Esports is a form of competition using video games. Most commonly, esports takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, individually or as teams. Although organized online and offline competitions have long been a part of video game culture, these were largely between amateurs until the late 2000s, when participation by professional gamers and spectatorship in these events through live streaming saw a large surge in popularity. By the 2010s, esports was a significant factor in the video game industry, with many game developers actively designing toward a professional esports subculture.
Manuel "Grubby" Schenkhuizen is a Dutch professional eSports player. He competes in the real-time strategy games Warcraft III (WC3), Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne and Starcraft 2. As an Orc player, Schenkhuizen has won more than 38 LAN tournaments, of which six are World Championships. His command over the Horde placed him early enough among the elite of the WC3 players, while his clash with Jang "Spirit Moon" Jae-ho rewarded him with a legendary status among the fans of the game. Grubby has been known for being part of one of the most successful WC3 teams in history, namely the British 4Kings. Later teams include the Danish MeetYourMakers and the North American Evil Geniuses. Grubby is now a popular full time streamer on Twitch.
SK Gaming is a professional esports organization based in Germany that has teams across the world competing in different titles. SK is particularly known for their success in Counter-Strike (CS) tournaments. SK's Brazilian CS team won the ESL One Cologne 2016 Major. SK currently has players and teams competing in League of Legends and Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. SK Gaming was founded in 1997 by a small group of Quake players in Oberhausen.
Sander Kaasjager, who plays under the pseudonym Vo0, is a Dutch professional player of the first person shooter games Painkiller, Quake II, Quake III , Quake 4, Quake Live and Quake Champions, and also World of Warcraft. He has won more titles and prize money—over US$250,000—at professional Painkiller tournaments than any other player.
Paul "Redeye" Chaloner is a professional esports and video game broadcast host from Shoreham-by-Sea, England.
The World Series of Video Games (WSVG) was an international professional electronic sports competition. It held its first season in 2006, with competitions in six different games and six events held around the world including the finals of the event. The total prize purse of the season was US$750,000 which includes the $240,000 prize purse that was winnable at the finals. The WSVG was operated by Games Media Properties, an American gaming company founded in 2002 with the BYOC Lan section subcontracted out to Lanwar Inc.
This is an overview of all televised competitions and offline qualifiers for major international competitions that have taken place in South Korea and were mainly aimed at Korean competitors for Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne.
Dignitas is a professional esports team based in the United Kingdom, founded by Michael "ODEE" O'Dell on 9 September 2003 when Battlefield 1942 clans Legion Condor and Sweden Kompanix merged. Team Dignitas was acquired by the Philadelphia 76ers in September 2016. The team has a rich history across many different esports, but is best known for its former League of Legends and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive squads.
Mousesports is a professional eSports organization based in Germany. Mousesports fields teams in many different games, and are particularly known for its Counter-Strike team. Mousesports was one of the founding members of the G7 Teams. mouz's League team currently competes in the ESL Pro Series, having formerly competed in the League of Legends Championship Series Europe.
Maciej Krzykowski, who goes by the pseudonym Av3k, is a professional Quake and ShootMania player. He has Polish nationality and resides in Ostróda. He actively competes in international Quake competitions and was signed to Razer and Dutch electronic sports team Serious Gaming but is now a part of French organization Millenium. On July 8, 2007 at age 16, he became the youngest Quake champion ever after winning the Electronic Sports World Cup 2007 in Paris without losing a single map.
The 2009 World Cyber Games took place from November 11 to November 15, 2009 in Chengdu, Sichuan, China. It had over 600 participates from 70 countries taking part. The prize money is estimated at around $500,000.
Serious Gaming is a professional gaming team based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. It was founded in 2004 by entrepreneur Bas Peeperkorn. Serious Gaming is known for their achievements in first-person shooter Deathmatch tournaments, most notably those by Quake series players Maciej "av3k" Krzykowski and Alexey "cypher" Yanushevsky.
Natus Vincere (Na'Vi) is an esports organisation based in Ukraine. Founded in 2009, the organisation has teams and players competing in various games, such as Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, FIFA, World of Tanks, Paladins, League of Legends, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and Rainbow Six Siege.
GameCom is the gaming sub-brand of Plantronics, officially trademarked as Plantronics GameCom. Though Plantronics produced gaming headsets as far back as 1999, in 2004 the GameCom brand was created to encompass their gaming headset family. Since then, GameCom has released headsets compatible with both console and PC gaming platforms, hosted gaming tournaments, and sponsored professional gaming teams.
ESL, formerly known as Electronic Sports League, is an esports organizer and production company that produces video game competitions worldwide. ESL is the world's largest esports company, and the oldest that is still operational. Based in Cologne, Germany, ESL has eleven offices and multiple international TV studios globally. ESL is the largest esports company to broadcast on Twitch.tv.
Lu Weiliang, who also goes by the pseudonym Fly100%, is a Chinese professional esports player of the real-time strategy game Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. He previously been a member of Team Hacker, EHOME and Mousesports. He is considered one of the best Orc players. He had one of the longest playing careers of professional players of Warcraft III.
MeetYourMakers is an esports organization based in Sweden. It competes in League of Legends (LoL), Dota 2, StarCraft II, and Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. MYM was founded in 2001.
