Esports

Organized competitive gaming at a professional or semi-professional level, typically featuring structured leagues, tournaments, prize pools, and dedicated teams and players. Major esports titles include League of Legends, Valorant, Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, and FIFA. Top tournaments like The International (Dota 2), Worlds (League of Legends), and the CS2 Major attract millions of viewers globally and offer multi-million dollar prize pools. Esports has grown into a billion-dollar industry with media rights, sponsorships, and franchised leagues.

Detailed information about the timing properties of moves in fighting games, measured in frames (typically at 60fps). Frame data includes startup frames (how many frames before the move becomes active), active frames (how long the attack hitbox lasts), and recovery frames (how long the character is vulnerable after the move). Frame data determines which moves are safe on block, which can be punished, and which create advantage or disadvantage. Mastery of frame data is essential for high-level competitive fighting game play.

Multiplayer Online Battle Arena — a genre where two teams of players control individual hero characters and compete to destroy the opposing team's base structure. MOBAs are defined by their top-down perspective, last-hitting for gold, itemization, and distinct ability-focused hero designs. League of Legends and Dota 2 are the dominant MOBAs and among the most-played games in the world. Mobile MOBAs like Mobile Legends and Honor of Kings have billions of players in Southeast Asia and China.

A competitive matchmaking mode in multiplayer games where wins and losses affect the player's visible skill rank. Ranked modes use systems like Elo, MMR (Matchmaking Rating), or league-based tiers (Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Master, Grandmaster, Challenger) to match players of similar skill. Climbing the ranked ladder is a primary long-term goal for competitive players. Ranked modes are distinct from casual/unranked queues where outcomes don't affect standing.

A networking technique used in fighting games where each player's game simulates (predicts) the opponent's inputs locally rather than waiting for confirmation over the network, then 'rolls back' and corrects if the prediction was wrong. Rollback netcode results in online play that feels close to offline play even with moderate latency, making competitive online fighting game matches viable. Compared to delay-based netcode (the traditional alternative), rollback significantly improves online experience. Street Fighter 6, Guilty Gear Strive, and Tekken 8 use rollback netcode.