Electronic sports or eSports are sweeping the world off of its feet. In 2021, over 490 million built the industry’s traction, weighing a 10.6% increase. In less than five more years, eSports is expected to double to a billion in players and fans. There’s a lot of reason to get into the industry, but not all games you get into can keep you there.
Introduction
Electronic sports or eSports is a platform for players to play competitive games and earn rewards for it. You can think of a football league where teams play against each other for a title. This way, eSports is no different, but a unique aspect to it is players play it online. So, you can imagine video players competing for a legitimate title. The game can be anything, but it should be competitive, showing players who win and lose.
Because of its fast growing community and better accessibility, it grew fast from the local scene to the international one. Prize pools and tournaments expanded and became more frequent thanks to this popularity. Moreover, the support from fans and spectators grew for the first few eSports that came out. Now, pursuing a career in eSports is more common among the younger generation than you think.
There are some games that existed and became famous way before eSports became a term. As the name suggests, eSports is only a category where people make an online game competitive, labelling it a sport. So, this article will give you an overview of the esports industry and the top eSports games you should check out.
The top 10 most popular esports games
While it’s not too late to join the pool of players in the arena of eSports, here are the top ten eSports to help you boost your growth.
- Dota 2
Defence of the Ancients (Dota) 2 is an esports where players compete to destroy the base of their opponents. It was developed by Valve Corporation in 2013, which was a sequel to the original Dota. Its gameplay consists of two teams with a five-man team with their chosen heroes. As they play, their heroes level up to attain more unique skills and get gold to get items that will make them stronger.
Dota 2 is a sequel of Defense of the Ancients: All-Stars or DotA and continues the gameplay of the previous story. Valve released Dota 2 as a free-to-play title on Steam, to be a direct competitor to League of Legends.
The International (IT) is one of the prestigious competitions where Dota 2 players compete in the world arena. Even before Dota 2 was released, Valve had been organising this annual competition in 2011. In the current season, the leading teams are Tundra and Secret that competed in the top teams of the International 2022.
- Fortnite
Fortnite is a survival battle royale online game developed by Epic Games in 2017. There are three types of games in Fortnite: Save the World, Battle Royale and Creative. But the most common among the three is the Battle Royale, where players kill each other to survive and win.
Today, over 350 million players play it from ages 18 to 35. It started like any other video game but the strategy it took to be the last man standing made it grow fast.
The Fortnite World Cup is the major tournament of the Fortnite circuit sponsored by Epic Games. Fortnite has the highest prize pool among other esports offering $30 million for champions, including $3 million to the solo champion. Fortnite World Cup 2019 champions top the fortnite community. Kyle “Bugha” Giersdorf is the Solo champion and claims the top player of Fortnite.
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, also known as CSGO, draws players who like first-person shooting (FPS) games . It’s a multiplayer game with two teams of five players each. One team is made up of terrorists who plant the bombs on one of the bomb sites in the map. Then the other team are the counter-terrorists who defend the sites. They either kill all terrorists beforehand or defuse the bomb planted.
CSGO originated from its first series Counter-Strike that was released in 2000. Many consider it the first esports game in history. Today, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is the latest game developed in 2012. It became the most famous FPS game today.
The Majors is the top international competition that players aim for in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Valve sponsored this championship putting a prize pool of $250,000. Peter ‘dupreeh’ Rasmussen was recorded the first player to win four Majors championships.
- Hearthstone
Hearthstone is a competitive card game developed by Blizzard Entertainment in 2014. It features the storyline of Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft with heroes, minions, and spells.
Players choose their own hero and play with the deck of cards containing spells against their opponents. It grew in traction because of how easy it was to play and download with little storage at stake.
There’s the “Hearthstone World Championship” hosted by Blizzard. It’s a tournament for players to reign as top players of Hearthstone in Global Finals at BlizzCon.
Among the players of Hearthstone, BlizzardCon invited only 8 players to the Innkeeper’s Invitational for professional players. They’re Day, Reckful, Hafu, Kripparrian, Trump, Husky, Noxious, and Artosis who are also popular in the community.
- Arena of Valor
Arena of Valor is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) developed by TiMi Studio Group. It features a 5v5 team battle that features hundreds of heroes characters. You can also get more skills and items using the gold you earn in fighting minions, killing other heroes, and jungling. Each side’s main objective is to take down the base of their opponent.
Related: Arena of Valor Premier League Sets New Record with a Staggering 900,000 Viewers
Competition in Arena of Valor varies with the local to international setting championship. The S-Tied or Former Premier tournaments host the Arena of Valor World Cup, International Championship, and the Honor of Kings International championship. The A-Tier competitions are called Former Major in which tournaments require regional relevance.
Asian teams dominate the battlefield of Arena of Valor. Teams of eStar Pro, GankGaming, V Gaming, and One are the teams that are always up for the finals.
