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The Biggest Esports Games in the World

Be honest – can you see a difference between these two events?     Sure, the Superbowl has a... Fabio | 26. October 2021

Be honest – can you see a difference between these two events?

 

lol vs superbowl

Superbowl versus LoL Worlds (via Riot Games)

 

Sure, the Superbowl has a few million more viewers, but for half a decade now, esports events have filled up stadiums and arenas as well. Esports pros can become millionaires and even though the majority won’t get rich, they can still live off of prize money and salary. But just like in sports, everything depends on what game you’re actually playing.

Some will reward you with big organization contracts, and in others, a $20 hardware coupon is considered a massive achievement. Today, we’re taking a look at the biggest esports games out there!

League of Legends

In first place – of course – is League of Legends. In terms of player numbers, Fortnite might be able to give them some competition. But as for esports – only one event consistently fills up stadiums and attracts 100 million unique viewers for the World Championship.

CS:GO

Counter-Strike has always been the unloved child at Valve. Sure, the developers support the scene with two Majors a year, but that’s basically it. Taking a look at Dota 2, it becomes painfully clear how very little time and effort they put into CS:GO.

But nonetheless, the game has evolved beautifully. Since the scene is basically open to everyone, there have been a few ‘less stellar’ events, but this has allowed all organizers to jump on board.

ESL DreamHack, StarLadder, ELEAGUE, EPICENTER… before the pandemic, the scene had an incredibly broad lineup and as soon as offline events make a comeback, there will be plenty of tournaments from these organizers.

The biggest difference for CS:GO is this exact kind of freedom. League of Legends and Rainbow Six: Siege, for instance, only boast events that the developers themselves sanction and put in place. During the pandemic, for a lot of Tier 2 and Tier 3 teams, the Rainbow Six Challenger League was pretty much the only thing to play, while CS featured half a dozen events per week.

CS:GO might not have the same viewership figures as League of Legends, but the scene is incredible stable and large. For almost every kind of skill level, there are enough events to stay afloat – even during the pandemic.

Dota 2

Dota 2 does things a little different. Instead of having the highest viewer or player counts, they simply dish out the largest prize pools in esports history.

The biggest prize pool of all time was at The International 2015, until TI 2016 came along. This went on for years, until the International 2019 awarded a whopping 34 million dollars. This one event paid as much as all LoL Worlds since 2011! In terms of player numbers, though, Dota 2 has fallen behind CS:GO. At peak times in 2019, there were more than a million concurrent players, but now, Dota is at roughly 500-600 thousand.

So League of Legends, Dota 2 and CS:GO are the biggest esports games of all time. The likes of Fortnite have gained massive ground in recent years, but first, these games have to prove that they can maintain their standing for more than a decade. There are only a few candidates who could actually pull this off.

Right now, Fortnite esports lives off of events like the Ninjas Battles. The 2019 World Cup was a mega-event, but we haven’t seen much since then. Sure, this has a lot to do with the pandemic, but the viewing figures are still regressing. The same holds true for PUBG and lots of Battle Royale shooter.

Event VALORANT isn’t a safe bet within esports. The VCT Masters Berlin had over 800.000 peak viewers, but the regional events in Europe are struggling to grow. In North America, the stats are climbing, but not at a rate that RIOT will be happy with. It’s still a long road until VALORANT can be on the same level as CS:GO and the rest.

But we shouldn’t forget that it’s RIOT we’re talking about. They know how to grow an esport (aside from tournament formats, maybe). More importantly, not every game has to be as big as LoL or Dota 2 in order to have a wonderful esports scene. Hearthstone, Call of Duty, Overwatch, Rocket League, Rainbow Six: Siege, StarCraft II, Super Smash Bros, even Pokémon has a living and breathing esports scene!

 

(Header image via StarLadder, Dota 2, Riot Games)