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141-506: Michele Attisani FACEIT is an esports platform founded in London in 2012. The company has administered leagues for games such as Counter-Strike 2 , League of Legends , Rocket League , Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege , Dota 2 and Team Fortress 2 . In 2022, it was announced that FACEIT and esports company ESL were being acquired by Savvy Games Group (SGG), a holding company owned by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund , for

282-468: A god game , where the player assumes a god-like role of creation. The genre recognized today as "real-time strategy" emerged from an extended period of evolution and refinement. Games sometimes perceived as ancestors of the real-time strategy genre were never marketed or designed as such. As a result, designating "early real-time strategy" titles is problematic because such games are being held up to modern standards. The genre initially evolved separately in

423-423: A mind sport . Former ESPN president John Skipper described esports in 2014 as a competition and "not a sport". In 2013 on an episode of Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel the panelist openly laughed at the topic. In addition, many in the fighting games community maintain a distinction between their competitive gaming competitions and the more commercially connected esports competitions of other genres. In

564-464: A split-screen two-player mode where both players are in action simultaneously and there are no pauses while decisions are taken, forcing players to think quickly while on the move. In Herzog Zwei , though the player only controls one unit, the manner of control foreshadowed the point-and-click mechanic of later games. Scott Sharkey of 1UP argues that it introduced much of the genre conventions, including unit construction and resource management, with

705-585: A combined $ 1.5bn. As part of the acquisition, the two companies are set to merge and form the ESL FACEIT Group. In April 2016, FACEIT announced the launch of their Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament, known as the Esports Championship Series (ECS). In April 2017, the company partnered with the video sharing platform YouTube for the series. ECS was one of the two premier Counter-Strike leagues, along with ESL Pro League . The series

846-511: A dual-layer map; three-layer (orbit-surface-underground) maps were introduced in Metal Fatigue . In addition, units could even be transported to entirely separate maps, with each map having its own window in the user interface. Three Kingdoms: Fate of the Dragon (2001) offered a simpler model: the main map contains locations that expand into their own maps. In these examples, however, the gameplay

987-583: A game combining both turn-based game and real-time-strategy is The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II which allows players, in a 'War of the Ring' game, to play a turn-based strategy game, but also battle each other in real time. A second criticism of the RTS genre is the importance of skill over strategy in real-time strategy games. The manual dexterity and ability to multitask and divide one's attention

1128-667: A high score record-keeping organization. The organization went on to help promote video games and publicize its records through publications such as the Guinness Book of World Records, and in 1983 it created the U.S. National Video Game Team . The team was involved in competitions, such as running the Video Game Masters Tournament for Guinness World Records and sponsoring the North American Video Game Challenge tournament. A multicity tour in 1983,

1269-459: A key gameplay consideration, a significant example being StarCraft , while other titles have no such unit cap. Micromanagement deals with a player's constant need to manage and maintain individual units and resources on a fine scale. On the other hand, macromanagement refers to a player's management of economic expansion and large-scale strategic maneuvering, allowing the player time to think and consider possible solutions. Micromanagement involves

1410-424: A large market, the law raised concerns about the future of esports within the country. Labeling competitive video games as a sport is a controversial topic. Proponents argue that esports are a fast-growing "non-traditional sport" which requires "careful planning, precise timing, and skillful execution". Others claim that sports involve physical fitness and physical training, and prefer to classify esports as

1551-595: A marketing stunt to promote their early arcade snake game Hustle in the United States, involving the "Gremlin Girls" who were a duo of professional female arcade players called Sabrina Osment and Lynn Reid. The pair travelled across 19 American cities, where players could challenge them in best-of-three matches for a chance to win money. The duo were challenged by a total of 1,300 players, only about seven of whom managed to beat them. The golden age of arcade video games

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1692-457: A medal event at the 2022 edition ; esports around games such as Hearthstone , Starcraft II , and League of Legends were presented as an exhibition event at the 2018 Asian Games as a lead-in to the 2022 games. The 2019 Southeast Asian Games included six medal events for esports. Since 2018, World Sailing has held an eSailing World Championship that showed a main sports federation embracing esports. The Virtual Regatta race shadowing

1833-448: A military force. Command & Conquer (1995), as well as Command & Conquer: Red Alert (1996), became the most popular early RTS games. These two games contended with Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness after its release in late 1995. Total Annihilation , released by Cavedog Entertainment in 1997, introduced 3D units and terrain and focused on huge battles that emphasized macromanagement over micromanagement . It featured

1974-601: A million dollars to FACEIT users. On 22 February 2018 Valve , the developers and owners of the Counter-Strike series , announced that FACEIT would host the thirteenth Global Offensive major, the FACEIT Major: London 2018. The event began in mid-September and concluded on 23 September 2018. It was the first Major hosted by FACEIT and the first Major hosted in the United Kingdom . It had a US$ 1,000,000 prize pool and

2115-426: A mobile game published by Supercell , is a good example of a game which modified the RTS format into a simpler mobile experience. While often classified in the broader Strategy game genre, Clash of Clans still possesses many of the classic RTS elements, such as a "perspective of god", control over buildings and mobile units, and resource management. It also introduces and simplifies specific elements of an RTS to fit

2256-559: A new partnership with their National Olympic Committee . The proposal was ultimately approved by a unanimous vote on 23 July 2024. A number of games are popular among professional competitors. The tournaments which emerged in the mid-1990s coincided with the popularity of fighting games and first-person shooters , genres which still maintain a devoted fan base. In the 2000s, real-time strategy games became overwhelmingly popular in South Korean internet cafés , with crucial influence on

2397-565: A paid television model renamed GIGA II from June 2006 to autumn 2007. The French channel Game One broadcast esports matches in a show called Arena Online for the Xfire Trophy. The United States channel ESPN2 hosted Madden NFL competitions in a show called Madden Nation from 2005 to 2008. DirecTV broadcast the Championship Gaming Series tournament for two seasons in 2007 and 2008. CBS aired prerecorded footage of

2538-882: A part of video game culture , but were largely between amateurs until the late 2000s, when the advent of online streaming media platforms, particularly YouTube and Twitch , enabled a surge in participation by professional gamers and spectators. By the 2010s, esports was a major part of the video game industry, with many game developers designing for and funding for tournaments and other events. Esports first became popular in East Asia , particularly in China and South Korea (which first licensed professional players in 2000) but less so in Japan , whose broad anti-gambling laws prohibit professional gaming tournaments. Esports are also popular in Europe and

