The invention of the computer has made life a lot easier and changed many aspects of how we live our lives. Even the ordinary game has changed for us with board games almost disappearing and computer game staking their place. E-sports is a classic example of the growth that is being experienced in online gaming. Counter-Strike and Quake were among the first E-sports holding tournaments and leagues online.
E-sports have become so popular and competitive that players can earn huge sums of money from playing (up to $200,000 a year). It should therefore not be surprising to you that E-sports and World of Warcraft were to form a glorious, and very lucrative, union. With millions of players and an established combat gameplay it seemed strange that the two had never been twined from the very start.
Although WoW has always involved battle it wasn't until the first expansion pack was released were players able to battle one and other in the Arenas.
The Arena was designed to accommodate groups of players who wanted to fight in a team. Players could form groups of 2, 3 or 5 players. With its exciting fast-paced gameplay, entertaining and rewarding player versus player combat interactions and its complex form of rating teams the Arenas became very popular very fast.
Thousands of teams were created and battles between teams raged for days on end as they fought to gain a top 10 ranking in the online leagues.
It didn't take long for Blizzard to launch a tournament (for 5 player teams) where they offered a spot to the top 3 teams from each bracket to compete for a $10,000 top prize. Many thousands of established teams began battling for a place in the tournament and many more were created for the same reason.
Obviously anything that is so competitive and so popular was going to attract the attention of the E-sport giants who sponsored other leagues and tournaments for different games!
As Blizzard were already hosting 5 player team tournaments the company World Series of Video Games (WSVG) negotiated with them to host 3 player team tournaments. The new three player tournament also carried a top prize of $10,000 and created just as much buzz and excitement as the original.
These three player team tournaments are very exciting to watch and seem to be the most popular of all tournaments. CBS signed a deal with Blizzard to televise Wow tournaments. With CBS onboard with Blizzard to televise its five player tournaments CGS signed a deal to televise the 2 player battles.
World of Warcraft has passed its "Midas touch" and popularity onto its online arenas. With such large monetary prizes on offer a huge amount of E-sport players are jumping on the Warcraft bandwagon and abandoning their traditional games like rats off a sinking ship!
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