Big-time for e-Sports

Thiago "King" Lapp concluded fifth on Fortnite Worldwide Tournament and was awarded with the amount of USD 900,000 two weeks ago. This event was broadcast worldwide, where most of the segment +40 had no idea of their existence, until they heard it on some mass communication media.

He specializes on Fortnite, a game classified as "battle royale", where there are no frontiers, so everyone in the world may compete for the first places in each round. Those who survive up to the end, which have more "kills" or those who comply with certain challenges inside the game will continue improving the qualities of the user.

In 2018, the gaming industry had a turnover of USD 137 billion, plus a 13% more than last year, becoming numbe one. If fact, companies such as Disney, Comcast and AT&T have already signed several contracts of content and exclusivity with video game producers.

Latin America represents a 3.6% of the worldwide share, with Mexico on the first place, followed by Brazil and then Argentina. With 234 million players in the continent, one every three people is a player.

In the country, San Juan province performed in May the "San Juan Gaming Festival", where more than 4,000 people made a parade during 2 days on the two places allocated to online gaming, talks and different activities. And in October it will be the turn of "Argentina Game Show", which will last 3 days.
eSports are a natural evolution towards the growth on recent years, which stards as a hobbie and continues towards professionalization. We talk about competitions on many levels, from amateur to professional, obviously with wages and sponsors.

Numbers in Argentina are quite dissimilar; there is a consumption of USD 473 million, but produced barely 500 million pesos (USD 11 million nowdays); we talk about an industry where US and China are leaders in worldwide production, plus the fact that it is estimated that, for 2023, there will be more gamers in China than cityzens in the United States.

Sports chains also entered in the industry: ESPN has the broadcast rights of League of Legends and already counts with a section on their site, allocated to gamers novelties (at the same level of the rest of the sports), NBC Sports, the rignts to broadcast ROcket League championship. Fox and TYC Sports already have programs dedicated to eSports doe more than two years.

Millenials are not fond of traditional channels or live TV; that's why Peek Studios was created in Argentina, a content producer for gamers transmitted by Twitch platform (a video and streaming site that competes for the world of players with YouTube).

Peek Studios produces its own programs from their studio on Colegiales neighbourhood, an unstructured format where we will participate live on the platform chat, not only from eSports but also with YouTuber community and other social networks, which children consume nowadays.

The gamer industry is growing, to the point that several Universities already have their own teams and their own tournament "eSports University League" (LUDENS), where the UADE team has been Champion in November 2018.
This league grows, and, among universities have already crossed international parties against Brazilian teams.

Watching videogames seems so funny (and profitable) as playing them, an industry that today generates stars and millionaires that gave a lot of profits and will soon compete with the top sportsmen worldwide. Let's prepare for new Olympic Games for e-Sports.

Joan Cwaik, Teacher of UADE Foundation. Speaker and specialist in emerging technologies.