2679-594: A physics engine is Ensemble Studios' Age of Empires III , released on October 18, 2005, which used the Havok Game Dynamics SDK to power its real-time physics. Company of Heroes is another real-time strategy game that uses realistically modeled physics as a part of gameplay, including fully destructible environments . RTS World tournaments have been held for both StarCraft and Warcraft III since their 1998 and 2002 releases. The games have been so successful that some players have earned over $ 200,000 at

2820-529: A potential method to legitimize esports. A summit held by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in October 2017 acknowledged the growing popularity of esports, concluding that "Competitive 'esports' could be considered as a sporting activity, and the players involved prepare and train with an intensity which may be comparable to athletes in traditional sports" but would require any games used for

2961-406: A real-time strategy game, each participant positions structures and maneuvers multiple units under their indirect control to secure areas of the map and destroy their opponents' assets. In a typical RTS game, it is possible to create additional units and structures generally limited by a requirement to expend accumulated resources . These resources are in turn garnered by controlling special points on

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3102-651: A set of troops across various enemy-filled levels. TechnoSoft 's Herzog (1988) is regarded as a precursor to the real-time strategy genre, being the predecessor to Herzog Zwei and somewhat similar in nature, though primitive in comparison. IGN cites Herzog Zwei , released for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis in 1989 as "arguably the first RTS game ever", and it is often cited as "the first real-time strategy game" according to Ars Technica . It combines traditional strategy gameplay with fully real-time, fast-paced, arcade -style action gameplay , featuring

3243-547: A strategic control-point system, in which control over strategic points yields construction/reinforcement points. Ground Control (2000) was the first such game to replace individual units with "squads". Others are moving away from the traditional real-time strategy game model with the addition of other genre elements. One example is Sins of a Solar Empire (2008), released by Ironclad Games , which mixes elements of grand-scale stellar empire building games like Master of Orion with real-time strategy elements. Another example

3384-424: A strategy map and a battle map (in full real-time) and the player can at any point in time seamlessly zoom in and out in between both. A third common criticism is that real-time gameplay often degenerates into " rushes " where the players try to gain the advantage and subsequently defeat the opponent as quickly in the game as possible, preferably before the opposition is capable of successfully reacting. For example,

3525-481: A streamlined interface that would influence many RTS games in later years. Age of Empires , released by Ensemble Studios in 1997, tried to put a game in a slower pace, combining elements of Civilization with the real-time strategy concept by introducing ages of technologies. In 1998, Blizzard released the game StarCraft , which became an international phenomenon and is still played in large professional leagues to this day. Collectively, all of these games defined

3666-505: A tournament held by several video game publishers to award prizes to many players but with JeSU offering these exemption licenses to the top dozen or so players that emerge, allowing them to compete in further esports events. The Tokyo Olympic Committee has also planned to arrange a number of esports events leading up to the 2020 games. With the IOC, five esports events were set as part of an Olympic Virtual Series from 13 May to 23 June 2021, ahead of

3807-465: A traditional RTS experience. In a typical real-time strategy game, the screen is divided into a map area displaying the game world and terrain, units, and buildings, and an interface overlay containing command and production controls and often a "radar" or "minimap" overview of the entire map. The player is usually given an isometric perspective of the world, or a free-roaming camera from an aerial viewpoint for modern 3D games. Players mainly scroll

3948-583: Is also thought that the high unemployment rate at the time caused many people to look for things to do while out of work. Instrumental to this growth of esports in South Korea was the prevalence of the Komany-style internet café / LAN gaming center , known as a PC bang . The Korean e-Sports Association , an arm of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism , was founded in 2000 to promote and regulate esports in

4089-400: Is commonly the main focus of the RTS games, but other titles of the genre place higher gameplay significance to how units are used in combat ( Z: Steel Soldiers for example, awards credits for territory captured rather than gathered resources), the extreme example of which are games of the real-time tactical genre. Some titles impose a ceiling on the number simultaneous troops, which becomes

4230-517: Is indie game Achron (2011), which incorporates time travel as a game mechanic, allowing a player to send units forward or backward in time. Multiplayer online battle arena games (MOBA) have originated as a subgenre of real-time strategy games, however this fusion of real-time strategy, role-playing , and action games has lost many traditional RTS elements. These type of games moved away from constructing additional structures, base management, army building, and controlling additional units. Map and

4371-626: Is often considered the most important aspect to succeeding at the RTS genre. According to Troy Dunniway, former Westwood developer who has also worked on Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars : "A player controls hundreds of units, dozens of buildings and many different events that are all happening simultaneously. There is only one player, and he can only pay attention to one thing at a time. Expert players can quickly flip between many different tasks, while casual gamers have more problems with this." Real-time strategy games have been criticized for an overabundance of tactical considerations when compared to

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4512-475: Is that success involves not just fast clicking, but also the ability to make sound decisions under time pressure. The "clickfest" argument is also often voiced alongside a "button babysitting" criticism, which pointed out that a great deal of game time is spent either waiting and watching for the next time a production button could be clicked, or rapidly alternating between different units and buildings, clicking their respective button. Some titles attempt to merge

4653-485: Is that they too often have the same strategy: produce faster than you consume. He also states that building and managing armies is the conventional definition of real-time strategy, and that it is unfair to make comparisons with other genres. In an article for GameSpy , Mark Walker criticizes real-time strategy games for their lack of combat tactics, suggesting real-time tactics games as a more suitable substitute. He also says that developers need to begin looking outside

4794-511: Is the civilized expression about this. If you have egames where it's about killing somebody, this cannot be brought into line with our Olympic values." Due to that, the IOC suggested that they would approve more esports centered around games that simulate real sports, such as the NBA 2K or FIFA series. The issues around esports have not prevented the IOC from exploring what possibilities there are for incorporation into future Olympics. In July 2018,

4935-611: The Bloons Tower Defense series (2007-2021), and more have (varyingly) adapted the RTS format in the same manner as Clash of Clans , and in turn developed a style of RTS unique to the mobile game industry. Beginning in the early-mid 2010s, the expansion of the Indie game market on game developer Valve Corporation 's gaming distribution service, Steam , allowed RTS game developers to produce smaller-scale and increasingly accessible Indie-RTS games. These RTS games often are more true to

5076-683: The 2020-2021 Vendee Globe was the first online game believe to have in excess of 1,000,000 unique users Ahead of The International 2021 , which was originally set to take place in Stockholm in 2020, the Swedish Sports Confederation voted in June 2021 to deny recognition of esports as a sporting event, which jeopardized plans for how Valve had arranged the event in regards to travel visas for international players. Valve had tried to work with Sweden to accommodate players, but eventually rescheduled

