Generous cash prizes, millions of viewers, dozens of teams, and new regular rosters—the facets of esports that make it one of the most entertaining sporting activities today.
With the best esports game and good knowledge about it, you too stand a chance of cashing out big. This is why many bookmakers that have obtained a licence constantly have a high influx of esports fans ready to wager money in favour of their favourite teams.
Many games come as PC-based, some as mobile-based, and a few as console-based. So, the big question is which of these esports games can claim to be the biggest in the world.
To answer that, let us look at esports games that have built a cult following.
League of Legends
When you talk about which esports game has the best viewership, amazing prize pool, and most engagement, the League of Legends is that game. It is the most played PC game, with more than 100 million active players worldwide as of 2020.
Created in 2009 by Riot Games, LoL is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game very similar to DOTA that features two teams of five players, where each player plays as a different champion with distinctive abilities. To claim victory, your team has to successfully destroy the enemy’s home base or “Nexus” while guarding yours.
More people watch the League of Legends tournaments than any other game, reaching a peak viewership of 3.9 million (2019). In support of their viewers, the game offers a whopping prize pool for its tournament participants, valued at $9,000,000 for the World Championship 2020.
DOTA 2
DOTA 2 is another MOBA esports game, developed by Valve Corporation in 2013 and greatly popular among gamers in Europe and North America. It is a deserving sequel to the popular DOTA game that was released in 2003. So far, the game has awarded prizes worth more than $220 million to winners in all tournaments.
Quite similar to the gameplay of League of Legends, DOTA 2 revolves around two teams of five players who compete to destroy the large structure of the opposing team, known as the “Ancient,” while guarding theirs. Each player gets to choose and controls a hero character that possesses unique abilities. In the end, it is the skills and teamwork of the players that determine victory.
The International, which is DOTA’s annual grand tournament, offers lucrative prize pools that steadily increase since it started in 2013. In 2019, it reached $34 million, the largest pool in esports history.
Fortnite
Released in 2017 by Epic Games, Fortnite is an online multiplayer game that features different entertaining modes like the “Save the World”, “Creative”, and “Battle Royale” (the last being the most popular). For a game of its calibre, it surprisingly has numerous tournaments for players.
Competitions in Fortnite began by the end of summer in 2018, in which tournament series like the Summer Skirmish were organised. Fortnite still leads the list in terms of players and prizes. So far, they have given out cash prizes worth more than $80 million and would certainly cross that amount with the newly announced future tournaments.
Despite having an enormous player base and prize pools, Fortnite doesn’t seem to be the best esports game because it has fewer average viewers in the main events than other mega titles.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
You cannot talk about strategy and first-person shooting without mentioning Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The well-known eSports game was developed in 2012 by the team behind DOTA 2 in collaboration with Hidden Path Entertainment. The Counter-Strike series has existed since 2000, making it the oldest esports game.
The gameplay of this version revolves around two teams of five players, each tagged either the “Terrorists” or the “Counter-Terrorists.” The attacking team, or the Terrorists, would try to plant a bomb at one of the two bombsites with the defending team, or the Counter-Terrorists, trying to defuse and stop them.
The Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is currently the second-most played game on PC, with an average viewership of 200,000 in its big tournaments. The fact that it rewards players for their intelligence, skills, and strategy formulation makes it quite popular.
