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Counter-Strike Finally Gets the League It Deserves

Posted by timothy on from the your-boy-zoolander's-on-the-move dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Counter-Strike is the oldest eSport in the world today, with its roots stretching back to the dawn of the millennium. But unlike rival games like League of Legends or StarCraft 2, its pro scene has been mostly reliant on sporadic tournaments instead of a regularised league. That's changed with the announcement of the ESL ESEA Pro League, the first Counter-Strike Global Offensive league with a seven-figure prize pot. As one writer points out, this is a huge boost for the pro scene even without developer Valve's involvement: everything from paid travel expenses to regular viewing schedules will help the scene, and let the top players play even better than before: "it has taken over 15 years to happen, but now Counter-Strike has a tournament that can potentially elevate it to become one of the biggest eSports in the world."

2 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Counter-Strike is the oldest eSport in the worl by Nugoo · · Score: 3, Informative

    Starcraft came out over a year before Counter-Strike, and apparently before Quake III Arena as well.

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  2. Re:If I hear "eSport" one more time... by GroeFaZ · · Score: 3, Informative

    eSports are eSports. They have a different name than "sports" because it's not the same thing. It has a similar name to "sports", because it's a similar thing.

    Regarding cheating: Yes, because real sports, especially the professional/competitive level, is known to be free of cheaters.
    Arguably, eSports cheaters are much easier to catch because by definition, everything is controlled by a computer and most cheaters leave some sort of trace that can be tracked. I'm pretty sure that you will find no physical sport that has as strict an enforcement of anti-cheating rules as even the most lenient/lazy competitive eSports games. Especially at the highest level of play, during tournaments where competitors are physically present, with hardware provided by and players under observation of judges, cheating is practically impossible. Many physical sports would be better off if their tournaments had the same ratio of cheating as eSports.

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    The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.