When you hear that a player you’ve been following for a decade is getting married or having his first child, you know that esports is getting old.
We’re no longer in the early days of competitive video games, when all we had was StarCraft, Counter-Strike, digital football, and Mortal Kombat. We live in an era when the esports industry features dozens of titles, many of which are captivating to play and watch.
Of course, the audience numbers continue to be relatively low. The number of people who play competitive video games is in the hundreds of millions. But the number of people who watch esports is generally less than 10% of the game’s player base. One exception is Dota 2, whose player base is getting older and enjoys watching the game more than actually competing.
Esports Players With Kids
In esports, anyone above the age of 30 is old. Puppey, the famous Dota 2 player from Team Secret, is 34. Ceb, who recently had his first child, is 32. In CS2, gla1ve and rain are in a similar situation but they’re a bit younger: 29.
Will take time to write my thoughts later down the road. Focusing on doing my maximum right now, immense thanks for all the love and support messages.
— Ceb (@Ceb) June 22, 2024
New Champions
Another sign that esports is getting old is the disappearance of teams and players who used to win the big tournaments. In Dota 2, for instance, we used to see Natus Vincere, Team Secret, and Alliance at The International. Players like Puppey, KuroKy, and many others were always qualifying for the Majors and TI.
But nowadays, we rarely see them competing in the tier 1 events. Meanwhile, players you’ve probably never heard of are starting to qualify for them.
When new champions arise, the challenge is to preserve your interest in watching a particular esport despite the fact that the people you used to enjoy watching are no longer present.
That’s when your love of the game itself is truly tested. It’s very easy to watch a match if a lot of your favorite players are competing in it. But can you find joy in doing it in the absence of familiar faces?
Normally, a good esport will preserve its beauty and will constantly give the fan base new exciting teams and players to watch, simply because of the way in which it’s designed.
New Talent
In many cases, even the people who present and analyze an esport are changing. You used to watch someone at almost every big tournament and now, someone else is casting the matches or analyzing them. There’s nothing you can do about it. After 15 years, such things are inevitable.
Header: Valve
