Competitive gaming is the term that refers to multiplayer video game competitions. Tournaments either remotely hosted on otherwise featured live broadcasts and cash prizes. It is now that popular that distinction can be drawn between professional and amateur tournaments. Fighting games such as Mortal Combat, Tekken and Street Fighter dominate the amateur world whilst games like Dota 2, League of Legends and StarCraft 2 are played in larger competitive gaming tournaments by professionals.
It is estimated that nearly 72 million people watch competitive gaming every year. The dominant regions in the competitive gaming arena are South Korea, Europe, America, Australia and China. A Space Invaders tournament by Atari was one of the first tournaments. Everything was run through a mainframe computer. During the advent of the internet Nintendo hosted the world’s first competitive gaming tournaments. Games played featured old favourites such as Tetris and Super Mario Brothers. Still not fully recognised as a sport the development of virtual reality may well see competitive gaming becoming the most popular sport of the future.
