Since games have existed, there has been controversy surrounding them. Over the last 20 years, the games industry has developed in leaps and bounds, and the debates around their impact on society have increased at an equally alarming rate.

These arguments have been done to death, and the scientific research that has gone into it would outdo anything I could replicate. So, this article will take a step back and view the debate from a different perspective, and analyse how the media affects eSports.

To analyse the impact the media has on eSports, first you must define what eSports really means, and when it really emerged. Although the gaming industry is massive (worth £850m in 2006, projected to be worth £6bn by 2015), the eSports scene is a tiny segment of this, and has really only blossomed in recent years.

To this day eSports is not a term recognised by any major dictionary, and is yet to dissolve into the mainstream dialect. However, in gaming circles it is a word we use day in and day out, and can be defined by one simple idea – Gaming as a sport.

It normally boils down to the level of competition, and the intensity that fuels it, but it is essentially more than that. eSports is about professionalism as well as skill, presentability as well as determination, and marketability as well as commitment. Like any other major sport, eSports has become incredibly commercial, and has a lot of corporate involvement. Raw skill is no longer enough to succeed in the industry.

Competitive gaming has been around since the early 80s, when the first competitive gaming team was established - The US National Video Game Team. Setup in 1983 to compete in Twin Galaxies, they ran numerous competitions over the space of 7 years, and set up the Video Games Masters Tournament for the Guinness World Records. However, can this really be defined as eSports? Sure, the competition is there, but the surrounding factors don’t meet the definition I set above. There was no professionalism, there was no media presentability, and no desire to involve it in the mainstream.

eSports truly emerged in 1997 at the Red Annihilation tournament, where the big prizes finally came to competitive gaming. Quake creator John Carmack offered his own Ferrari up for a prize to the winner of the Doom II tournament, and provided the spark that developed into the $1’000’000 prizes we see today.

It was at this point that the scene really blossomed, and the media interest in the competitive side of gaming began. When Joe Public saw that he could earn a Ferrari playing games, he wanted to know more about it. He wanted to read about the top players and find out how they got where they are. He wanted to watch them play, and he wanted to be like them. When Joe’s friends saw, they became interested too, and teams were formed. The scene exploded, and news sites, tournaments and leagues were popping up like wildfire.

In the current age of eSports, for almost any game there are numerous websites where you can find information about the best players in the scene. Taking CounterStrike as an example, there are websites with literally hundreds and thousands of users waiting to hear who left what team, who won what tournament, and who said what about eSports. The progression from the low scale tournaments to the huge industry surrounding the current scene is phenomenal, and is continuing to expand every day.

In the last year we have had coverage on Sky One in UK, Eurosport in Europe, on STAR in Asia, and DirecTV in USA. In Asia there are entire channels dedicated to Warcraft 3 and Starcraft, and the top players are treated like celebrities.There have been articles in every major newspaper and lifestyle magazine across the world discussing the place of eSports in modern society.

The Guardian recently published an article discussing an Unreal Tournament 3 event, where they proclaimed eSports as “the next big worldwide sports property”. The Independent said “Footballers might be today's celebrities, but not necessarily tomorrow's”, and proclaimed individuals like Fatal1ty as the David Beckhams and Tom Bradys of the future. There are articles like this appearing all around the world as the global media is realising the potential this industry has.

What kind of impact does this have on the scene though? It would be naive to imagine with players getting this kind of attention, that nothing will change. While before the top gamers were ordinary people sitting behind their monitors worrying about the next red armor respawn, they’re now international superstars, with cameras in their face at every major tournament. The gamers of today have been forced to be a lot more media savvy, both in their attitude and appearance.

One of the biggest promoters of this is the fnatic organisation. Although their head office is based in the UK, they play host to some of the biggest names from around the world. From their Swedish CounterStrike team, to their Korean Warcraft 3 players, fnatic have always maintained the utmost professionalism at all times, and are pioneers in their field. fnatic are about more than just performance, they are always incredibly well presented. They truly are eSports pioneers, and fit the definition laid out above to a tee.

However, without the increasing involvement of the media in eSports, would fnatic be the team they are today? Would they have the need to pick such marketable players, or would they go purely for the best gamers possible?

