The Year In eSports

In 2014, eSports and competitive video games were everywhere. Some games and their finals invaded regular sports channels on TV, filled huge stadiums, and the streams pulled hundreds of thousands of viewers. At this point, it doesn’t look like the eSports craze will end anytime soon.

From January to December, here are the best eSports-related stories from 2014 in no particular order:

We’ve seen a lot of drama:

CBS Commentator Urges Gamers To Go Play The Real World

“…here’s a fun fact: Did you know the real world is broadcasting in 3-D? All the time? I know, amazing!”

World’s Biggest LAN Party Kicks Out CEO

DreamHack had some serious shake-ups.

eSports ‘Not A Sport’ Says ESPN President

It’s a competition.

Controversial Male-Only Game Tournament Is Now “Open for All”

The previously International e-Sports Federation ‘male only’ competitions can now be entered by men or women.

StarCraft Pro Foiled By His Biggest Foe Yet: A Champagne Bottle

DreamHack Champagne beats DreamHack champion.

Booth Falls On Pro Gamer’s Head, But He Still Wins

Pro StarCraft II player Koh “GuMiho” Byung Jae was playing in Korea the other day when he suffered a pretty drastic technical mishap: the booth he was sitting behind collapsed, hitting him in the head and sending his monitor flying into his face. He kept his cool though and won the restarted match.

We’ve also seen huge amounts of money flying around with gigantic stadiums getting filled with spectators, all proving that eSports are growing with an incredible speed:

Top League of Legends Player Worth Close To $1 Million

LoL superstar Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok is worth a lot of money.

League of Legends Player Retires, Now Makes $800k A Year…Streaming

Some eSports competitors find that life gets easier once they hang up their mouse and keyboard.

YouPorn Now Has An eSports Team

They don’t have the word “porn” on their shirts but the logo says it all.

Dota 2 Tournament Prize Pool Exceeds $10 Million

Watching the prize pool for Valve’s big Dota 2 tournament growing into the biggest prize pools of eSport history was really incredible.

You Can Now Buy 3D-Printed Figurines Of League of Legends Pros

That’s one way to promote an eSports team.

But most importantly, we’ve seen incredible plays, whether it was Smash Bros., League of Legends, Counter-Strike, Dota 2 or StarCraft II:

Ten Years Later, One of Gaming’s Greatest Moments Comes to Life Again

A seminal moment in the history of competitive gaming is the Evo 2004 match between Daigo Umehara and Justin Wong. In 2014, the two celebrated the fight in the best way possible: Facing off in
Street Fighter.

Mysterious Masked Player Wins Smash Bros Tournament

Silence, mad skills and a mask.

Pro Cheating Fiasco Leads To Incredible Counter-Strike Final Match

DreamHack 2014 pro finals produced one of the best matches
Global Offensive has seen. It nearly didn’t happen, however, thanks to cheating.

The Finals Of The 2014 US Pokémon Championships

Here are the matches of the junior, senior and master finals of 2014
Pokémon Championships.

One Of The Greatest Rivalries In StarCraft History

You can’t talk about competitive
StarCraft: Brood War without two names coming up: Jaedong the Tyrant and Flash, aka The God of StarCraft

The Most Intense Battle Of EVO 2014

With a $35,000 on the line — the largest pot of EVO 2014 — Keiji “Garireo” Okamoto and Ryo “Dogura” Nozaki put up the fight of their lives in the BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma grand finals.