The co-founder of Team Genji wrote about the esports industry. We publish an excerpt

A new book about video games has appeared on the shelves of Russian stores. It’s called “Esports. Games, money, two clicks.” It was written by William Collis, one of the founders of the Gamer Sensei platform and the esports organization Team Genji. We share an excerpt of the book.

In his book, Collins talks about the esports industry:

• how it all started;
• what is the connection between traditional sports and esports;
• how did games like League of Legends, Fortnite, StarCraft and Dota 2 succeed;
• what companies that have decided to invest in esports should know about;
• what could be the future of esports;
• much more.

In English, “Esports. Games, Money, Two Clicks” was released back in August 2020 (under the title The Book of Esports: The Definitive Guide to Competitive Video Games). But in Russian, it has appeared on sale only now. The Russian-language version was released by the publishing house “Peter”. You can buy it on the company’s website.

Below is an excerpt from the book “Esports. Games, money, two clicks.”

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Esports has grown dramatically: thanks to streaming platforms, celebrity status and financial rewards for professional gamers have become available all over the world. SCAR factors have played a global role. But did this mean that StarCraft conquered the whole world after the rapid success in Korea and became the first truly international type of esports?

No. Ironically, instead, StarCraft has nurtured its biggest competitor. A new game genre — the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) — overthrew its progenitor and occupied the esports Olympus for a long time.

StarCraft is more than just the best—selling game in the RTS genre. It has a powerful creative tool built into it: a map editor. Thanks to him, brave gamers were able to create their own playing fields, which added depth and made it more interesting to repeat the passage of the already legendary RTS.

Exploring the possibilities of StarCraft, amateur game designers quickly discovered that the game could help them realize their bold fantasies. For example, in the map editor right inside StarCraft, you could create your own role-playing games (RPG) like Dungeons and Dragons. They were played in the same way as in StarCraft, watching what was happening from above in a three-dimensional isometric projection, but at the same time the player controlled only one squad (or hero), and not an entire army. Many versions of these so-called starpgs have spread, but one of them, Aeon of Strife, has become especially popular.

In Aeon of Strife (also known as Aeon Strife, or AoS), the player fights waves of enemies advancing on three fronts and gets resources that can be used to upgrade the character — his attack, defense and much more. However, despite the success of AoS, at that time no one considered it a harbinger of the evolution of games.

Nevertheless, the success of Aeon of Strife inspired Blizzard Entertainment. In particular, the game mechanics of this mod, completely tied to one character, seemed to the developers unusually suitable for storytelling: when a single unit is more important than tons of cannon fodder around it.

As a result, on July 3, 2002, Blizzard released the heir and successor to StarCraft, the game Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, in which individual heroes could be controlled. Previously, games in the RTS genre meant mainly battles of large armies and no individuality. But in Warcraft III, everything has changed. Hero units developed, received gold and bought items in the same way as in traditional role-playing games. And the map itself was no longer just a static environment or a battlefield. The so-called creeps, or neutral enemies, protected important goals for the plot, and they could be killed for resources. It’s possible that both of these mechanics were inspired by AoS.

In Warcraft III, this feature was mainly used for storytelling; there were characters-protagonists whose stories developed as the game progressed. This combination of a narrative element and the ability to control armies appealed to gamers. In the first month, 1 million copies of Warcraft III were sold, making it the best-selling PC game at that time.

Just like StarCraft, the standard Warcraft III build included a map editor. In the main files of the game there were even examples of how you can creatively rethink Warcraft by creating, for example, a tank racing simulator based on it.

Inspired by this idea, a modder under the nickname Eul decided to recreate Aeon of Strife inside Warcraft III. At the same time, all the improved mechanics and innovations of the mother game were available to him. For the first time in the history of AoS, hero units could not only mechanically pump power, but also gain new abilities and extract powerful artifacts. In Warcraft III, it was possible to conduct large-scale multiplayer games, so in its fashion, Eul allowed groups of five people to play against each other, who fought on three lines of the map. So the popular mod Defense of the Ancients (DotA) was born.

Even in its first version, DotA had all the characteristics of modern MOBA — hero abilities, shopping, a battlefield with three lines and much more. It is difficult to overestimate all the splendor of the Eul modding. DotA fired. Of course, it is now impossible to collect data on the early popularity of the mod, but probably up to 10 percent of all online battles in Warcraft III took place using this custom mod. This is just an incredible level of popularity for amateur development.

Eul’s work has inspired others as well. Imitators appeared like mushrooms after the rain, and in each new DotA spin-off, certain, albeit small, improvements were traced — for example, a talented rethinking of the abilities of heroes or an increase in the prices of items. And finally, amateur game designers Meian and RagnOr (later joined by Steve Guinsoo Fick) took the liberty to combine the most popular of these disparate mods into the final version. So DotA Allstars was born.

Surprisingly, the popularity of Allstars began to overshadow Warcraft III itself, whose life was already barely glimmering by that time. The mod continued to improve under the guidance of another game designer with the nickname IceFrog: he turned DotA into a game with a fierce competitive environment and regular changes and additions.

Despite the many passionate fans, Allstars still had a clear limitation: It was built entirely inside the parent game, Warcraft III. This meant that it featured only those assets (capabilities, items, and other basic solutions) that existed in Warcraft III. Regardless of what game designers invented, reinterpreted and revised in fashion, they could not reach a new level, beyond the stunningly reliable, but limited game mechanics of the parent game.

The Allstars team begged the publisher to pay attention to this contradiction and breathe new life into DotA by making it a separate game. Of course, Blizzard Entertainment was supposed to be the publisher of the game. Blizzard had a great opportunity to capitalize on the sudden success of DotA. And they probably already owned the entire game, because the mod was created exclusively using their intellectual property and game assets.

But it wasn’t meant to be.

At the same time, when DotA Allstars was rapidly gaining popularity, another Blizzard game, World of Warcraft, took over the world. WoW’s huge financial and cultural success also had a disastrous side effect. He blinded Blizzard so much that they simply did not see the potential of their other creation. And really, did Blizzard really care about some kind of amateur card, when WoW was rewriting the rules of virtual interaction right in front of millions of people?

WoW’s success also led to another unforeseen consequence—Blizzard’s merger with another major gaming company, Activision. The success of Blizzard’s MMO directly led Activision to conclude this alliance in 2007-2008, and this, of course, distracted the attention of the leadership of both organizations.

Moreover, Blizzard did not perceive DotA as a threat. After all, players still needed to install Warcraft III first before using the mod. And in general, didn’t Blizzard, which created the map editor, have such a goal — that the map created by the community would stimulate sales growth of the parent game?

And finally, Blizzard had a cultural problem. This company may have created the best video games in the world — and, naturally, began to turn up its nose. How could something new appear outside the walls of Blizzard? DotA mods, and the MOBA genre in general, were often perceived as simplified RTS. After all, in them, one player controlled only one hero, and the battle took place only on one map. And so, such games are more primitive, since they need fewer skills, right?

Blizzard overlooked the fact that DotA’s simplicity was also its huge advantage. The focus on the hero made DotA easy to learn and at the same time a very exciting game, but this simplification hid an incredible complexity behind it. Yes, it seemed easier to control one hero in DotA than an army of hundreds of warriors in StarCraft, but this was not the case at all. Players still had to filigree their skills, deftly choose a place for unexpected ambushes (“ganks”) and equip their hero, inflicting lasthits on creeps.

DotA turned out to be a game that requires skill development.