The game that educated me on the matter of eSports wasn ’ t Starcraft . It wasn ’ t League of Legends either . It was a game many people love ( to hate ): FIFA . The game , that everyone who doesn ’ t play it likes to describe as “ a cheap rehash of the previous version ”, the game that would probably set a record for broken gaming peripherals and the best selling sports video game of all time . I love FIFA . But I hate the fact that it ’ s barely relevant in the world of eSports . Luckily , this is about to change .
My first eSport experience started in the winter of 2012 . Having played and won against all of my friends , I decided to compete in FIFA ’ s online mode “ Ultimate Team ”. And despite running a team that wasn ’ t upgraded by spending real money , I managed to claim the Division One title . Out of ten games , nine wins and a draw were needed to achieve this . Nine subsequent wins and a tight draw due to a late goal of Mario Götze , I managed to grab my greatest online multiplayer achievement to date . I wasn ’ t pro . But I was pretty damn good at the game .
From then on I started to play against streamers to win players or prizes , competed in small tournaments and made very little amounts of money . But any money was massive , due to two reasons : I was 17 years old , and I didn ’ t even know you could make money playing videogames in the first place . That was also around the time I got introduced to League , started to watch EU & NA LCS , my first Worlds , good times . That ’ s my story of how I got into eSports - by being pretty good at a game I liked . This story isn ’ t too uncommon . The problem ? I was almost on pro level , but there was barely any ways for me to test my abilities .
Sure , I could ’ ve just go on and play in the highest Division over and over again . Which I did . But that didn ’ t get me anywhere . There was no reward for being good except a little bit more of ingame currency , no special rewards , no tournaments either .
This has changed since . In FIFA 17 , EA introduced the Weekend League Mode , a mode where you can not only measure yourself against the best of the best , but one that also includes a functioning leaderboard that tracks your placements over time and puts you in a Top 100 list , if you ’ re good enough of course . There are local leaderboards as well , and there already have been tournaments announced for those that do manage to place in the Top 100 spots . Finally ,