CSUN On Point

The eSports industry is arguably one of the fastest-growing entertainment industries in the past few years. With competitive video-games drawing larger audiences all the time, eSports is today filling arenas and boosting bottom lines for both marketers and game publishers.

The popular game League of Legends attracted more viewers than the 2018 Super Bowl, an estimated 100 million. The Super Bowl, with  98 million viewers last year, had its smallest viewership since 2008.

With the dramatic rise in eSports, investors are now jumping in, a clear indication of potential growth in the sport. eSports now has a lot in common with traditional sports: highly skilled players and intense competition, and huge amounts of money generated through sponsorships and endorsements. eSports revenues were expected top one billion dollars in 2019, with viewership growing all the time.

“The sense of community is one of the biggest factors in eSports gaming,” said Erin Alonzo, president of CSUN’s eSports Club, “and there are a lot of people that go out to the college events or professional games.”

The ease of participating in the sport via streaming apps like Twitch is one factor ensuring the rise and growth of the eSports industry which also opened the doors to some of the first sports betting games.

“Streaming has made [growth] a lot more possible,” YouTube gaming show host Demothy Tien said, “because it brought [gaming] to the screens of the audience who were not able to make it out to all these events before … With streaming, it made it more accessible,  just like people who watch ordinary sports.”

Street Fight is one of the most popular games. “Streaming has been effective,” Tien said, “because it is easy to go online, type in the name of the game [like Street Fight], and get the chance to watch people playing live at a very high level.”

Tien, whose YouTube show is called “Hey! We’re Playin'”, said people enjoy watching for the competition among expert players, as well as the entertainment content of the games.

But the World Health Organization (WHO) has classified video-games as a health risk, and potentially addictive, officially adding internet gaming to its International Classification of Diseases.

“There are a lot of misconceptions around the decision by WHO to put video-games in the category,” Tien said. “It is not quite like all the people who like playing video-games have video-game disorder, but it is about those who are actually being affected by it, in terms of creating negative effects in their lives.”

Still, the eSports industry has the potential to grow and get to the level of professional sports, despite some negative stigma towards gamers.  Tien and Alonzo said the industry and players need to address the problems, such as the addiction and health issues, player burnouts, toxicity among the different genres, and the discrimination against women in the game.

With the dramatic rise of eSports, the industry is proving viable as an investment, but the huge growth has also opened the video gaming competitive community to the scrutiny of the world. “It is getting big,” Tien said, “and it is going in the direction that other sports have gone, becoming massive, and an even bigger industry in sports to consider.”

Moderator: Ryder Mcconville

Producer: Zach Ferber

Anchor: Yarazeth Tapia

Social Media Editor: Karen Ruiz

Reporters: Ali Bash, Zach Ferber, Ryder Mcconville, Karen Ruiz, Carol Santamaria and Yarazeth Tapia