eSports

By Haruka Matsumoto

Have you ever heard of eSports? Now around the world, eSports is growing in popularity. eSports is a kind of competitive sport using computer games and video games. Today, many people are enjoying eSports, through competitions such as the world championship.

eSports started with the creation of computer games in the 1980s. In the second half of 1990s, multiple large scale events with prize money began to be held in Europe and the United states, and in the 2000s it was officially called a sport. eSports players used to invite friends to their home and play on electronic devices, but with improved hardware performance and a better communication environment, it is now possible to play against players from all over the world.

Nowadays, it has become a sport in which technology is committed using computers and PlayStation. The hottest technologically competitive games are called FPS (First Person Shooting) and the Batrowa game is an in-game virtual world where you aim to fight and survive with multiple players. There are popular FPS masterpieces such as Apex Legends, PUBG, CoD, and FORTNITE, but the one that is attracting attention is VALORANT, which held an international convention in April this year.

VALORANT is a game with five players on each side who fight using the abilities of each character’s weapon. It is a game in which the attacking side detonates a bomb called spike and the defending side that protects the base from the bomb. The first team to score 13 points wins the game. The international convention VALORANT Champions Tour, commonly known as VCT, held in April this year attracted the most attention in Japan. VCT divides the year into four stages. The stages are divided into four stages: Challengers, Masters, Last Chance Qualifier and Champions. Week 1 and week 2 consist of the Challengers .

The teams that survive the Open Qualifier stage advance to the Main Event, and the teams that win the Main Events of both weeks compete in the Masters stage, which is an international competition, a stage called playoffs. The reason why the VCT attracted the most attention in Japan is that the Japanese national professional game team “ZETA DIVISION'' achieved the feat of being No.1 in Asia and No.3 in the world. On SNS, #ZETAWIN became a trend and it was very exciting. Nowadays, in addition to VCT, FPS tournaments such as Apex Legends Global Series, commonly known as ALGS, are held every year, and we cannot take our eyes away from eSports.