Introduction / What is e-sport? E-sport is a fairly new concept to most of us, and an elementary explanation might therefore be in order. E-sport is short for electronic sport, in other words computer sports. This brand of sports, competive gaming, has grown rapidly during the last years. E-sport is practised, mainly by youths up to an age of 25, but there is a minor interest for elderly.

Background / History In its earliest stage e-sport apparently meant that a group of friends met to play computer games against each other in small local area networks. Even though the initial thought is sustained, this sport has evolved greatly. Today e-sport is practised daily world wide, primarily over the Internet. Besides, major events, with a wide range of nationalities involved and prizes in the million size, are annually held. On the elite level, many of the participating clans (teams), are smaller companies where the players are contracted and receive payment. The computer game developer ID Software is often referred to as the founder of e-sport. In 1993 ID Software released the game “Doom” which more or less revolutionized the First person shooter genre. Doom had, besides the excellent graphics for its time, support for multiplayer, which made gaming at so called LANs(Local Area Network) possible. Worth mentioning is the similar game Quake from the same developer, which was released three years later, 1996. In the same year, the the first Swedish Championship in Quake was arranged.

E-sport today E-sport is practised in most cases over the Internet, but the bigger and more professional tournaments are arranged at major events where a large amount of computers are connected in large networks. The tournaments are typically arranged at large events where the computers are joined together in extensive networks, mainly because gaming over the Internet suffers from delays which depends on the players' home connections. The tournaments are not played their on own computers either, but on ones provided by hardware giants such as Intel and nVidia – everything to make sure everyone plays at the same conditions. Without the support from the multinational companies would tournaments of this calibre be impossible to arrange due to the many expenses that the events involve. Two notable large scale events are the CPL(Cyberathlete Professional League) and WCG(World Cyber Games) which are the e-sports equivalence of the world cup and the Olympic games. These can, thanks to the great interest from the crowd and sponsors which opened their eyes for e-sports, offer fairly big money prizes to the combatants. The 2004 winter edition of the CPL could offer no less than $100 000 to the Counter-strike tournament, the easily most popular game, where $30 000 was awarded the winner. In addition to the enthusiasts who attended the tournament, another 30 000 followed the grand final through the in-game spectator system.

Future As earlier mentioned, the interest of e-sport is greatly increasing. At a professional level, e-sport can be compared to any other sports; world cup, Olympic games, national leagues, big prize money, contracted players with wages and sponsors. E-sport has been given more and more room in media – in Swedish television Swedish success has been reported several times. More interest in media in particular is crucial for a complete breakthrough of e-sports, making it accepted as a sport, even among the older generation. Regular TV broadcast where more spectacular matches are shown and commented have been proposed. The world has with time taken e-sport more and more seriously. In Austria the first academic education in e-sport has become reality. The education, covering four terms, is for anyone who is in any way affiliated with e-sports, which with actual gaming put aside, may be journalism or any other interest in e-sport. One must be reminded that e-sport is a very young sport and still merely is at an early stage of development. Furthermore it is a most unique sport; it is the first of its kind and will naturally be the only. Therefore it is hard to tell the future of e-sport. In a couple of years we might see e-sport as an official sport in the Olympic games, or will this idea about a totally non-physical sport be neglected by the society after the interest has somewhat diminished?

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