Gamescom, the most important European trade fair for video games, opens its doors in Cologne today. This year, eSports events will probably be a crowd puller at Gamescom again, as they are an integral part of gaming culture.
But it's not just passionate gamers who follow the virtual sporting events with enthusiasm; eSports increasingly becoming a common term outside of the scene, as our graphic shows. While last year only a little less than a third of those surveyed knew the word, this year almost half already know what to do with the word eSport, and a further 27 percent have heard of it but could not explain the term.
The increasing popularity of eSports is due not least to the increasing presence of this phenomenon in German media: Not only private broadcasters such as Sport1 or ProSieben broadcast eSports formats, professional gamers are also increasingly appearing on public broadcasters such as ARD and Deutsche Welle of reporting.