- PUBG (PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds)
PUBG is a battle royale game developed by the PUBG Corporation and published by Krafton in 2017. It has a similar gameplay with Fortnite where players need to compete for the last man standing. Shooting weapons are available for players to eliminate other players and different items to loot in the map for survival.
PUBG gets the inspiration of Battle Royale from a 2000 Japanese dystopian thriller film “Battle Royale. Then, battle royale mods were created based on Brendan “PlayerUnknown” Greene for other similar video games.
At first, players from Steam’s Early Access platform for Microsoft Windows can only access the game in its initial beta release. Later on, the Xbox series adopted the game on their consoles. PUBG was then even adapted to a mobile game in 2018. Currently, the game has been open on all platforms for free-to-play.
PUBG esports just started their competitive tournaments with the 2018 PUBG Global Invitational. It is a world competition among invited qualified PUBG teams from different countries: Japan, Taiwan, Latin America, South America, South Korea, Europe, China, Southeast Asia.
- StarCraft II
StarCraft II presents an experience in the military science fiction world. It’s a world-building esport that tests your strategy to manage your chosen race: the Terrans, human exiles from Earth; the Zerg, insectoid life forms; and the Protoss, advanced aliens. You need to build your army, economy, and technology to drive away opponents.
Starcraft II is an expansion story from the video game Starcraft: Brood War made by Blizzard Entertainment in 1998. So, it already used to be famous but the game version gained more traction.
The StarCraft II World Championship Series is Blizzard’s own league for the game. Each region from all over the world competes for the title. The reign of championship flags with the Korean top players with Dark, Maru, Rogue, and Solar crowding the top players of every season.
- League of Legends
League of Legends (LoL) is by far the most popular game in esports. Riot Games released LoL as a MOBA esport in 2009. Its gameplay requires two teams composed of five players beating each other’s bases. The first team to destroy the opposing Nexus wins.
It started as a staple among computer games. Today, LoL drifted its focus on mobile gaming more, featuring its Wild Rift edition.
Riot Games organises the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) for the international championships in the LoL community. It determines the top teams that would compete for the League of Legends World Championship, where they compete for a multi-million dollar cash prize pool.
One of the top players in League of Legends is Caps from Europe, Canyon from DAMWON KIA, Uzi, and Lee’ ”Faker” Sang Hyeo from SK Telecom T1.
- Rainbow Six Siege
The number of shooting games includes Rainbow Six Seige in the list. Players need to choose which team to play, either the attacker counter-terrorist or the defender terrorist team. The game requires the terrorist team to survive against the attackers and defend their base with the hostages and bombs in sites. The operation of the counter-terrorist is to attack, and defuse the bomb or save the hostages in the bases to win.
Ubisoft Montreal developed and published the mods of the game. Rainbow Six Siege comes from the lineup of now cancelled Tom Clancy’s Rainbow 6: Patriots.
The competitive arena of Rainbow Six Siege holds the annual Six Innvitational in which seven different regions race for the championship. For every Six Invitational, people look up the names of Psycho and Muji from Ninjas Pajamas, Paluh from Team Liquid, Shaiiko from BDS ESPORT, and Canadian from SpaceStation Gaming.
- Overwatch
Overwatch is an esports game composed of six-player squads with weapons. Blizzard Entertainment developed and released it on platforms like PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows in 2016. There are various heroes to choose from with their skills and specialties. You can also pick your position as a tank, damage, or support.
Overwatch became famous for its background. Only the best game providers continued developing it with Ubisoft. More so, its exclusive touch to being only available at high-end consoles raised its attraction.
The Overwatch League is an international esports league in which 20 teams compete to achieve the championship trophy. It features two regions from the West and East that battle in 4 tournament cycles: Kickoff Clash, Midseason Madness, Summer Showdown, and Countdown Cup. Seoul Dynasty leads the popular demand in the latest season with their current win of 2019 Overwatch League.
Conclusion
Compared to many industries out there, eSports didn’t have to come a long way to be mainstream. It’s only a platform that provides a competitive yet rewarding place for players who are fond of the games we mentioned.
Now that we’ve given you the top 10 esports games you should play, it’s up to you to choose. There are different backgrounds and types to these games. But one thing sticks out: you will find growth and experience whichever game you play.
If you like FPS and survival games, Fortnite is an eSport to get into. Moreover, it offers the biggest prize pool in the esports industry. Then if you want something more within the lines of a multiplayer game, Dota 2 is a great match. It has an ancient vibe to its gameplay, aside from the skill-to-strategy structure of it. But if you want to try out a distinct esports, Hearthstone stands to be a different one because it’s an easy-to-play card game.
What eSports will you champion? Make sure you take a try on all of them today. Check out Crypto Club Site for more casino blogs!
