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esports
7 games that revolutionized eSports in India
Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: GO are popular eSports games now, but competitive gaming in India was revolutionized by some true multiplayer classics.
When you talk about eSports, it is a given that Counter-Strike: GO or Dota 2 are often brought up. Make no mistake, these two titles are some of the most popular multiplayer games worldwide, both for eSports as well as your average player. That being said, there are many other games that helped to revolutionize competitive gaming, turning it into the spectacle we see today. Let’s take a look at seven such games and why they’re so important to eSports as a whole.
Quake
Quake Champions signals a return for the franchise
© Bethesda Softworks
id Software’s Doom revolutionized the first person shooter genre but Quake refined it, creating the first real incarnation of competitive shooting. Much of the tournament effort was kick-started by id Software in 1996 with QuakeCon. Thousands of eager players were already organizing BYOCs and LAN parties to frag out. Large-scale LAN competitions of this type were unheard of and QuakeCon would quickly transform into the largest event of its kind in the US.
Game modes like Capture the Flag and Team Deathmatch may have previously existed in theory but Quake popularized these modes with its fast gunplay, well-designed maps and innovative movement mechanics like circle-strafing and bunny-hopping.
Though Quake has declined in popularity with other major competitions, it saw a resurgence in 2010 with Quake Live. Thankfully, the series has not been completely excised from eSports – the upcoming Quake Champions will see id Software making yet another bid for fast and furious competitive multiplayer experience.
Street Fighter
Street Fighter 5 is the most recent version
© Capcom
Quake was one of the two pillars of early tournament play in the United States. The other was Street Fighter. In the beginning, Street Fighter did not have the benefit of online play. When you wanted to prove your skill, you travelled to the local arcade and threw down against other opponents.
For many top-notch Street Fighter players in the '90s, it was about meeting at an arcade and duking it out in Street Fighter 2 Turbo to crown the best. What started in 1995 at an arcade in Broadway would eventually culminate into a yearly gathering in Las Vegas. This came to be known as the EVO Championship Series and it was born completely out of the community’s desire for organized digital fighting.
The tournament is responsible for birthing several great players including Daigo Umehara, who performed the best fighting game feat of all time against Justin Wong in Street Fighter 3: Third Strike. Umehara parried an entire ultimate attack combo with little health and retaliated with his own ultra to win EVO 2004 and along with it, eternal glory.
Street Fighter and EVO were an inspiration to fighting game tournaments around the world. It serves as a testament to the will of a community and what can be achieved with limited resources.
StarCraft: Brood War
Starcraft 2 continues the series' legacy
© Blizzard Entertainment
If Quake proved that competitive multiplayer could be a thing, then StarCraft: Brood War pretty much laid the foundation for eSports as we know it. Even though gameplay followed the typical StarCraft experience (collect resources, construct a base, build units, attack enemies and so on), Brood War introduced several new units and balanced the overall range of tactics. Of course, it did not hurt that having three different factions, each with their own strengths and weaknesses changed the very face of real-time strategy games.
In South Korea, StarCraft exploded in popularity. It motivated major gaming channels like Ongamenet and MBCGame to start their own leagues. By 2002, corporates like Samsung began to sponsor professional teams. This popularity also helped StarCraft become the competitive first game in the World Cyber Games series. StarCraft 2 has since replaced it but its popularity among viewing audiences in Korea is still high. Eventually, circulation of these matches would reach the West via YouTube and bolstered a community to redub them in English.
While not necessarily as popular in the West, StarCraft: Brood War served as a major driving force for eSports across the world. It helped establish the notion that pro players were on the same level as other athletes. That’s not even factoring the huge prize pools totaling millions of dollars or the televising of competitions.
FIFA
FIFA 17 is an excellent addition to the franchise
© Electronic Arts
How could FIFA not have a prominent eSports scene? Electronic Arts’ franchise has been a juggernaut for decades now, constantly improving on its mechanics and realism, boasting official affiliation and providing the most up-to-date rosters. It doesn’t hurt that the gameplay is fun, mirroring the core aspects of football while keeping it relatively accessible to fans of the sport.
