While it is true that ESports has just emerged and is practically just a ground-level movement, its viewers are present all over the world. Studies have predicted that in ten years ESports will spread to an extent that it will establish local and national teams, just like we have today with regular sports. Community venues have been coming up at a rapid rate around various cities. Universities and colleges are also enthusiastic about attempting to level up their gaming facilities by recruiting students for their gaming teams, similar to the way athletes and players are recruited for regular sports teams.
ESports provide an immersive, engaging and a more hands-on experience than their traditional counterparts. With the onset of the pandemic and lockdowns, ESports gained immense popularity. It thrived within the safe and secure surroundings of individual homes. While live sports games had been paused around the world due to health and safety reasons, leaving avid sports fans disappointed, the onset of ESports gave them something new and exciting to look forward to.
ESports – that is, electronic sports – transforms virtual gaming into a spectator sport. It is similar to the practice of watching a professional sports game unfold. The main difference is that the viewers watch video gamers compete against each other in various sports. Just as spectators enjoy watching players compete in traditional sports, online viewers also enjoy watching video gamers compete against each other.
The industry includes notable games like League of Legends, Counter-Strike, and Dota. Gamers can stream themselves playing to earn money through gameplay, join more prominent organisations, conduct their activities as members, and earn cash prizes. In addition, players can interact with fans via social media and even directly via gameplay.
ESports is unique in another sense in that the only thing that matters is the players’ talent. Unlike selection criteria for traditional sports that include a certain height or weight, or even gender, none of these matter for ESports. Regardless of their physical features, abilities, or disabilities, players can engage and showcase their capabilities. The easy accessibility of ESports contributes to its allure and cohort of a globally immersed fan base.
Career Options Within ESports
It is not an easy, overnight task to become a ground-breaking ESports player. It requires a lot of training. Players even go to extremes, such as training for continuous hours to hone their skills. With that said, there are primarily two career options that ESports enthusiasts who are passionate enough can pursue:
1. Streaming: Gamers who Livestream themselves and showcase their gameplay are often referred to as ‘streamers.’ Live streaming is incredibly profitable. Still, a player needs to decide if they will take upstreaming their gameplay for a living or take part in the professional games, which has a relatively more significant risk of earning a lot of money. Streaming tends to make an impressive revenue for those who are immensely successful in the communities. A large part of your revenue will depend on your vast fanbase.
2. Professional Gaming: Very few who rise to the professional level compete against teams from all over the world. These people build up a fanbase for themselves and build up one for the groups or organisations they are a part of. Top-level professional gamers end up earning six-figure salaries or even making millions. Gamers interested in taking this up usually start early, around the age of 16-17, and end up retiring early – around the age of 24.
ESports Audience
ESports has a diverse and rapidly expanding audience. Most of them hail from North America, Asia, and Europe. North America and Europe have achieved a global hold on ESports and gaming communities. The esports audience is deeply engaged, and most of them are young digital natives.
ESports have grown exponentially in recent times. Gaming arena and hubs are popping up at a rapid rate to facilitate the growth of ESports as an industry. Every year the audience increases, and there are more and more people looking forward to watching gamers compete against various teams – national or international. The growth achieved by the ESports industry has powerfully attracted investment dollars which have further facilitated more remarkable growth of the industry.
Venues coming up with free roam games or open-world games offer many opportunities to interested gamers who want to take up ESports as a living. This influx has helped remove the negative stigma surrounding ESports in the earlier years. If there’s one thing you need to know about ESports, it is that it is definitely here to stay.
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