5217-533: The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris were in discussions with the IOC and the various professional esports organizations to consider esports for the event, citing the need to include these elements to keep the Olympics relevant to younger generations. Ultimately, the organization committee determined esports were premature to bring to the 2024 Games as medal events, but have not ruled out other activities related to esports during

5358-506: The Commonwealth Games Federation announced that esports would be included in the 2022 Commonwealth Games as a pilot event, with the possibility of it being a medal event in the 2026 Games . The inaugural Commonwealth Esports Championship had separate branding, medals, and organization and included both men and women's Dota 2 , eFootball , and Rocket League events. As a follow-up to 2021's Olympic Virtual Series,

5499-680: The Nintendo PowerFest '94 . There were 132 finalists that played in the finals in San Diego , California. Mike Iarossi took home 1st prize. Blockbuster Video also ran their own World Game Championships in the early 1990s, co-hosted by GamePro magazine. Citizens from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Chile were eligible to compete. Games from the 1994 championships included NBA Jam and Virtua Racing . Television shows featuring esports during this period include

5640-500: The PC platform. Real-time strategy games made for video game consoles have been consistently criticized due to their control schemes, as the PC's keyboard and mouse are considered to be superior to a console's gamepad for the genre. Thus, RTS games for home consoles have been met with mixed success. Scott Sharkey of 1UP notes that Herzog Zwei had already "offered a nearly perfect solution to

5781-532: The Tokyo Olympic Games Committee for the 2020 Summer Olympics, four esports organizations have worked with Japan's leading consumer organization to exempt esports tournaments from gambling law restrictions. Takeo Kawamura , a member of the Japanese House of Representatives and of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party , led a coalition of ruling and opposing politicians to support esports, called

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5922-461: The ZX Spectrum , and Nether Earth for ZX Spectrum in 1987. In North America, the oldest game retrospectively classified as real-time strategy by several sources is The Ancient Art of War (1984), designed by Dave and Barry Murry of Evryware, followed by The Ancient Art of War at Sea in 1987. In Japan, the earliest is Bokosuka Wars (1983), an early strategy RPG (or "simulation RPG");

6063-595: The digital collectible card game (DCCG) genre since its release in 2014. While it is common for video games to be designed with the experience of the player in game being the only priority, many successful esports games have been designed to be played professionally from the beginning. Developers may decide to add dedicated esports features, or even make design compromises to support high level competition. Games such as StarCraft II , League of Legends , and Dota 2 have all been designed, at least in part, to support professional competition. Real-time strategy In

6204-654: The eGames , was held alongside the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro , though this was not supported by the IOC. During the Eighth Olympic Summit in December 2019, the IOC reiterated that it would only consider sports-simulating games for any official Olympic event, but it would look at two paths for such games in the future: those that promoted good physical and mental health lifestyles, and virtual reality and augmented reality games that included physical activity. In

6345-411: The real-time tactics (RTT) template, have moved toward an increased focus on tactics while downplaying traditional resource management, in which designated units collect the resources used for producing further units or buildings. Titles like Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War (2004), Star Wars: Empire at War (2006), and Company of Heroes (2006) replace the traditional resource gathering model with

6486-441: The "Electronic Circus", was used to feature these players in live challenges before audiences, and draw more people to video games. These video game players and tournaments were featured in well-circulated newspapers and popular magazines including Life and Time and became minor celebrities at the time, such as Billy Mitchell . Besides establishing the competitive nature of games, these types of promotional events all formed

6627-443: The "nostalgia" of classic RTS games. Rusted Warfare (2017), is an indie-mobile release which is a good example of a traditional-style RTS which utilizes assets from the unreleased Hard Vacuum (1993) to create a "revived" RTS experience. Hard Vacuum was intended to include "resource gathering from mineral deposits", "base building", and "a wide range of fighting with units". Rusted Warfare and other traditional RTS titles utilized

6768-548: The 1990s led to the foundation of the international Evolution Championship Series (EVO) esports tournament in 1996. Large esports tournaments in the 1990s include the 1990 Nintendo World Championships , which toured across the United States, and held its finals at Universal Studios Hollywood in California. Nintendo held a 2nd World Championships in 1994 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System called

6909-465: The 2007 World Series of Video Games tournament that was held in Louisville, Kentucky . The G4 television channel originally covered video games exclusively, but broadened its scope to cover technology and men's lifestyle, though has now shutdown. During the 2010s, esports grew tremendously, incurring a large increase in both viewership and prize money. Although large tournaments were founded before

7050-560: The 2015 World Championship hosted by the International Esports Federation , an esports panel of guests from international sports society discussed the future recognition of esports as a legitimate sport. Russia was the first country that classified "cybersport" as an official sport discipline on 25 July 2001. After a series of reforms in Russian sports, it was classified as a sport again on 12 March 2004. In July 2006, it

7191-544: The 21st century, the number and scope of tournaments has increased significantly, going from about 10 tournaments in 2000 to about 260 in 2010. Many successful tournaments were founded during this period, including the World Cyber Games , the Intel Extreme Masters , and Major League Gaming . The proliferation of tournaments included experimentation with competitions outside traditional esports genres. For example,

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7332-457: The 360° 3D environment. Furthermore, Machines , which was also released in 1999 and featured a nearly 100% 3D environment, attempted to combine the RTS genre with a first-person shooter (FPS) genre although it was not a particularly successful title. These games were followed by a short period of interest in experimental strategy games such as Allegiance (2000). Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds

7473-552: The 3D environment. This led to a number of unique gameplay elements, which were mostly obscured by the lack of computing power available in 2007, at the release date. Japanese game developers Nippon Ichi and Vanillaware worked together on Grim Grimoire , a PlayStation 2 title released in 2007, which features hand-drawn animated 2D graphics. From 2010, real-time strategy games more commonly incorporated physics engines , such as Havok , in order to increase realism experienced in gameplay. A modern real-time strategy game that uses

7614-515: The Americas , which host regional and international events. The most common video game genres associated with esports are multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA), first-person shooter (FPS), fighting games , card , battle royales , and real-time strategy (RTS) games. Popular esports franchises include League of Legends , Dota , Counter-Strike , Valorant , Overwatch , Street Fighter , Super Smash Bros. and StarCraft . Among

