The console gamer's catch-22 spawned with the advent of split screen. Either you peek at your sibling's corner or risk them gaining an advantage on you. Cheat or risk being cheated. Sessions huddled around the Nintendo 64's Goldeneye were rife with finger-pointing. People were just as quick to deny it, but even with a cheap csgo keys concerted effort to focus on your corner, it was almost impossible to not notice the colors shifting in your peripheral vision. In my family, we acknowledged that it happened by not talking about it.

There were countermeasures of course. We banned Oddjob. We stared at walls to conceal our position. We slapped the controller out of each other's hands during pivotal moments. Eventually, though, we just played the game. There wasn't anything major at stake. But these types of problems persisted with each new shooter. From Halo to Call of Duty. And back to Halo and back to Call of Duty. And so on to subsequent expansions. The PC, however , was supposed to eliminate those archaic advantages. And it did. But what stepped forth was a wave of cheating unparalleled in other esports genres. Shooters dominate the discussion when it comes to accusations of cheating.

Those old LAN parties in our favorite basements grew legs and stepped out from the shadows. The perception of gamers as nerds is being curbed. The gaming industry as a whole is seeing continued growth. Valve recently announced their Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championship prize pools would be raised to $1, 000, 000, starting with MLG Columbus at the end of this month. Just five years ago, MLG made a splash in esports with $50, 000 and $100, 000 prizes for StarCraft II -- meager figures now. The type of expansion the industry has seen since should be mind-boggling to anybody who played games as a kid. We were told it was a waste of time. We were told we should invest in our futures