Another prime example of how the media has affected the top players is Championship Gaming Series. The world-wide trailblazers for eSports, and so far the only multi-continent professional gaming league, they have brought gaming forward in a way no other has managed. Although they have numerous downfalls that the scene is quick to point out, they have undoubtedly brought eSports far further into the mainstream than any of their predecessors. All the gamers in the league are visually attractive, well spoken, and the very best in their respective games. If you were to show your parents that gaming can be more than just a hobby, these are the people you want to show them. They are the best of the best, and they act like it at all times.

However, TheCGS hasn’t always had such a positive role in eSports. As mentioned before, there have been countless downfalls during which it has damaged eSports due to it’s corporate aims.

When it was announced, TheCGS was going to be the saviour of eSports. It was going to turn our favourite games into national sports. It was going to make the rest of the world love them the same way we did. It was going to provide a platform for all of us to achieve our dreams in gaming. However, in reality it failed at most of these lofty aims.

There has been a huge amounts of discussion recently about how TheCGS is killing off CounterStrike: Source competitively, while saving it at the same time. TheCGS is the pinnacle of competition in the game by ten-fold, and there is nothing that can compete with it on any scale. No one else can offer that amount of exposure, funding, or glamour, and the gap is widening daily. Since no other major tournaments will pick up CSS, the scene has split into two : CGS CS:Source, and normal CS:Source. None of the G7 teams currently have a CS:Source team except 4kings. Both MYM and fnatic have openly said that after dropping their last teams, they will not be venturing back into CS:S, as they know CGS will poach their players.

If CGS wasn’t operated with a corporate, media orientated mind, and was there purely for the progression of eSports, a lot of their decisions would have been made differently. Most notably, they wouldn’t have had to alter the ruleset to fit their time constraints for TV, which has turned away a lot of the top players.

There is also another side to the story I mentioned earlier, about how CGS has helped increase professionalism in gaming. Is this necessarily a good thing? Do we really want the biggest names in gaming to be there because of their marketability and their on-screen presence, instead of their raw skill? From an outsider’s perspective it’s undoubtedly better to have marketable players, but from a competitive gamer’s, surely we would want the best possible players representing us? After all, you don’t want the kids at home sitting there thinking “I could do that, that guy’s barely better than me!”. You want them to be blown away by the incredible skill on show by the world’s best gamers. Since TheCGS is a company, they can’t think with that kind of aim, and they need to pick players based on more than just their skill at their respective games, and it could be argued that this is limiting the potential of the gameplay.

The big money also presents another problem: Contracts. Under 18s aren’t allowed to sign them, so it cuts off a huge portion of the gaming community. According to Nielsen NetRatings, 33% of all people playing online games are under the age of 18, so to discount that large a portion of players from the outlet is crazy. It is yet another factor which will prevent the best gamers from achieving their dreams, and cuts down the market to find these “best gamers” even further.

The contracts aren’t the only thing limiting the participation of teenagers in top tournaments either. All the media pressure of the past decade has caused much stricter classification of the age ratings on games, and it is limiting the market even further. One of the most popular deathmatch games, Quake 4, is rated 18, which again prevents 33% of the potential market from playing it. Another popular competitive game, Call of Duty 4, is 16+, and CounterStrike is 17+. All this combined, it ultimately means that the amount of gamers who are able to reach the top in games is cut down hugely due to media pressure and involvement in eSports, and will inevitably slow down the progress of the game as a skill.

Overall, it is fairly evident that the media has had a huge impact in the development of eSports, and has shaped the way it has progressed over the years. If eSports had kept as an autonomous self-sufficient field, it would be nowhere near as big as it is today, but it would have also taken a very different direction.

The media involvement has brought with it huge amounts of capital, and with that comes a different way of thinking. When there are millions of dollars invested into a company, it can’t exist purely for the gratification of its fans. The investors need to be satisfied primarily, and only after that is taken care of can they think about the hardcore fans.

A lot of the decisions made in eSports over the past few years have caused controversy, as they may have seemed like they have not been made with gamers in mind. It’s true to a certain extent. However, you have to remember that even when it may not be ideal in the short term, it will ultimately help with the development of eSports to a point where it is considered a real sport. And isn’t that what we all want?