7755-550: The Ancients ( DotA ), a Warcraft III mod from 2003, and its standalone sequel Dota 2 (2013), as well as League of Legends (2009), and Heroes of the Storm (2015), are the typical representatives of the new strategy subgenre. Former game journalist Luke Smith called DotA "the ultimate RTS". The popularization of the smartphone in the 2010s led to a new market for Video games to expand to and develop. Innovation on

7896-732: The British shows GamesMaster and Bad Influence! ; the Australian game show A*mazing , where in the final round contestants competed in a video game face-off; and the Canadian game show Video & Arcade Top 10 . In the 1990s, many games benefited from increasing internet connectivity , especially PC games . Inspired by the fighting games Street Fighter II , Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting , id Software 's John Romero established competitive multiplayer in online games with Doom ' s deathmatch mode in 1993. Tournaments established in

8037-594: The French government started working on a project to regulate and recognize esports. The Games and Amusements Board of the Philippines started issuing athletic licenses to Filipino esports players who are vouched for by a professional esports team in July 2017. To help promote esports as a legitimate sport, several esports events have been run alongside more traditional international sports competitions. The 2007 Asian Indoor Games

8178-628: The Games. In September 2021, the Olympic Council of Asia announced eight esports games will officially debut as medal sports for the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou, China. In December 2021, the IOC confirmed its Olympic Virtual Series (OVS) will return in 2022. The first edition of the OVS which ran from 13 May to 23 June, featured nearly 250,000 participants and had more than two million entries. In January 2022,

8319-513: The IOC and the Global Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF) held a symposium and invited major figures in esports, including Epic Games ' Mark Rein , Blizzard Entertainment 's Mike Morhaime , and esports players Dario "TLO" Wünsch, Jacob "Jake" Lyon , and Se-yeon "Geguri" Kim , for these organizations "to gain a deeper understanding of esports, their impact and likely future development, so that [they] can jointly consider

8460-672: The IOC and the Singapore National Olympic Council held the inaugural Olympic Esports Week in Singapore in June 2023. Games featured at the event included: In June 2024, the IOC Executive Board announced the proposal to establish the Olympic Esports Games during the 142nd IOC Session held prior to the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, with the inaugural event to take place in 2025 at Saudi Arabia following

8601-506: The IOC announced the appointment of the organization's first ever head of virtual sport, tasked with the development of virtual sport for the global Olympic body, increasing the organization's engagement with gaming communities, and overseeing the Olympic Virtual Series, IOC's first licensed non-physical sports event. The inaugural series included virtual baseball, cycling, rowing, esailing and motorsports events. In February 2022,

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8742-513: The Japan esports Union, or JeSU. Kawamura said that they would be willing to pass laws to further exempt esports as needed so that esports athletes can make a living playing these sports. So far, this has resulted in the ability of esports players to obtain exemption licenses to allow them to play, a similar mechanism needed for professional athletes in other sports in Japan to play professionally. The first such licenses were given out in mid-July 2018, via

8883-485: The Ministry stating that they anticipate over 2 million such people in this profession in five years. In 2013, Canadian League of Legends player Danny "Shiphtur" Le became the first pro gamer to receive an American P-1A visa , a category designated for "Internationally Recognized Athletes". In 2014, Turkey's Ministry of Youth and Sports started issuing esports licenses to players certified as professionals. In 2016,

9024-508: The Olympics fitting "with the rules and regulations of the Olympic movement". Another article by Andy Stout suggests that 106 million people viewed the 2017 Worlds Esports competition . International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach has noted that the IOC is troubled by violent games and the lack of a global sanctioning body for esports. Bach acknowledged that many Olympic sports originated from violent combat, but stated that "sport

9165-497: The September 2006 FUN Technologies Worldwide Webgames Championship featured 71 contestants competing in casual games for a $ 1 million grand prize. The popularity and emergence of online streaming services have helped the growth of esports in this period, and are the most common method of watching tournaments. Twitch , an online streaming platform launched in 2011, routinely streams popular esports competitions. In 2013, viewers of

9306-504: The United Kingdom, Japan, and North America, afterward gradually merging into a unified worldwide tradition. Tim Barry in May 1981 described in InfoWorld a multiplayer, real-time strategy space game that ran ("and probably still is") on an IBM System/370 Model 168 at a large San Francisco Bay Area company. He stated that it had "far better support than many of the application programs used in

9447-457: The Worlds (1998), Warzone 2100 (1999), Machines (1999), Homeworld (1999), and Dark Reign 2 (2000) were among the first completely 3D real-time strategy titles. Homeworld featured a 3D environment in space, therefore allowing movement in every direction, a feature which its semi-sequel, Homeworld Cataclysm (2000) continued to build upon adding features such as waypoints. Homeworld 2 , released in 2003, streamlined movement in

9588-529: The amount of strategic gameplay found in such games. According to Chris Taylor , lead designer of Supreme Commander : "[My first attempt at visualizing RTSs in a fresh and interesting new way] was my realizing that although we call this genre 'Real-Time Strategy,' it should have been called 'Real-Time Tactics' with a dash of strategy thrown in." (Taylor then posits his own game as having surpassed this mold by including additional elements of broader strategic scope.) In general terms, military strategy refers to

9729-412: The business", with a published manual and regular schedule. Comparing its complexity to Dallas , Barry recalled that "when the game was restored at 5 P.M., a lot of regular work stopped". Ars Technica traces the genre's roots back to Utopia (1981), citing it as the "birth of a genre", with a "real-time element" that was "virtually unheard of", thus making it "arguably the earliest ancestor of

9870-408: The cliffside, even in the case when the attacker is a missile-armed helicopter. Homeworld , Warzone 2100 and Machines (all released in 1999) advanced the use of fully 3D environments in real-time strategy titles. In the case of Homeworld , the game is set in space, offering a uniquely exploitable 3D environment in which all units can move vertically in addition to the horizontal plane. However,

10011-465: The competition. In 2015, the first Esports Arena was launched in Santa Ana, California , as the United States' first dedicated esports facility. The global esports audience reached 662.6 million in 2020, and 921 million in 2022. In 2021, China announced a law which forbade minors from playing video games, which they described as "spiritual opium", for more than three hours a week. With China being

10152-505: The concept of direct, tournament-level competition between two players. Previously, video games most often relied on high scores to determine the best player, but this changed with Street Fighter II , where players would instead challenge each other directly, "face-to-face", to determine the best player, paving the way for the competitive multiplayer and deathmatch modes found in modern action games . The popularity of fighting games such as Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom in

