Rise of Esports™ – Part 1: In the Beginning…

Part 1: Esports are part of a natural evolution of human gaming. Strategic battles, represented via avatars of one like or another, can be found throughout history. We have only recently reached the point where culture and technology have met to set the stage for what is to come.

Transcript:

Throughout our evolution, the complexity of our play has mirrored the complexity of our minds and culture.

Some games we play her physical challenges of speed and agility. Some are games of chance. But the oldest and most consistent type is the strategic simulation of war and the fight for territory.

Let battle commence. After they’ve advanced their armies, the next thing we’ll see is artillery firing, using the range stick we saw at H Hill.

In the nineteen seventies, an offshoot of war gaming was created called dungeons and dragons. D&D shifted the focus from reenactment to fantasy and from competing against other players, to working as a team.

And each has an elaborate scoring sheet for his character, with points for wisdom and strength and the like.

Around the same time, large mainframes were popping up on college campuses, and students quickly figured out a way to hack them. Porting the base concepts of dmd into digital form called multi user dungeons. Now users spread across a geographic area could dial in and play these text based adventures together in real time.

Shall we play a game?

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