Opinion: The growth in eSport Popularity
Since the turn of the millennia the increasing popularity and attraction to eSports have gradually to almost exponentially increased. While not that many years ago, videogaming as a full-time hobby itself was looked upon with scrutiny, however, it is now becoming increasingly acceptable in wider society to earn a living from this young profession.
The fact that eSports is becoming increasingly prevalent in our society should not come as too big of a surprise as its roots in merging with more mainstream entertainment are long standing. The World Cyber Games is quite familiar in the gaming mentality, and has a long tradition going back to the beginning of the century. While slightly less known, for Europeans at any rate, is OGN (formerly Ongamenet) is a TV channel with its specialty in videogame content and eSport matches. Their main coverage being StarCraft and League of Legends.
Considering that StarCraft has become one of South Korea’s crowd favourite sports, its coverage might not come as much of a surprise. As more and more sponsors are getting attracted to the ever growing market of eSports, the mainstream media in Europe and across the pond are starting to open their eyes for the phenomena. While CW and Machinima is partnering up to bring the American audience with the docuseries “Chasing the Cup” across their broadcast and digital platform, so too has the BBC brought us the series “The Supergamers”.
Just earlier this month we saw the conclusion of the rather popular World of Tanks Championship, hosted by Wargaming, where the victors Na’Vi (Natus Vincere) rose to the occasion to gain first place and claim the cash prize of $150,000. Taking it into consideration that World of Tanks is not quite as large a competition as Dota, or League of Legends, one can surely understand why the interest of the players are increasing. For the gaming industry, however, the increased popularity is providing new opportunities. With a viewing number in the billions, whole new revenue streams are presented.
Even by disregarding the overall increase in sponsorship deals, eSports is really coming into its own. And as any sport, eSports are increasingly attracting attention and opportunities from betting companies. As of 2015, eSports globally generated revenue of approximately $325 million, it is expected to increase further in 2016, and early projections estimate that fans will bet 23.5 billion on eSports within the next 4 years. Then it is to no surprise that as companies like Betway are providing the platform which takes eSports to the same level as other more traditional sports by allowing for bets and odds to be readily available on tournaments ranging from Dota 2 and CS:GO, to League of Legends.
There are some interesting ramifications to this increase in popularity across the board, from the gamers through to the investors, as gaming becomes ever more present in the world. For a more game specific view on the different games mentioned, you can read more from our first experience of CS:GO here. At any rate, regardless of whether you love to play competitively, or casually, the good news for the gaming industry is that gaming is becoming increasingly popular, and the interest in investing is following the same pattern, which ultimately should provide us even more great games to come!