10293-840: The control and destruction of bases being an important aspect of the game, as were the economic/production aspects of those bases. Herzog Zwei is credited by 1UP as a landmark that defined the genre and as "the progenitor of all modern real-time strategy games." Chuck Sperry cited Herzog Zwei as an influence on Dune II . Notable as well are early games like Mega-Lo-Mania by Sensible Software (1991) and Supremacy (also called Overlord – 1990). Although these two lacked direct control of military units, they both offered considerable control of resource management and economic systems. In addition, Mega Lo Mania has advanced technology trees that determine offensive and defensive prowess. Another early game, Carrier Command (1988) by Realtime Games , involved real-time responses to events in

10434-544: The country. Physical viewership of esports competitions and the scope of events have increased in tandem with the growth of online viewership. In 2013, the Season 3 League of Legends World Championship was held in a sold-out Staples Center . The 2014 League of Legends World Championship in Seoul , South Korea, had over 40,000 fans in attendance and featured the band Imagine Dragons , and opening and closing ceremonies in addition to

10575-727: The country. Minister of Culture, Sports, and Tourism Park Jie-won coined the term "Esports" at the founding ceremony of the 21st Century Professional Game Association (currently Korean e-Sports Association ) in 2000. " Evo Moment 37 ", also known as the "Daigo Parry", refers to a portion of a Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike semi-final match held at Evolution Championship Series 2004 (Evo 2004) between Daigo Umehara (playing Ken Masters ) and Justin Wong (playing Chun-Li ). During this match, Umehara made an unexpected comeback by parrying 15 consecutive hits of Wong's "Super Art" move while having only one pixel of vitality . Umehara subsequently won

10716-889: The creation of the Halo Championship Series and a prize pool of US$ 50,000. Both Blizzard Entertainment and Riot Games have their own collegiate outreach programs with their North American Collegiate Championship. Since 2013 universities and colleges in the United States such as Robert Morris University Illinois and the University of Pikeville have recognized esports players as varsity level athletes and offer athletic scholarships . In 2017, Tespa , Blizzard Entertainment's collegiate esports division, unveiled its new initiative to provide scholarships and prizes for collegiate esports clubs competing in its tournaments worth US$ 1 million. Colleges have begun granting scholarships to students who qualify to play esports professionally for

10857-399: The development of esports worldwide. Competitions exist for many titles and genres, though the most popular games as of the early 2020s are Counter-Strike: Global Offensive , Call of Duty , League of Legends , Dota 2 , Fortnite , Rocket League , Valorant , Hearthstone , Super Smash Bros. Melee , StarCraft II and Overwatch . Hearthstone has also popularized

10998-448: The early 2010s, viewership was about 85% male and 15% female, with most viewers between the ages of 18 and 34. By the late 2010s, it was estimated that by 2020, the total audience of esports would grow to 454 million viewers, with revenue increasing to more than US$ 1 billion, with China accounting for 35% of the global esports revenue. The earliest known video game competition took place on 19 October 1972 at Stanford University for

11139-610: The element of classic PC-gaming nostalgia in order to drive the game-playing experience. Traditional RTS games released in the late 2010s - early 2020s were developed with a focus on coupling the traditional-style gameplay with uniquely styled, or hyper-realistic graphics. These RTS games are often Indie-RTS games, but released on a multitude of platforms. Some RTS releases like Halo Wars 2 (2017), Steel Division 2 (2019), Company of Heroes 3 (2023), and Last Train Home (2023) are examples of modern RTS games that are focused on providing

11280-498: The esports scene, Nintendo hosted Wii Games Summer 2010. Spanning over a month, the tournament had over 400,000 participants, making it the largest and most expansive tournament in the company's history. In 2014 Nintendo hosted an invitational Super Smash Bros. for Wii U competitive tournament at the 2014 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) press conference that was streamed online on Twitch. Halo developers 343 Industries announced in 2014 plans to revive Halo as an esport with

11421-478: The event to Romania instead. The 2022 Commonwealth Games featured esports competitions as a pilot ahead of being a potential full medal event for 2026. In Greece , in March 2022 a law entered into force recognising and regulating esports and in June 2023, the relevant federation for esports has been officially given recognition and included in the list of sports federations. The Olympic Games are also seen as

11562-442: The first 3D units and terrain in real-time strategy games. The Age of Empires focus on historical setting and age advancement was refined further by its sequel, Age of Empires II: Age of Kings , and by Stainless Steel Studios ' Empire Earth in 2001. GSC Game World 's Cossacks series brought population caps into the tens of thousands. Dungeon Keeper (1997), Populous: The Beginning (1998), Jeff Wayne's The War of

11703-410: The game Spacewar . Stanford students were invited to an "Intergalactic spacewar olympics" whose grand prize was a year's subscription for Rolling Stone , with Bruce Baumgart winning the five-man-free-for-all tournament, and Slim Tovar and Robert E. Maas winning the team competition. Contemporary esports has roots in competitive face-to-face arcade video game competitions. A forerunner of esports

11844-448: The game revolves around the player leading an army across a battlefield against enemy forces in real-time while recruiting/spawning soldiers along the way, for which it is considered by Ray Barnholt of 1UP to be an early prototype real-time strategy game. Another early title with real-time strategy elements is Sega 's Gain Ground (1988), a strategy- action game that involved directing

11985-464: The game, requiring management of resources and control of vehicles. Another early game, SimAnt (1991) by Maxis , had resource gathering, and controlling an attacking army by having them follow a lead unit. However, it was with the release of Dune II (1992) from Westwood Studios that real-time strategy became recognized as a distinct genre of video games. Although real-time strategy games have an extensive history, some titles have served to define

12126-689: The games. Each event in auto racing, baseball, cycling, rowing and sailing will be managed by an IOC-recognized governing body for the sport along with a video game publisher of a game for that sport. For example, the auto racing event will be based on the Gran Turismo series and overseen by the International Automobile Federation along with Polyphony Digital . The baseball, cycling, and esailing events will be based on eBaseball Powerful Pro Baseball 2020 , Zwift , and Virtual Regatta , respectively. The organization committee for

12267-513: The genre for new ideas in order for strategy games to continue to be successful in the future. This criticism has ushered into a couple of hybrid designs that try to resolve the issues. The games of the Total War series have a combination of a (turn-based) strategy map with a (real-time) battle map, allowing the player to concentrate on one or the other. The games of the Hegemony series also combine

