What are esports? | A beginner's guide

Whether you play video games or haven't picked up a controller or decades, there is a strong chance you have heard about esports. A business that is estimated to be worth almost $1.5 billion by 2020, with some players that are already competing for prize pools of up to $24 million, esports are also hard to understand, filled with jargon, and not exactly like the sports you typically associate with competition on a global scale. If you're looking to watch it, understand it, or just get a better idea of what on earth it all means: this is your guide to esports.

What does 'esports' actually mean?

Generally, the easiest definition is competitive gaming at a professional level. It only includes video games, but pretty much any game with a winner and a loser can be played as an esport, although the bigger the player base and the more support it has, the better the competition.

How that exactly works differs from game to game. The majority of popular esports are team-based games played in leagues or tournaments throughout the year, culminating in one final event.  Some of those leagues or tournaments are region-specific, meaning that, for most of the year, European teams will only play other European teams, North American teams will only play other North American teams, and so on.

Some games are a head-to-head, one-on-one format, though. Fighting games such as Street Fighter V, for example,  or Hearthstone, a card game where each player has a custom deck of cards that are played to defeat the opponent, without any team alongside them. 

What sort of games can be an esport?

The games themselves can come in a wide variety of formats, although there's two main variants nowadays: first-person shooters, 'MOBAs'. First-person shooter is self-explanatory, while MOBA stands for Multiplayer Online Battle Arena. 

That's the first bit of jargon you'll need to know for esports. Generally, MOBAs are all about two teams playing as heroes with unique abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. The goal is to kill the opponents to gain an advantage and destroy their base on the opposite site of the map. By killing oppponents, they gain gold and experience, which can be used to improve the character.

League of Legends and Dota 2 are the two biggest MOBAs, and have a recognisable top-down perspective. First-person shooters, on the other hand, typically swap between showing a player's perspective and a flying camera when spectating. 

In a first-person shooter (often referred to as an FPS), the goal can differ. In some games, like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, the goal is simply to kill the opposing team. In others, like Overwatch, it can be a 'king of the hill' mode, where teams fight over a location, the first team to control it for a set amount of time wins, or a 'payload' mode, where teams take turns attacking and defending, fighting to push the payload to a final objective.

Other esports can be card games, sport games (the FIFA series is growing in popularity as an esport, with major football clubs having their own FIFA players), strategy games, and fighting games. Sports games are generally the most simple, given they're based on real-world sports, while fighting games are also accessible, given the more obvious back and forth of punches and kicks.

Strategy games, like StarCraft 2, are all about players building armies and trying to defeat each other with optimal unit movement, army composition, and tactical choices. Battles are won and lost of tactical choices and quick movements. Card games, like Hearthstone, challenge players to best one another with monsters and spells, the first person to lose all of their health loses.

What are esports players competing for?

The players themselves are generally then competing for both cash prizes and glory. International competitions can come with huge prizes, plus sponsorships deals for teams involved. Rick Fox, three-time NBA champion with the Los Angeles Lakers, made headlines when he took the plunge into esports and is  now the owner of franchise Echo Fox. Echo Fox has teams for League of Legends, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and more.

Many leagues now offer regular salaries and player rights. By remaining in competition, and not getting knocked out, players will receive a guaranteed salary, while winning competitions can earn greater rewards.

Where can I watch all of this?

In-person, esports tournaments are generally held at major arenas. In London, the Gfinity Arena holds regular tournaments, while the biggest events will be held are larger venues. The League of Legends World Championship 2017 final, for example, is being held at the Beijing National Stadium, or the Bird's Nest.

Watching online, how you can watch these games differs from tournament to tournament, as some platforms get exclusive rights. The typical platforms are Twitch, a website where people stream themselves playing video games, and YouTube. Sometimes, ESPN will show a tournament on TV, and the BBC have dipped their toes in the water in the past, but Twitch and YouTube are generally the platforms of choice.

Some tournaments will also have streams for those new to the game. Commentators (typically called casters when referring to esports) on these streams will go into what each character's abilities do, as some games have rosters of over 100 unique characters, each with 5 unique abilities. 

How can I know what everyone does?

This is a pretty hard question to answer, as it's different for each game. In games with heroes or unique characters, the best way to work this out is through visual cues, or searching the character's name.

Big, burly characters will often be 'tanks', leaders that withstand damage and dictate the team's movements. Those with large weapons will be damage dealers, generally called carries, and often characters with a staff or other magical equipment will either be a 'support', healing and enabling allies, or another carry, dealing damage with spells.

There are huge resources online for what characters do, but learning to use the visual cues is the easiest way to understand. Similarly, even if you're not a gun expert, learning the typical shape of a shotgun, a submachine gun, or a sniper rifle can help you understand how a gun will be used.

What esport should I watch?

To get into esports, the best thing to do is to try watching or playing a few different ones from a variety of genres. League of Legends is popular, but not to everyone's taste. Here's a variety of games from the main genres that are easy to get into.

• Rocket League - Very much like football, except with fewer players and rocket cars. There's little strategy here, it's primarily about skill in handling the car.

• Street Fighter V - Fighting games are generally the most accessible esports, as animations are clear, the perspective is mostly static, and the question of "who is winning" is easy to answer when there's two characters punching each other

• StarCraft 2 - One of the few remaining strategy game esports, StarCraft as a series is responsible for pioneering esports. The aim is to defeat the opponent, and while there's a lot you can learn about individual strategy, the battles themselves are clear.

Despite being popular, FPS and MOBA esports are some of the most difficult to watch, as first-person perspectives make for difficult spectating and a vast array of characters in MOBA games mean you have got a lot to learn.