan ‘Fatal1ty’ Wendel – bringing home $ 40,000 (about £ 31,000, AUD 57,000). Everything has grown rapidly since then, not just shooting games, but RTS games like StarCraft and Warcraft are involved in the action.
Modern E-sports: millions of dollars, millions of viewers
These days, a grand prize worth $ 40,000 seems to be a rather troublesome problem. Indeed, the E-sports scene has matured so now is not only about bonuses, but also professional players who are paid in full.
For example, in Overwatch League – the professional team for Blizzard’s team-based shooter – players must receive a minimum basic salary of $ 50,000 (about £ 38,000, A $ 70,000) and a bonus when win. The second means that in the first season, the top two players from the winning franchise, London Spitfire, earned $ 195,000 (about £ 150,000, equivalent to A $ 275,000).
Now, London Spitfire is hardly a New England Patriots, but Blizzard’s E-sports tournament reflects that a professional sport in the real world to some extent has a transfer window, a free agent. charges, etc. (and of course specify the basic salary, as mentioned, plus health and retirement benefits, etc.).
Overwatch, though, is relatively smaller fry than some heavy games of contemporary E-sports context. Today, the most popular game is not a shooting game gun, which is MOBA (Multiplayer online arena). For those who are unfamiliar, these are essentially action RTS games with some RPG elements.
Dota 2 is a MOBA and is the king of all E-sports games, at least in terms of total bonuses. According to E-sportsearnings.com, Dota 2 has paid about $ 175 million (about £ 135 million, A $ 250 million) over the years. The legendary alliance, another MOBA, was in third place with $ 64 million (about £ 49 million, A $ 91 million) – and when we wrote this article it was the most viewed game on Twitch in a long way.