12408-602: The genre received positive reception. The Pikmin series, which began in 2001 for the GameCube , became a million-seller. Similarly, Halo Wars , which was released in 2009 for the Xbox 360 , generated generally positive reviews, achieved an 82% critic average on aggregate web sites, and sold over 1 million copies. According to IGN , the gameplay lacks the traditional RTS concepts of limited resources and resource gathering and lacks multiple buildings. Total Annihilation (1997)

12549-498: The genre, providing the de facto benchmark against which new real-time strategy games are measured . The real-time strategy genre has been relatively stable since 1995. Additions to the genre's concept in newer games tend to emphasize more of the basic RTS elements (higher unit caps, more unit types, larger maps, etc.). Rather than innovations to the game concept, new games generally focus on refining aspects of successful predecessors. Cavedog's Total Annihilation from 1997 introduced

12690-524: The government encouraged esports, stating that by participating in esports, players were also "training the body for China". Furthermore, by early 2019, China recognized esports players as an official profession within the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security 's Occupation Skill Testing Authority recommendations, as well as professional gaming operators, those that distribute and manage esports games. By July 2019, more than 100,000 people had registered themselves as professional gamers under this, with

12831-656: The late 1990s include the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL), QuakeCon , and the Professional Gamers League . PC games played at the CPL included the Counter-Strike series, Quake series, StarCraft , and Warcraft . The growth of esports in South Korea is thought to have been influenced by the mass building of broadband Internet networks following the 1997 Asian financial crisis . It

12972-409: The late 2010s, leaders in Japan became involved in helping bring esports to the 2020 Summer Olympics and beyond, given the country's reputation as a major video game industry centre. Esports in Japan had not flourished due to the country's anti-gambling laws that also prevent paid professional gaming tournaments, but there were efforts starting in late 2017 to eliminate this issue. At the suggestion of

13113-403: The magazine's annual Game Contest, the author described it as a "single-player game of real-time action and strategic decision making". The magazine described it as "a real-time space strategy game". The game has elements of resource management and wargaming . In the United Kingdom, the earliest real-time strategy games are Stonkers by John Gibson, published in 1983 by Imagine Software for

13254-628: The main structures for each team are still present, and destroying enemy main structure will secure victory as the ultimate victory condition. Unlike in RTS, a player has control over the only one single powerful unit, called "hero" or "champion", who advances in level, learns new abilities, and grows in power over the course of a match. Players can find various friendly and enemy units on the map at any given time assisting each team, however, these units are computer-controlled and players usually don't have direct control over their movement and creation ; instead, they march forward along set paths. Defense of

13395-455: The map or possessing certain types of units and structures devoted to this purpose. More specifically, the typical game in the RTS genre features resource-gathering , base-building, in-game technological development, and indirect control of units. The tasks a player must perform to win an RTS game can be very demanding, and complex user interfaces have evolved for them. Some features have been borrowed from desktop environments ; for example,

13536-515: The match. "Evo Moment #37" is frequently described as the most iconic and memorable moment in the history of competitive video gaming. Being at one point the most-watched competitive gaming moment of all time, it has been compared to sports moments such as Babe Ruth's called shot and the Miracle on Ice . In April 2006, the G7 teams federation were formed by seven prominent Counter-Strike teams. The goal of

13677-640: The mobile format with "idle" resource gathering and defenses, as well as reducing the number of resource types, unit types, and building types to make the game more accessible to new users. In an interview between game journalist Bryant Francis and Clash of Clans developer Stuart McGaw, McGaw attributed Clash of Clan ' s design to "a focus on simplicity and accessibility", something that "anyone could pick up and play", while also retaining "the strategy DNA", that gives players "lots of options" while remaining "clear to understand".  Multiple other mobile games, such as Boom Beach (2014), Plague Inc. (2012),

13818-741: The most popular tournaments are the League of Legends World Championship , Dota 2 's International , the fighting game-specific Evolution Championship Series (EVO) and Intel Extreme Masters . Many other competitions use a series of league play with sponsored teams, such as the Overwatch League . Although the legitimacy of esports as a true sporting competition remains in question, they have been featured alongside traditional sports in some multinational events in Asia. The International Olympic Committee has discussed their inclusion in future Olympic events. In

13959-424: The mouse to move units, and gathering resources, and as such served as the prototype for later real-time strategy games. According to its co-designer and lead programmer, Joe Bostic, a "benefit over Herzog Zwei is that we had the advantage of a mouse and keyboard. This greatly facilitated precise player control, which enabled the player to give orders to individual units. The mouse, and the direct control it allowed,

14100-421: The nature of the marketing and promotion that formed the basis of modern esports. In 1984, Konami and Centuri jointly held an international Track & Field arcade game competition that drew more than a million players from across Japan and North America. Play Meter in 1984 called it "the coin-op event of the year" and an "event on a scale never before achieved in the industry". As of 2016 , it holds

14241-402: The near-industry-wide switch to full 3D was very gradual and most real-time strategy titles, including the first sequels to Command & Conquer , initially used isometric 3D graphics made by pre-rendered 3D tiles. Only in later years did these games begin to use true 3D graphics and gameplay, making it possible to rotate the view of the battlefield in real-time. Spring is a good example of

14382-489: The oldest "2D Real-Time Strategy". Barton also cites Cytron Masters (1982), saying it was "one of the first (if not the first) real-time strategy games [sic]." On the other hand, Scott Sharkey of 1UP argues that, while Cytron Masters "attempted real time strategy", it was "much more tactical than strategic" due to "the inability to construct units or manage resources". Byte in December 1982 published as an Apple II type-in program Cosmic Conquest . The winner of

14523-403: The only way for them to win or lose is militarily makes them unlikely to respond to gestures of diplomacy. The result is that the winner of a real-time strategy game is too often the best tactician rather than the best strategist. Troy Goodfellow counters this by saying that the problem is not that real-time strategy games are lacking in strategy (he says attrition is a form of strategy), rather it

14664-453: The organization was to increase stability in the esports world, particularly in standardizing player transfers and working with leagues and organizations. The founding members were 4Kings , Fnatic , Made in Brazil , Mousesports , NiP , SK-Gaming , and Team 3D . The organization only lasted until 2009 before dissolving. The 2000s was a popular time for televised esports. Television coverage

