eSport

A little bit about eSport

Electronic sports (eSports) comprises the competitive play of video games. Other terms include competitive gaming, professional gaming, e-sport, and cybersport. The most common video game genres associated with electronic sports are real-time strategy (RTS), fighting, first-person shooter (FPS), massively-multiplayer online (MMOG), and racing. Games are played competitively at amateur, semi-professional and professional levels, and some games have organized competition in the form of leagues and tournaments. Events such as Major League Gaming (MLG), Global Starcraft II League (GSL), World Cyber Games (WCG), Dreamhack, and Intel Extreme Masters provide both real-time casting of streamed games, and cash prizes to the winners.

League of Legends in eSport

League of Legends (LoL) is an action RTS video game developed and published by Riot Games for Microsoft Windows, primarily inspired by DOTA, the popular Defense of the Ancients map for Warcraft III. It was first announced on October 7, 2008, and released on October 27, 2009.
League of Legends has experienced some success in the competitive video game field. The 2010 World Cyber Games Grand Finals at Los Angeles hosted a competitive tournament for League of Legends. The victors were the Counter Logic Gaming team from North America, winning a mere $7,000 prize. LoL was added to the Intel Extreme Masters lineup for the 2011 Electronic Sports League season. Competitive play for League of Legends reached a new level during the Season 1 World Championships at Dreamhack held in Sweden during June 2011. The European team Fnatic defeated teams from Europe and the USA to win the tournament which featured US$100,000 in prizes and won a US$50,000 prize. Nearly 1.6 million viewers watched the streaming broadcast over the course of the event with a peak of over 210,000 viewers watching a single semi-final match, second to Dota 2's The International 2.

Season 2 World Finals.

The success of League of Legends after Season 1 led Riot to announce a total of 5,000,000 USD to be paid out over Season 2. Of this 5 million, 2 million went to Riot's partners including the IPL and other major eSports associations. Another 2 million went to Riot's Season 2 qualifiers and the world championship. The final one million went to small organizers who applied to Riot to host League of Legends tournaments. The Season 2 World Championship included teams from all over the world and featured a prize pool of 2 million US dollars. The Grand Finals were ultimately between 2 Asian powerhouses, Taipei Assassins (Taiwan) and Azubu Frost (South Korea). Despite a loss in the first game of the series, Taipei Assassins rallied back and won the next 3 games, beating Azubu Frost 3 to 1 to win the 1 million dollar grand prize. During the quarterfinal match against Team Solomid, Azubu Frost player Woong looked at the spectator minimap, resulting in a fine that reduced their winnings by US$30,000. The League of Legends Season 2 World Finals match was the most watched e-sport event of all time, with 8.2 million unique viewers and a peak of 1.1 million concurrent viewers on internet streaming and Korean and Chinese television.