PHANTOM SWAY

    • The Rise of eSports

    *Scott Davis, 14, is a junior reviewer for Phantom Sway. He enjoys dogs and video games and lives with his family in California. 

    People have been playing video games for a long time.

    There are many different ways to play games: by yourself, with friends, casually or competitively. Gamers love to show off their skills and face others in what always results in an exciting match. Since people compete all the time like this in the real world through sports, why not compete in the virtual world.

    And from that ideology, eSports were born.

    Usually formed without endorsement from the original game creators, various companies and people have formed tournaments for competitive games like ‘Super Smash Bros’, ‘Street Fighter’, and ‘League of Legends’. In these tournaments teams of players or singular players will compete with each other in matches or battles to move up each round until becoming a champion and usually winning a prize. Although this sounds like it would be a great idea, eSports haven’t become popular until quite recently.

    In January of 2016, ESPN decided to start covering eSports. This was a great news for the eSports community, because people could now have hope of making real money from eSports.

    Even with this newfound coverage, eSports  is still a shaky business; it’s not a very stable occupation quite yet, but Blizzard is looking to change that with their new hit team-based shooter, ‘Overwatch’.

    For anyone that doesn’t know, Blizzard just made a big announcement for their smash hit. They claimed that they were going to add a professional competitive scene called the “Overwatch League”. Blizzard stated that this will be a turning point for eSports. They are going to add a constant sustainable pay for the gamers who enter the league, and they plan on making it a very popular eSport.

    Many people were skeptical about this…

    …but now people are thinking it could actually work, and they are currently offering jobs for various different positions. I think that this is the best shot eSports has, as Blizzard is a multi-billion dollar company, and they could very well put in enough money to make this a successful attempt at improving eSports.

    Scott Davis
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