14805-492: The original Command & Conquer gave birth to the now-common "tank rush" tactic, where the game outcome is often decided very early on by one player gaining an initial advantage in resources and producing large amounts of a relatively powerful but still quite cheap unit—which is thrown at the opposition before they have had time to establish defenses or production. Although this strategy has been criticized for encouraging overwhelming force over strategy and tactics, defenders of

14946-467: The platform watched 12 billion minutes of video on the service, with the two most popular Twitch broadcasters being League of Legends and Dota 2 . During one day of The International, Twitch recorded 4.5 million unique views, with each viewer watching for an average of two hours. The modern esports boom has also seen a rise in video games companies embracing the esports potential of their products. After many years of ignoring and at times suppressing

15087-438: The player to build an army (ranging from small squads of no more than two units to literally hundreds of units) and using them to either defend themselves from a virtual form of Human wave attack or to eliminate enemies who possess bases with unit production capacities of their own. Occasionally, RTS games will have a preset number of units for the player to control and do not allow building of additional ones. Resource gathering

15228-536: The playoff stage was held in Wembley Arena . In the finals, Astralis defeated Natus Vincere to win its second Major title. Esports Esports ( / ˈ iː s p ɔːr t s / ), short for electronic sports , is a form of competition using video games . Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, played individually or as teams. Multiplayer competitions were long

15369-610: The plot of various films, including 1982's Tron . In the UK, the BBC game show First Class included competitive video game rounds featuring the contemporary arcade games, such as Hyper Sports , 720° and Paperboy . In the United States, the Amusement Players Association held its first U.S. National Video Game Team competition in January 1987, where Vs. Super Mario Bros.

15510-596: The popular perception of the genre and expectations of the genre more than others, in particular the games released between 1992 and 1998 by Westwood Studios and Blizzard Entertainment . Drawing influence from Herzog Zwei , Populous , Eye of the Beholder , and the Macintosh user interface , Westwood's Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty (1992) featured all the core concepts and mechanics of modern real-time strategy games that are still used today, such as using

15651-416: The popularity of turn-based strategy computer games. In the past, a common criticism was to regard real-time strategy games as "cheap imitations" of turn-based strategy games, arguing that real-time strategy games had a tendency to devolve into "click-fests" in which the player who was faster with the mouse generally won, because they could give orders to their units at a faster rate. The common retort

15792-488: The problem by giving the player direct control of a single powerful unit and near autonomy for everything else," and is surprised "that more console RTS games aren't designed with this kind of interface in mind from the ground up, rather than imitating" PC control schemes "that just doesn't work very well with a controller". Some handheld consoles like Napoleon on the GBA uses a similar solution. However, several console titles in

15933-661: The real-time strategy and first-person shooter genres in Battlezone (1998), while in 2002 Rage Games Limited attempted this with the Hostile Waters games. Later variants have included Natural Selection (2002) , a game modification based on the Half-Life engine, and the free software Tremulous / Unvanquished . Savage: The Battle for Newerth (2003) combined the RPG and RTS elements in an online game. Some games, borrowing from

16074-517: The real-time strategy genre". According to Ars Technica, Utopia was a turn-based strategy game with hybrid elements that ran "in real-time but events happened on a regular turn-based cycle." According to Brett Weiss, Utopia is often cited as "the first real-time strategy game." According to Matt Barton and Bill Loguidice, Utopia "helped set the template" for the genre, but has "more in common with SimCity than it does with Dune II and later RTS games." Allgame listed War of Nerves (1979) as

16215-532: The record for the largest organized video game competition of all time, according to Guinness World Records . Televised esports events aired during this period included the American show Starcade which ran from 1982 to 1984 airing a total of 133 episodes, on which contestants would attempt to beat each other's high scores on an arcade game. A video game tournament was included as part of TV show That's Incredible! , and tournaments were also featured as part of

16356-419: The school. Colleges such as Columbia College , Robert Morris University , and Indiana Institute of Technology have taken part in this. In 2018, Harrisburg University of Science and Technology began a tuition scholarship program for esports players. In 2014, the largest independent esports league, Electronic Sports League , partnered with the local brand Japan Competitive Gaming to try and grow esports in

16497-402: The screen and issue commands with the mouse, and may also use keyboard shortcuts. Gameplay generally consists of the player being positioned somewhere in the map with a few units or a building that is capable of building other units/buildings. Often, but not always, the player must build specific structures to unlock more advanced units in the tech tree . Often, but not always, RTS games require

16638-561: The strategy argue that they're simply taking advantage of the strategies utilized, and some argue that it is a realistic representation of warfare. One of the most infamous versions of a rush is the "Zergling rush" from the real-time strategy game StarCraft , where the Zerg player would morph one of their starting workers (or the first one produced) into a spawning pool immediately and use all of their resources to produce Zerglings, attacking once they have enough to overwhelm any early defense; in fact,

16779-469: The technique of "clicking and dragging" to create a box that selects all units under a given area. Though some video game genres share conceptual and gameplay similarities with the RTS template, recognized genres are generally not subsumed as RTS games. For instance, city-building games , construction and management simulations , and games of real-time tactics are generally not considered real-time strategy per se. This would only apply to anything considered

16920-458: The term "zerging" has become synonymous with rushing. Some games have since introduced designs that do not easily lend themselves to rushes. For example, the Hegemony series made supply and (seasonal) resource management an integral part of its gameplay, thus limiting rapid expansion. Despite Herzog Zwei , a console game , laying the foundations for the real-time strategy genre, RTS games never gained popularity on consoles like they did on

17061-500: The tournament "proved to be the biggest event ever" in the arcade game industry, and was attended by members from leading Japanese newspapers and leisure industry companies. Sega stressed "the importance of such tournaments to foster better business relationships between the maker-location-customer and create an atmosphere of competition on TV amusement games". In 1977, Gremlin Industries (a year before being acquired by Sega) held

17202-483: The traditional RTS format accelerated throughout the early 2010s as RTS games were released on the App store . With the new format specific to Mobile devices , mobile RTS games were often simpler than their desktop counterparts. The simplification of the RTS formula coupled with the adoption of the smartphone during this period allowed for mobile RTS games to be more accessible than traditional RTS games. Clash of Clans (2012),

17343-472: The traditional RTS formula, with the player having the "perspective of god" and managing units and resources. Such Indie-RTS Games released in this period were often subject to Porting , and often made it to mobile devices. A few of these Indie-RTS games are Ultimate Epic Battle Simulator (2017), the Machines at War series (2007-2012), and Bad North (2018). Oftentimes, modern RTS games attempt to capture

