What Does E-Sports Mean in Gaming?

With the first gaming tournaments, e-sports has quickly played its way into the hearts of gamers. But what is behind this term? The meaning of the term E-Sports and what E-Sports players do learn in this article.

What does the term e-sports mean?

E-Sports is the short form for electronic sports. This refers to “the direct competition between human players using suitable video and computer games”. E-sports therefore means competing in video games.

As with any other sport, there are different disciplines in e-sports. Each video game can be understood as its own discipline in e-sports. For example, a League of Legends player will normally be less successful playing Counterstrike.

Unlike traditional sports, the rules of e-sports are constantly changing. Because more innovations are added with every patch, the rules also have to be adapted. This has the advantage that the rules are already firmly integrated into the game and can only be broken with difficulty. Exceptions are bugs and cheats and also doping. For this reason, referees are still needed in e-sports.

E-sports also has teams and professional players. E-Sports clubs usually operate across disciplines. Clubs like Cloud9 or G2 Esports manage teams for many different games, for example League of Legends, Counterstrike, Apex Legends or even Hearthstone and even chess. Even if the games don’t have a team focus, players like to join these clubs.

By the way, the financing of e-sports teams works in the same way as in traditional sports: sponsors, prize money, fan merchandise and membership fees ensure that people can make a living in e-sports. In addition, e-sports organizations fill large stadiums with their tournaments. The tickets sold for them and other sponsors make high prize money possible.

What does an e-sports player do?

Training is also very important in e-sports. In every discipline, it’s part of the job to train between tournaments. It’s not just about physical skills like precise control inputs, but also about mental training.

E-sports usually involves a lot of tactical finesse. One wrong decision can mean the difference between victory and defeat. That’s why e-sports players train daily in their discipline to be ready for any situation.

Due to the changes in the rules that are typical for e-sports, new tactics are always emerging. That’s why e-sports players need to keep up to date with the game and its meta. Otherwise, they run the risk of being surprised by new characters, tactics, or abilities. In larger teams, this work is done by analysts and coaches.

Do e-athletes just sit in front of a screen?

In addition to training for their game, e-athletes must also pay close attention to their mental and physical health. An unhealthy lifestyle can severely limit the performance of e-sports players. For this reason, professional gamers have a team with various experts: fitness trainers, nutritionists and psychologists take care that their players are and stay at the peak of their performance. So e-sportsmen sit a lot in front of the screen, but they also make sure that they have a healthy balance.

Always against each other?

Competitive e-sports disciplines are significantly more popular because they fill stadiums, as mentioned above. But there are also areas of professional gaming that forgo this type of competition. Speedruns as well as no-hit runs, which involve trying to finish the game without taking any damage, can also be counted as e-sports disciplines.

Examples of the use of the term e-sports

• I’m training to become an e-sportsman later.
• There’s an e-sports event.
• The game has real e-sports potential.
• I play in the e-sports club (…).