E-sports: New Forms and Transformation of the Gaming Space Introduction: From a Marginal Hobby to an Institutionalized Industry E-sports (electronic sports, esports) has ceased to be a monolithic phenomenon of local LAN tournaments. Today, it is a complex ecosystem that generates new formats of competitions, business models, audience experience, and even anthropological practices. Scientific interest in it lies on an interdisciplinary level: e-sports are studied as a socio-cultural phenomenon (formation of new communities), as an economic activity (labor market, investments, advertising), and as an object of sports science (cybernetic physiology, cognitive loads). Its development is characterized by the constant generation of new forms that blur the boundaries between sports, show business, media, and technology. Evolution of Competition Formats: Beyond the Match The classic "one-on-one" or "team-on-team" model within a single match has evolved into complex tournament architectures and hybrid formats. "League/franchise" format, modeled after traditional sports: The most vivid example is the Overwatch League (OWL), created by Blizzard Entertainment in 2018. It fully copies the model of North American sports leagues: geographic attachment of teams to cities (Seoul, London, New York), regular season, playoffs, draft system, and stable television broadcasting. This format aims to attract traditional sponsors and create local fan identity, despite the virtuality of the game itself. The League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) and other regional leagues for LoL operate on a similar principle. Open mass tournaments and qualification systems: In contrast to closed franchises, games in the battle royale genre (PUBG, Fortnite) and some MOBA (Dota 2) bet on global open tournaments with astronomical prize pools, formed through crowdfunding from the community (sales of in-game items). The International by Dota 2 regularly breaks records for prize pool (over $40 million in 202 ... Read more