17484-526: The transformation from semi-3D to full-3D game simulations. It is an open-source project, which aims to give a Total Annihilation game-play experience in three dimensions. The most ambitious use of full 3D graphics was realized in Supreme Commander , where all projectiles, units and terrain were simulated in real time, taking full advantage of the UI's zoom feature, which allowed cartographic style navigation of

17625-474: The two systems: for example, the role-playing game Fallout uses turn-based combat and real-time gameplay, while the real-time strategy games Homeworld , Rise of Nations , and the games of the Total War and Hegemony series allow the player to pause the game and issue orders. Additionally, the Total War series has a combination of a turn-based strategy map with a real-time battle map. Another example of

17766-628: The use of a broad arsenal of weapons including diplomatic, informational, military, and economic resources, whereas military tactics is more concerned with short-term goals such as winning an individual battle. In the context of strategy video games, however, the difference is often reduced to the more limited criteria of either a presence or absence of base building and unit production. In an article for Gamasutra , Nathan Toronto criticizes real-time strategy games for too often having only one valid means of victory — attrition — comparing them unfavorably to real-time tactics games. Players' awareness that

17907-462: The use of combat tactics involved in the present, whereas macromanagement considers the greater scale of the game in an attempt to predict the future. A debate has emerged between fans of real-time strategy (RTS) and turn-based strategy (TBS) (and related genres) based on the merits of the real-time and turn-based systems. Because of their generally faster-paced nature (and in some cases a smaller learning curve), real-time strategy games have surpassed

18048-551: The ways in which [they] may collaborate to the mutual benefit of all of sport in the years ahead". The IOC has tested the potential for esports through exhibition games. With support from the IOC, Intel sponsored exhibition esports events for StarCraft II and Steep prior to the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang , and five South Korean esports players were part of the Olympic Torch relay. A similar exhibition showcase,

18189-415: Was another full 3D game, but had limited camera views. The move from 2D to 3D has been criticized in some cases. Issues with controlling the camera and placement of objects have been cited as problems. A few games have experimented with diversifying map design, which continues to be largely two-dimensional even in 3D engines. Earth 2150 (2000) allowed units to tunnel underground, effectively creating

18330-480: Was best established in South Korea, with StarCraft and Warcraft III competitions regularly televised by dedicated 24-hour cable TV game channels Ongamenet and MBCGame . Elsewhere, esports television coverage was sporadic. The German GIGA Television covered esports until its shutdown in 2009. The United Kingdom satellite television channel XLEAGUE.TV broadcast esports competitions from 2007 to 2009. The online esports only channel ESL TV briefly attempted

18471-407: Was critical in making the RTS genre possible.” The success of Dune II encouraged several games that became influential in their own right. Warcraft: Orcs & Humans (1994) achieved great prominence upon its release, owing in part to its use of a fantasy setting and also to its depiction of a wide variety of buildings (such as farms) which approximated a full fictitious society and not just

18612-520: Was discontinued in 2020, replaced by a franchise-based league called Flashpoint. It features 12 teams and a US$ 2,000,000 buy in spot, and offers co-ownership and revenue sharing to competing teams. In May 2022, FACEIT announced a multi-million dollar partnership agreement with the cryptocurrency fintech platform Cake DeFi. The agreement sees players participating in FACEIT matchups and tournaments to receive cryptocurrency rewards, with plans to pay more than half

18753-471: Was essentially identical regardless of the map layer in question. Dragonshard (2005) emphasized its dual-layer maps by placing one of the game's two main resources in each map, making exploration and control of both maps fundamentally valuable. Relatively few genres have emerged from or in competition with real-time strategy games, although real-time tactics (RTT), a superficially similar genre, emerged around 1995. In 1998, Activision attempted to combine

18894-620: Was held by Sega in 1974, the All Japan TV Game Championships, a nationwide arcade video game tournament in Japan. The tournament was intended by Sega to promote the play and sales of video games in the country. There were local tournaments held in 300 locations across Japan, and then sixteen finalists from across the country competed in the final elimination rounds at Tokyo 's Hotel Pacific. Prizes awarded included television sets ( color and black-and-white ), cassette tape recorders and transistor radios . According to Sega,

19035-462: Was heralded by Taito 's Space Invaders in 1978, which popularized the use of a persistent high score for all players. Several video games in the next several years followed suit, adding other means of tracking high scores such with high score tables that included the players' initials in games like Asteroids in 1979. High score-chasing became a popular activity and a means of competition. The Space Invaders Championship held by Atari in 1980

19176-411: Was notable for being one of the few completely non-linear RTS games ever. It is only in approximately 2002 that 3D real-time strategy became the standard, with both Warcraft III (2002) and Ensemble Studio's Age of Mythology (2002) being built on a full 3D game engine. Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns introduced classic wargame elements, such as supply lines to the genre. Battle Realms (2001)

19317-498: Was popular among competitive arcade players. The 1988 game Netrek was an Internet game for up to 16 players, written almost entirely in cross-platform open-source software . Netrek was the third Internet game , the first Internet game to use metaservers to locate open game servers, and the first to have persistent user information . In 1993 it was credited by Wired Magazine as "the first online sports game". The fighting game Street Fighter II (1991) popularized

19458-434: Was removed from a list of sport disciplines because it did not fit the new sport standards. On 7 July 2016, The Ministry of Sport decided to add cybersport into the sport registry and on 13 April 2017, esports become an official sport discipline once again. China was another one of the first countries to recognize esports as a real sport in 2003, despite concerns at the time that video games were addictive. Through this,

19599-507: Was the earliest large scale video game competition, attracting more than 10,000 participants across the United States, establishing competitive gaming as a mainstream hobby. It was won by Rebecca Heineman . Walter Day , owner of an arcade in Iowa, had taken it upon himself to travel across the United States to record the high scores on various games in 1980, and on his return, founded Twin Galaxies ,

19740-668: Was the first notable multi-sport competition including esports as an official medal-winning event, alongside other traditional sports, and the later editions of the Asian Indoor Games , as well as its successor the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games , have always included esports as an official medal event or an exhibition event up to now. Moreover, the Asian Games , which is the Asian top-level multi-sport competition, also included esports as

19881-526: Was the first real-time strategy game to utilize true 3D units, terrain, and physics in both rendering and in gameplay. For instance, the missiles in Total Annihilation travel in real time in simulated 3D space, and they can miss their target by passing over or under it. Similarly, missile-armed units in Earth 2150 are at a serious disadvantage when the opponent is on high ground because the missiles often hit

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