2020 has been a tough year for esports, although it has been much less affected by the coronavirus pandemic than other industries. Someone took advantage of the situation to their advantage and further strengthened their leadership in the market, while others further exacerbated their extremely difficult position. Cybersport.ru talks about the three main events of the year that are not related to Dota 2 and CS: GO.
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League of Legends confirms the role of the flagship of the esports industry
No matter how the CIS views League of Legends, this game has the largest audience among all eSports disciplines. And this applies not only to the players themselves, but also to the audience. Even in a pandemic, when all esports went online and the main tournaments were canceled altogether, Riot Games did everything to ensure that the 2023 World Championship went on schedule. And she succeeded.
In early spring, as all states began to impose restrictive measures, news reports were filled with headlines about new victims of the coronavirus, the world was literally in a panic. Only when everyone more or less figured out what COVID-19 really is did these restrictions gradually begin to be lifted. This also affected sports – the functionaries and authorities of the cities and countries where the events were held took measures that allowed the tournaments to be resumed, albeit without spectators.
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There is no doubt that this game from Valve was the main example for Riot Games. The developers almost completely copied the unique shooting mechanics, added analogs of all the main rifles from Counter-Strike and did not even come up with some kind of their own mode – in Valorant, as in CS, you need to plant an analogue of a bomb in an attack, and to interfere with your opponent’s defense. Every CS: GO fan who logs into Valorant will immediately feel how similar these games are.
Many immediately announced that Valorant would become Counter-Strike’s killer. Parallels with Dota and LoL were drawn as the main argument – in this battle, it was Dota 2 that was in the role of catching up. However, in the case of CS: GO and Valorant, the situation is completely different – LoL was released earlier than Dota 2, and DotA Allstars was by no means that popular in 2009. Now the opposite is true: CS: GO is confidently holding its positions, and Valorant will need to do something about it.
Riot Games cannot expect to pull audiences away from Valve, so it will have to pull audiences from its other games into a tactical shooter. And if the plan works, it should be enough to significantly shake the greatness of CS: GO.
This battle will be legendary
The PR campaign of Riot Games literally blew up Twitch when the game was announced, but over time the hype faded away, and now streams on Valorant rarely gain even 100 thousand viewers in total. However, the competitive scene of the discipline is just emerging, and it should become the main driver of development. In this regard, Valorant also exceeded all expectations: the First Strike tournament among American teams gathered more than 300 thousand spectators at its peak, in Europe the maximum online stream was 100 thousand people. In addition, many CS: GO esportsmen have joined Valorant, although not the top ones. Again, this can be attributed to the initial hype, and for an objective comparison, you need to look at the distance that Valorant has not yet covered. But the fact that CS: GO already has a competitor is a fact. But whether he will become a “killer”, we’ll see.
“Where is the money, Kitty?” – Overwatch League investors don’t want to pay huge sums for the franchise
While all the rest of esports went their own way, Activision Blizzard considered it a dead end and decided to copy the format of the American sports leagues. They emphasize that teams do not represent organizations, but cities. Moreover, the matches are held not in one location or online, but on the clubs’ own sites at home and away.
The format was especially liked by the functionaries from the traditional sports, who immediately bore money for slots in the Overwatch League. And several tens of millions of dollars per slot is not the kind of money that the leaders of the top NBA and NFL clubs are not ready to risk. After all, some of the stars of their basketball and hockey teams receive much larger sums per year.
Some problems are hidden behind a beautiful picture with a full arena | Photo: www.reddit.com/user/drkles
Naturally, any investment implies their return. Blizzard has offered franchise buyers a three-year roadmap. And, following it, just by 2023, investments should begin to fight back, and teams should become profitable. It was planned that by this time the clubs would also commission arenas in their cities. But these plans were not destined to come true.
Back in 2017, when the Overwatch League first launched, many were skeptical about this business model. As it turned out, the skeptics were right. The league’s audience figures are declining from year to year, with a peak of 450,000 in the opening season to 140,000 in 2023. And the organizers are unlikely to be able to explain such a drop in interest in the league by the coronavirus – in 2019 and 2018, the situation with online streams is exactly the same. worsened…
No matter how much Activision Blizzard and investors tried to keep a happy face in public, it was obvious to everyone that things did not go according to plan. And soon rumors circulated online that franchise owners wanted Blizzard to take urgent steps to improve the clubs’ finances. First of all, they want to reduce the cost of the franchise, since this is the most significant cost item. The developers did not comment on this information in any way. However, there is no reason not to trust the rumors – many expected such an outcome from the very beginning.
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