The future of eGaming tournaments

eGaming is in a good place right now. We’ve got multimillion-dollar tournaments being run, and many companies opting to invest heavily in their eGaming infrastructure. This has actually made researching what the future of eGaming tournaments could be like quite fun. It is evident that eGaming is on the ascent, and the number of eGaming tournaments is likely to rise sharply over the next few years. So, we wanted to take a look at what the future could potentially hold.

More games

There have been a few staples in the virtual sports arena for a while – for example, CS:GO, Dota 2 and more. These games are likely to be around for a long time to come. However, even more major games will be entering the esports world in the coming years.

The thing is that many game publishers have started to realize just how profitable eGaming tournaments can actually be, and many have designed their games with this aspect in mind. So, we wouldn’t be surprised if we see a bunch of esports games launch over the next few years. Most of them will probably fail (it isn’t easy to make a game that is good to watch and fun to play) but we may see a few gems pop up that become regulars on the eGaming tournament scene.

Game licensing

Many people believe game publishers may end up licensing the rights to their games to an outside concern. This means a few things:

• It puts the cost of development of the game onto somebody else, while the initial publisher benefits from the increased exposure.
• It means that the publishers can put their games in the hands of somebody that has experience in creating esports games, meaning that the whole brand may benefit.
• It means that more game updates can be pumped out, increasing the chance of a game sticking on the esports scene (the best esports games are those that evolve with the times).

More tournaments

It should go without saying that the future of eGaming tournaments will mean more and more tournaments. In fact, there has been a massive increase in the number of tournaments recently, including World Cup-style tournaments.

We expect there to be big and small tournaments added to the scene, many of which are likely to cover multiple games (to make them more appealing to the casual viewer) and allow viewers to keep up to date with gaming results online.

It probably won’t be long before there’ll be a decent number of eGaming tournaments to watch on a regular basis – although we do fear that there may end up being a point where the market becomes oversaturated with tournaments. Hopefully, though, this is something that doesn’t occur.

More localized tournaments

This is something that we really hope to see happen.

It is no secret that many of the major eGaming tournaments are global affairs – or at least continental. This is fun and all, but we really feel that if eGaming is to take off in the way that it deserves, then we are going to need to see more localized tournaments.

We are talking tournaments that happen on a city, perhaps state-wide, basis. You may even see leagues covering whole countries. Just smaller things.

This would bring a couple of benefits:

1. It means that more people will enter the eGaming tournament scene – those players may not be good enough to compete at the highest levels of the game, but good enough to put a shift in for the lower levels. Still fun players to watch, and still considerably better than the average player.
2. It means that more people will end up being exposed to eGaming tournaments, and that is only going to be beneficial to eGaming as a whole. The more people that can view these tournaments, the more cash will be poured into the scene, and more games will be produced.
3. It means that some of the smaller games, those that may not necessarily thrive on the global scene, may get some exposure on a local basis.

W e’re already starting to see more localized tournaments appear, although many of these are just drivers for the big international tournaments. We hope this is something that changes. We want people to become champions of their region, not just champions of the world.

Bigger prize money

More tournaments – and an increased popularity in esports in general – means that more cash will be funneled into the sector. This means that there will be more prize money on the line. Perhaps not multimillion-dollar tournaments again (they will still exist), but more cash being directed into every level of the eGaming tournament world, and stuff being available for the localized tournaments.

We can see there being a wealth of sponsorship opportunities for players, which should be awesome for getting more great players into games, and hopefully, making a career of it.

Gambling

As with all major sports, the only way that eGaming will thrive is if it becomes much more common for people to gamble on it. This results in a lot of money being channeled into the sport. This is something that does seem to be changing recently, with even the biggest sportsbooks in the world allowing punters to bet on major eGaming tournaments.

TV streaming

We’re not talking small channels here. We are talking about the major channels streaming the tournaments. This will give a huge amount of credibility to esports, and hopefully, result in a lot of money being pumped into the games. At the moment, eGaming is watched mostly by gamers, and we hope that this is something that will change.

Final thoughts

The future of esports tournaments is bright. We can expect more cash to be poured into the eGaming scene, which means more games and more players entering the sector. We expect esports to become incredibly popular among the more casual audience, driving business to greater heights.