From September 2nd-4th 2016, the biggest Call Of Duty event of all time, with a $2 million prize, was held in Los Angeles, California. It was a dream come true for many Call Of Duty fans and eSports supporters in general. It is an industry that is growing everyday; in fact, as many as 205 million people watched or played eSports in 2014, according to the market research firm Newzoo. Despite the fact that labeling video games as sports is somewhat controversial, Jacob Wolf, the reporter of ESPN writes, “We could see eSports become an official part of the Olympic Games by 2020.”

In the 1990s, many video games benefited from the growth of the internet, which allowed multiple players to play together at the same time. For example, a PC (personal computer) game called Netrek, was one of the first internet games that was playable for up to 16 players in one server at the same time. Competitiveness has always been one of the important factors of successful video games because it makes the game more enjoyable and encourages people to keep playing that particular game.

The new multiplayer feature of video games set the stage for large-scale gaming tournaments for serious players. The National Space Invaders championship, the first ever large-scale video game tournament, was held by Atari in November of 1980 at Stanford University. It was created to help promote their console release of the popular game, Space Invaders, on the Atari 2600.

The tournament had 10,000 participants and it was extremely important to the growth of eSports as it helped popularize competitive gaming and inspired future tournaments. In the 1990s, the eSports scene grew even more. One of the biggest video game tournaments of this decade was the Nintendo World Championship. Thousands of people competed to get the highest score in the games Super Mario Bros, Red Racers and Tetris in a limited time. This tournament featured a bigger prize pool than the Space Invaders competition, with a $10,000 cash prize for the winner.

With the foundation of Major League Gaming (MLG) in 2002, the eSports world changed forever. MLG is one of the biggest eSports organizations today and it has held many official video game tournaments in the past decade. Its goal since being founded was to turn competitive gaming into something professional, with real competition, prizes and value as a spectator sport. MLG has turned gaming tournaments into mainstream events by offering a lucrative prize pool and televising most of their recent events. Today hundreds of thousands of people watch or attend the MLG tournaments.

First person shooters have always been one of the most popular genres in the video games industry. Call of Duty (CoD) which was first published in 2003 by Activision, is a very successful franchise in the FPS genre. The series began on Microsoft Windows, and later expanded to consoles and handhelds. Its fine shooter mechanics and well-adjusted World War II storyline stunned critics and fans, but that was just the beginning.

In 2007, Call of Duty 4 : Modern Warfare, brought the franchise to the modern day with a contemporary storyline and setting. According to IGN, the improvement of the multiplayer mode of this game allowed Call of Duty to grow in popularity and officially enter the eSports scene. Many CoD tournaments were held by MLG and other gaming organizations throughout the years, but the first Call of Duty event with a major prize was hosted by Activision in 2011, in Los Angeles, California. This convention which was called CoD XP, offered fans a unique opportunity to observe and participate in various events, such as a million-dollars Call of Duty: Black Ops tournament and live performances from various artists (Kanye West, for example). Activision also revealed the next installment of the franchise (Modern Warfare 3) at the end of the event. Ever since 2011, Activision hosts one Call of Duty championship every year to gather all of the CoD fans and pro players around the world and to promote their upcoming installment of the franchise.

From September 2nd-4th 2016, Activision and Treyarch (one of the Call of Duty developers) hosted another Call of Duty Experience tournament  in Inglewood, California. However this tournament was different than other annual CoD events. In fact, CoD XP 2016 was the biggest tournament in the Call of Duty history with a $2 million prize. According to ESPN, 32 teams of four competed for an $800,000 grand prize. At the start of the tournament, there were 4 teams in 8 groups and the first 2 teams of each group made it to the bracket play. The tournament was double elimination, best of five series. On the last day of the tournament, the winner of the winners bracket, team Envy from the United States, played against the team Splyce from the United Kingdom, which made the grand finals even more exciting . The Twitch website, which was live streaming the event alongside the MLG website, peaked with 150,000 online viewers during the grand finals. Team Envy ended up beating the Splyce team 3-1 and won the $800,000 grand prize.
The eSports industry has been growing exponentially, especially in the last few years. According to the ESPN, in 2014, video game tournaments had a total of 89 million viewers, almost twice the amount of viewers in 2012. This industry has a lot of potential to grow even more, and the next step would be for eSports to become an official sport in the Olympics. According to the reporter of ESPN, Jacob Wolf: The International e-Sports Federation (IeSF), a South Korean organization, has received a response from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) outlining the process and next steps to allow eSports to be recognized as an Olympic sport. IeSF submitted a request to the IOC on Feb. 19 to obtain information on how to gain recognition for competitive gaming as part of the Olympic Games. The IOC responded on April 8, and IeSF claims it will follow up the response with all the materials and paperwork needed. This will be another big step in terms of the growth of the eSports and it will help the industry to reach its maximum potential.