Competitive video gaming has become one of the most hotly talked about communities in the entertainment industry, and is easily one of the standout examples of technology innovating the ways in which communities digest the things they love.
With it standing as one of the most exciting industries in the world, here are some of your burning questions answered.
What Are Esports?
In short, the term ‘Esports’ is an umbrella term used to describe the competitive scene for dozens of different video games. The Esports industry encompasses everything from player contracts and transfers, partnerships and sponsorships with orgs and the events and competitions around the world that house these games.
Video games are now worth more than the worlds of film and music combined, and the Esports scene takes up a huge chunk of this.
What Are The Most Popular Esports Games?
Despite being a rapidly growing sector of the entertainment industry, the Esports scene has remained fairly consistent in terms of the titles at the top over the past decade or so. League of Legends, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2 are all regarded as the biggest three titles in the scene, boasting 80, 20 and 1.3 million players respectively. They have carved out a reputation for possessing a skill ceiling high enough for players to invest hundreds of hours into, and the difference between the pros and casuals is noticeably different to more mainstream games in the community.
In short, the people who know these games, really know these games.
What Are The Most Popular Esports Events?
In terms of overall prize pools, the biggest Esports event in the world is Dota 2’s International. Coming in four times out of the top five events in history, each edition in the competition’s history has broken records and the latest, The International 2019, smashed every record with its $35 million prize pool.
Before that, Fortnite’s premier World Cup had the honour of calling itself the world’s most lucrative event with its combined prize purse of just north of $30 million, split equally between the solo and duos competitions.
League of Legends premier competition, the Worlds, has pulled in 100 million viewers with the 2019 edition reaching a peak of 44 million concurrent viewers during its grand final. CS:GO’s biggest event in terms of viewership remains the ELEAGUE 2018 Boston Major, and the game still boasts a calendar complete with two major championships a year.
Where Can I Follow Esports?
For an Esports fan to get their perfect fix of all things Esports, there’s no better site out there than Unikrn.com. Unikrn are the home of the latest outrights and live in play odds for every single match up, event and competition from every leading Esport, boast a tips and news page that are topped up every day for fans to digest the latest goings on, and the site has even managed to utilise a unique Blockchain technology to create a platform that allows users to earn money playing games.
For the latest stats and coverage, sites such as HLTV and Liquidpedia come complete with a huge array of stories and records to help take a fan’s love for Esports to the next level.