Archive notice: This article was originally published on December 12, 2007. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
What has not been a rarity in the USA for some time is now also becoming increasingly obvious in Europe: For many, playing computer games is no longer simply a pastime. Rather, electronic sport (e-sport) has long since become a serious profession in which professionals can be almost as popular as pop stars.
“A large proportion of e-sports players no longer play computer games as a hobby, but as a profession”, Constantin Jäkel of the Berlin e-sports organisation mousesports http://mouz.wazap.com/de explains in an interview with pressetext. Mousesports itself accommodates a number of professional teams specialising in different games. “At first, only a Counter-Strike team was on the road under the mousesports flag, but now players from all over the world represent our clan around the globe”, Jäkel describes. “E-sport is not a short-lived phenomenon, as is still often assumed”, he adds. It could much rather be regarded as a particular lifestyle that has developed into a broad social phenomenon in recent years.
The field of e-sports is also taking on increasingly professional features with regard to employment. The CGS professional gamers are paid an annual basic salary of 30,000 euros, in addition to which appearance and victory bonuses must also be counted. “Professional players already earn good money in Germany too”, Jäkel explains. Here, however, the salary should still be understood more as compensation for expenses to the players. “But all professional gamers here can certainly live on the salary”, the e-sports expert says.
With the triumphant advance of the Internet, the first e-gaming leagues also got under way. The Electronic Sports League, for example, now has more than 700,000 registered members. More than one million players took part in the largest e-sports event, the World Cyber Games, which took place in Seattle a few weeks ago.
