I think OP confused the role / status of 1 & 2; SC1 was almost immediately huge in Korea, had its own TV channel(s), kids would play nothing else in the Interne

I think OP confused the role / status of 1 & 2; SC1 was almost immediately huge in Korea, had its own TV channel(s), kids would play nothing else in the Internet cafes, etc. Casual LAN was also huge: you needed only one CD key to host a local game with up to 8 players (although TCP/IP was only added a bit later, with a patch). Even if you disagree that SC1 created esports, it is definitely the one game that drove esports' early popularity like no other game could. Then in 2010 Blizzard released SC2, and in an effort to promote it, tried to undermine SC1's success, since it saw its continued popularity as SC2's competition. SC2 was never as popular, other (often more casual) e-sports started getting popular... and a couple of scandals among very high-profile players (match fixing) drove the nail into the coffin. Both SC1&2 scenes are still remarkably healthy (for a 24&12 year old game, respectively), there are premier tournaments with cash prizes, games continue receiving balance tweaks (although SC1 mostly through map design), etc. I play competitive SC2 casually and I can usually find a 1v1 match in less than 10 seconds (or about 1min for team games). It's never too late to get into it ;) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarCraft_in_esports https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarCraft_in_esports