E-sports: what are electronic sports?
E-Sports, also known as competitive gaming, are professional-level video game competitions accessible to all, regardless of gender, race or physical ability of each individual.
The e-Sports or esports, from the English Electronic Sports, are known in Italy as electronic sports or competitive electronic games and take place on virtual platforms created with electronic or computer systems.
According to the definition in the “Guide to e-Sports”, edited by the Association of Italian Video Games Publishers and Developers (AESVI), Electronic Sports are a form of organized electronic competition that takes place through video games and involves professional gamers, semi-professionals or amateurs, who face each other as individuals or as members of a team.
The live tournaments are organized like any other sporting event and provide for the presence of referees and specialized commentators, while the qualifying phases are held on online platforms.
The e-Sports were born in the ’70s in South Korean cybercafés, also known as “PC bangs”, where gamers could compete in amateur tournaments to demonstrate their skills. However, the first organized video game competition was held on the 19th of October 1972 at Stanford University and involved about twenty participants: it was a Spacewar tournament! sponsored by Rolling Stone who offered an annual subscription to the magazine as a first prize.
A few years later, and more precisely in 1980, Atari, the American company that produces video games and gaming hardware, organized a Space Invaders tournament for the Atari 2600 console in the United States, attracting over 10,000 participants.
After about six months of events around the nation, the final was played in the spring of 1981 at the University of Connecticut in Stamford.
The development of an increasingly multimedia society, combined with the strengthening of information and communication technologies, has led to an increase in the phenomenon of E-Sports that at the end of the nineties became protagonists of major competitions sponsored and broadcast on television channels. In addition, over the years the organization of competitions with prize pools that reach staggering figures has led to the creation of professional leagues and teams in every country of the world.
In Italy, according to the latest Report on export in Italy, produced by the Italian Interactive Digital Entertainment Association (IDEA) in collaboration with Nielsen, 475 thousand people follow daily esports events, and this catchment area expands to about 1,620,000 people (+15%) if you also consider those who claim to follow an esports event several times a week.
Already in 2017, as a result of the exponential growth of exports in the world, the possibility of making electronic sports an Olympic discipline on the occasion of the Paris Olympic Games of 2024 is being considered.
What are the main genres of E-sports?
The second chapter of the “Guide to e-Sports” is dedicated to the main e-Sports titles that AESVI defines as “as engaging as a novel and visually immersive as a film“:
- Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA): is one of the most popular genres. In the two teams in MOBA made up of five players, each one faces the other within a limited map. The first team that destroys the opposing base is declared the winner. The success of a team depends on the ability to create a group of five characters with complementary skills. Each player controls these characters through a third-person view;
- First Person Shooter (FPS): the genre has a subjective view that simulates the views of the character. The main feature common to FPS is the use of weapons. In official competitions, 2 teams of 5 or 6 players face each other on a variable map with two main objectives: neutralize all opponents or succeed in placing an explosive and detonate a primary target. Among the most famous games there are Call of Duty and Rainbow Six Siege;
- Battle Royale (BR): is a genre born in recent years and became a global phenomenon thanks to Fortnite. The main goal of a Battle Royale is to survive until you are the last remaining player. The games can all take place against everyone, with teams of two or three gamers. The action takes place on a large scale, within a very large map that, however, as time goes by, shrinks more and more, pushing players to approach one another;
- Real-Time Strategy (RTS): Real-time strategy titles are the most complex category that includes mainly war games, where two or more players command their army and have as their main objective the destruction of the enemy base. Usually, you play on a map that changes depending on the setting. Each gamer manages entire armies, consisting of civilian units, military units and buildings, to which he assigns several tasks. The most popular title is Starcraft 2, but also Warcraft and Age of Empires are quite popular;
- Sports: sports games simulate, in a more or less realistic way, a sports discipline replicating the dynamics of the corresponding sport. They are among the most played esports titles in the world and are played mainly on consoles;
- Online Digital Collectible Card Games (ODCCG): strategic games based on trading cards. Gamers usually start with basic decks that can then be integrated with new playing cards earned through wins and advancing levels;
- Fighting: also known as “fighting games”, are a form of action game where two gamers each control a different character engaging in fighting 1 against 1. The structure of the game usually includes several rounds of fighting, where every gamer has to win one more than his opponent. To be effective in a fight, a gamer must master combat techniques such as a parade, counter-attack and combos, series of concatenated moves that strongly damage the opponent;
- Mobile video games: this category does not refer directly to a gaming genre, but to a gaming platform: mobile devices. The esports titles played on mobile devices can fall into all the categories mentioned above.
E-sports and Cagliari Calcio: the Club Rossoblu opens its doors to electronic sports
In March 2018, with the participation in the Empoli esports Cup, the glorious history of the Cagliari Calcio football club founded in 1920 and known more simply as Cagliari, has been enriched with an important new piece.
The club was among the first in Serie A to enter the world of electronic sports thanks to the project e-Sports, born in collaboration with the company Inferno, which has a dual objective: involving fans and developing the brand Cagliari Calcio in Italy and abroad.
In February 2021, the company launched a partnership with Exeed, one of the leading companies in Italy in the electronic sports sector, winning the Final Eight of the eSerie A TIM 2021. A success that demonstrates how great the desire of the Cagliari Calcio team, flanked by the main sponsor Intesa Sanpaolo, as well as Fluorsid and Adidas, is to be the protagonist in the Italian export scene.
Do you want to experience a holiday full of elegance and charm? Book your stay at Palazzo Doglio in Cagliari
