40 years ago, on 10. November 1980, the final of the first major video game competition takes place. Long before the word “e-sports” was born. Round 10. 000 Participants compete to “Space Invaders”.

It is certainly not the first tournament on the screen. Many early games are designed for two players because the technology does not yet allow computer intelligence. Already “Tennis for Two” by 1958, performed on a five-inch screen Oscilloscope, designed as a duel – and the star of a research facility on its public tours. One can quietly mention that two years earlier, 1956, a Computer defeated a human at chess.

Spacewar competition 1972 Stanford University in Palo Alto is hosting the earliest computer game tournament we know of: the Intergalactic Spacewar Olympics. A few dozen students measure themselves against a PDP – 10 to “Spacewar”. The game is ten years old at this point. Initially intended as a battle for two people who compete against each other with a simple spaceship each, the program is later expanded and spreads quickly. Host Stewart Brand is the editor of Rolling Stone magazine. He organizes free beer and the price: a subscription to the magazine. Bruce Baumgart wins that and goes down in history as a pioneer.

In the seventies, computers become cheaper; Game consoles and slot machines appear. “Space Invaders” introduces the highscore: Those who score enough points can honor themselves with their initials in the list of the best, visible to all others. That motivates.

The first major console tournament: Space Invaders was played on the Atari 2600.

(Image: René Meyer)

The first Atari national championship 1980 Atari is hosting the first major national tournament in the USA, the National Space Invaders Championship. However, not on the slot machine, but on the Atari home console 1997 and a television. Unlike “Spacewars”, which is designed for two or more players who fight each other, “Space Invaders” everyone sits in front of their own console. It is still well suited for a competition because it marks the success of the game with a score. So the game continues until all lives are used up. The points achieved are noted. (Strictly speaking, “Space Invaders” on the Atari 1997 offers a mode for two players in which you fight aliens together, and everyone has its own score.)

Round 10. 000 Participants take part in five regional competitions, in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and New York . The five regional winners win participation in the finals in New York on 10. November 1980. You spend the night in a fine hotel room, equipped with a game console. Then the five finalists go to Warner (who owned Atari at the time) and play the decisive game. Side by side, in front of five Atari consoles and five televisions.

Apparently the original idea was to let the competition run until there was only one player left. But after just under two hours, four of the five participants are still there. The press is getting restless; after all, she had to watch “Space Invaders” for two hours; and there is no end in sight. The game is canceled; the achieved scores result in the placement.

The first e-sports champion The winner with 165. 200 Points: Rebecca Heineman, just a few days earlier 17 become “tired physically, great mentally”. The prize is an Atari slot machine the size of a refrigerator with “asteroids” on it. Because she has too little space, she successfully asks whether she can get “Missile Command” in the format of a cocktail table instead. She would have preferred second place, an Atari home computer.

Nevertheless: This moment changes the life of the winner (who was born as Bill and is now known by the nickname “Burger Becky”). The gifted programmer and hobbyist had already built a kit to copy the expensive Atari modules out of financial difficulties.

At the event, she met two editors of Electronic Games magazine. She writes articles and advises on the books “How to Master the Video Games” and “How to Master Home Video Games”.

Not yet 18 years old ( she lies when asked if she is of legal age), Avalon Hill hires her to develop Atari games. The first national esports champion developed games such as “London Blitz” for the Atari 2600, founded the together with colleagues legendary studio Interplay, which produces legendary titles like “The Bard’s Tale”, converts well-known games like “Wolfenstein 3D” to other systems and is still active as a developer.

Worldwide tournaments From next year Atari will organize worldwide tournaments; every year in a different game. The qualifications for the finals take place in many countries, including West Germany. First 1981 in “Asteroids”. 1982 in “Pac-Man”. In the junior age group up to 25 years Klaus wins Wolf (who now runs the Wolfsoft online shop); Johann Beiderbeck wins in the “Seniors” category. Both travel to the world championship in Paris, where Beiderbeck wins and becomes the first and only German Pac-Man world champion. Wolf only achieved fourth place there, but one year later he can win again at the German Atari Championship, which 1983 in the game “Centipede” is played.

He tries his double success 1984 to explain in an interview: “Because I overestimated my opponents and therefore practiced a lot. At the Centipede Championship I had so much experience through computer games, because at the Pac-Man Championship I had an Atari 800 Computer won, thanks to the routine on the joystick I had no problems winning. ”

Ferrari the main prize 1990 will be the Nintendo World Championships. In thirty American cities, participants can qualify in three groups: to 11 years, 12 – 17 Years, from 18 years. A special (and now very popular) game module for the NES with short versions of “Super Mario”, “Rad Racer” and “Tetris” is used. The winners are allowed to attend the finals in Universal Studios in Hollywood. The movie “Joy Stick Heroes” alias “The Wizard” whets the appetite. It starts at the same time and has great similarities with the real competition -Shooters like “Quake”. Dennis “Thresh” Fong became known when he 1997 won an American “Quake” tournament. He sits down against 2. 000 Competitors in online matches and becomes one of 16 finalists. His prize: a Ferrari from John Carmack, one of the founders of the game developer id Software. 1997 is ISDN with its 64 Kbit / s state of the art. This allows online games that only exchange a small amount of movement data. But “Quake” is not just a great game for duels on the screen. It also offers a feature to record the history of a game, not as a video but as script files, which are essentially key presses. In this way, exciting events, zipped in an emergency, fit on a diskette.

Today, in large tournaments, prize money of several million euros is paid out. (dahe)