[Esports] is not about whether a game is competitive or not.
What esports is to me is the manifestation of fandom.
Do people care who wins or loses?
G2 Esports Win the Intel Extreme Masters Championship at DreamHack Dallas 2024Stephanie Lindgren; ESL FACEIT Group
Do you have a favorite team?
Are there heroes and villains?
Those are the stories that drive sports.
Its stories of long nights with friends, breathlessly inching out just one more round of a split-screen shooter.
Its the local community meetup that introduced a teen to their lifelong passion.
But, as with so many great stories, the tale of esports begins with an underdog.
And for the first few years, it arguably still didnt.
Beginning in 1999 as a mod of ValvesHalf-Life,Counter-Strikeis scrappy at its base.
The winners, Hamburg-based team mousesports, took home roughly $15,000 not exactly career athlete money.
But this first win had a deeper meaning, beginning the decades-long story of ESL andCounter-Strikethat fans know today.
Needless to say, the numbers are impressive.
But the true story of ESLs ascendance from basement meetup isnt about the stats; its about the people.
Bringing Local Communities Together Globally
ESL is where everybody can be somebody.
Through FACEIT, ESL gives those craving a more engrossing competitive experience exactly what theyre looking for.
Dozens of pro player careers have taken off thanks to being discovered in FACEIT matches.
That is the core of it all.
But any good sports community isnt just built by its players or teams, but rather by the fans.
Thats where platforms like FACEIT and, to a greater extent, DreamHack come into play.
If you look at DreamHack, its a place where gaming comes to life.
Its a community place.
Its way beyond esports; its grassroots communities, its cosplay.
Its trading cards; its LAN party.
Basically, you find like-minded friends, primarily offline.
Its really community at its best, physically, way beyond competitive gaming.
In the crowd are friends, families, and furries all worshiping at the altar of esports.
But just step away in any direction, theres so much more to see.
Its a dream where underdog stories can be told both on and off stage.
Many of the challenges faced by companies like ESL stem from a decentralized infrastructure.
Publishers produce and run their games, and at times have run their own leagues, to varying results.
Esports and its organizers are perpetually weathering a storm to forge a path forward.
Thats why ESL has yet another ethos that is so important to the brand: being beyond gameplay.
It also means innovating in a constantly changing landscape.
One of those ventures began just recently with the Esports Word Cup in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Late August will see the next IEM Cologne, an esports institution known as The Cathedral ofCounter-Strike.
Next year, the company approaches its 25th anniversary.
[The] whole notion of people playingvideo gamesand competing with each other?
It was a no-brainer.
