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On August 01 2011 06:02 BushidoSnipr wrote:you wrote this...DURING MLG ANAHEIM?!!??!? SHAME ON YOU lol jk amazing post, really nostalgic to be reminded of this 
I started writing this last weekend because I was annoyed by people thinking Western SC2 players don't have contracts. Thought about it for the first time when I read about people never having heard of SK Gaming before.
Added this chapter:
December 2006: The WSVG Grand Finals take place in New York City. Huge surprise in CS: Team Alternate qualified for the finals but doesn't have a real lineup, so it fields a mix team (with Kapio among others), and this mix team actually wins the tournament over Team 3D. This is the first international championship victory of a German team. Not that much of a surprise in WC3: 4K^Grubby places first. Even less of a surprise in Quake 4: SK's Johan 'toxjq' Quick wins the grand final against Fatal1ty. He is the dominating player of the year, winning most major events and being considered the best Quake 4 player thoughout the game's entire esports lifespan of about two years. However, after the release of Quake Live (which is basically a free-to-play online version of Quake 3), he decides to quit professional gaming.
But I really don't want to add too much, I already removed stuff like this, SK.swe becoming NiP; socrates_ moving to Germany, the failed Cyber X Games or ESL's anti-cheat endeavors.
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Thanks a lot! didn't know all the history.
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Truly awesome post. I'm waiting for the day when I can go downstairs, turn on the TV, and watch a starcraft 2 match being played in the USA, being commentated in English, and featuring players from around the world. I want players who are truly dedicated to the game to be able to make a viable career choice to become professionals and eventually appear on television. I don't know when it will happen, but I know that starcraft and esports WILL make it into the United States mainstream very soon. We're getting closer to that every single day. Thanks to all the players, sponsors, support staff, and event coordinators who are making this possible.
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Spotlights need an expansion. I feel like I miss so many of these threads.
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You sir are the historian of esports. Keep adding to this list.
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This is the most interesting post on TL I have ever read. Thank you so much, I've been looking for sth like this since I began to follow esport about 2 years ago!
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I read it, and it was really interesting, thanks for writing it down.
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United States33608 Posts
Grrr is not the first Starleague winner :o
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that was a nice read for me, i still did not know so much stuff about all that. but i am interested into esports since i Got WC3 and started playing it in 2004. i am more a watchman and enjoy every game bw wc3
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Great read. I am glad some people will finally realize that e-sports have been around much longer (in the Western world) than SC2.
I've been attending fighting game events since 1998, FPS events since 2000, and RTS events since 2002. I've followed (and played) most of them throughout their entire lifespans.
I am constantly amazed by how many people don't realize just how MASSIVE games like Counter-Strike have been since the early 2000s. Fight games have been huge for a decade as well, and finally started blowing up around 2002.
People keep facing all of these "issues" with making SC2 a legitimate e-sport, but ignore the decade+ that e-sports have already been huge ($100,000 events, tens of thousands of attendees, and 100k concurrent viewers have been around since 2003 at least). Look at history if you want to learn about how to handle these seemingly "modern" (which totally aren't) problems.
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Great blog, it was a very interesting read
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Nice writeup but disappointed in the lack of fighting games and mobas 
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There was a spotlighted article recently about "pre-esports", as in the attempts at setting up e-sports way back 20 or 30 or even more years ago. It might be interesting to add that history too, esports goes back FAR longer than most people think.
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On August 01 2011 05:26 D.Devil wrote:
tl;dr
What a freaking useless comment.
I loved the read, great job, can't say I've read all of it yet but I will when MLG is over ^_^
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On August 01 2011 05:31 HappyMan wrote:
Wow. That's a lot more comprehensive than I expected from a thread that says it's a "short history" ^^
Thanks for writing this up!
I was a little worried at first until I had to keep scrolling and scrolling... So much info I missed even though I have been following some sort of competitive scene since 98.
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On August 01 2011 07:43 hi19hi19 wrote:
There was a spotlighted article recently about "pre-esports", as in the attempts at setting up e-sports way back 20 or 30 or even more years ago. It might be interesting to add that history too, esports goes back FAR longer than most people think.
I guess you're referring to Walter Day and Twin Galaxies. While this is interesting for sure, I wanted to focus on "our" kind of esports.
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wow. Sick write up and imo worth Spotlighting. 
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Nice write up man, well done. :D
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EPT