As a competitive game, FIFA has been part of the World Cyber Games since 2001. Leagues like Electronic Sports League, World League eSport Bundesliga and Ongamenet FifaLeague have been hosting FIFA tournaments in their respective regions with great success. Then there’s the FIFA Interactive World Cup, which is sponsored by FIFA. This is considered to be the biggest video game tournament worldwide.
FIFA also has eSports significance for another reason – the game predominantly lends itself to the console players. The same could be said of the Call of Duty series, but FIFA has been at it for much longer and with a much larger audience.
Super Smash Bros
Casually competitive - that's Super Smash Bros
© Nintendo
In an era where fighting games continue to have an impact on competitive eSports, it’s interesting to see a casual-oriented game like Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros become so popular. The first proper Smash Bros tournament began in 2002 with the Tournament Go series. From there, Smash Bros would become an MLG sponsored title, attracting more competitive players and featuring in other tournaments like Apex, DreamHack, EVO and so on. Such was the popularity of Smash Bros, that MLG reported some 400 tournaments organized in 2010 alone. Professional players like Ken Hoang, Joseph Marquez, Christopher McMullen and others are some of the famous icons who emerged from competitive Smash Bros.
Here’s the thing though – Super Smash Bros was never designed to be a competitive game. Nintendo wanted it to be as appealing as possible to casual gamers and non-fighting game fans. In fact, director Masahiro Sakurai said that competitive Smash Bros is not in line with his vision of the game. There has been a conflict in the past between fans and the company - whether it is Nintendo trying to prevent EVO 2013 Smash matches from being streamed or competitive players rejecting Smash Bros Brawl in its launch state due to the perceived lack of depth. The tournament scene is currently focused on Smash Bros Melee and Smash Bros for Wii U and 3DS.
It is amazing to see the memes like “Wombo Combo, Happy Feet” and strong meta shifts which originated within competitive Smash Bros.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
The much-loved Modern Warfare received a remaster
© Activision
It is easy to forget about Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare’s influence on the competitive scene. Perhaps its biggest innovation was the introduction of load-outs and character classes, which allowed players to level up and further diversify their play-style. The addition of kill-streaks further amped up the excitement in matches, balancing risk with varying rewards. As a whole, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare changed the way we looked at modern shooters, much like how Counter-Strike revolutionized the realistic tactical shooter genre, and expanded shooters to a wider audience.
Call of Duty has been a strong mainstay in eSports ever since Modern Warfare arrived in 2008. Major League Gaming or MLG has hosted several tournaments for the game with each sequel sporting stronger eSports tools. Furthermore, teams like OpTic Gaming and FaZe Clan rose to prominence thanks to Call of Duty. Lately, the Call of Duty Championship has become a big deal with regional tournaments worldwide and prize pools exceeding $1 million.
The Call of Duty series is not viewed favourably for a number of reasons. Some claim it is dumbed down and encourages more twitch shooting than actual strategy. However, those are the same reasons for its success especially when it comes to multiplayer. The straightforward, run-and-gun approach blends well with load-outs and the ability to customize one’s character. When it comes to the ultimate test of twitch skill, few games can one-up Call of Duty.
Hearthstone
Hearthstone breathed new life into card games
© Blizzard Entertainment
Magic: The Gathering established collectible card-battling as a viable albeit niche competition in the real world. Unfortunately, this success did not carry over into the digital space. It wasn’t until Blizzard’s Hearthstone that collectible card battlers really achieved worldwide success, especially in the eSports realm.
Blizzard pushed for Hearthstone’s eSports integration almost immediately upon its release. BlizzCon in 2014 offered a prize pool of $250,000 and later, tournaments like DreamHack, World Cyber Arena and Nvidia would get in on the Hearthstone action. The overall strategy of the game’s mechanics combined with an element of randomness that could turn any game around in an instant made Hearthstone a big hit in the competitive scene. Even on Twitch, Hearthstone is currently one of the most popular games to watch with many professional players turning to live-streaming for revenue.
Though the overall balance of Hearthstone has been questioned with the addition of more and more powerful cards, the game still continues to thrive. If nothing else, it has proven that collectible card games can indeed work in an eSports era dominated by strategy games, fighting games, MOBAs and first person shooters.
There are many other games which have had a profound impact on esports like Overwatch, Battlefield, Heroes of the Storm and so on. Not every game has helped to make competitive gaming on par with “real” sports but each significant title has helped grow the scene in one way or the other.
