These days, kids talk about their favorite gamers and streamers as if they were famous sports stars. Many analyze their ability to perform combinations, emulate their strategies, and aspire to become as good and popular in the video game one day. Based on Statista, the market for eSports has grown in the last few years, and it’s expected to reach two-hundred and eighty-six million enthusiasts by 2024.
While the pay of professional gamers and the industry’s popularity are still in their infancy, it’s growing rapidly. Unlike the more traditional sports like cricket or football, it isn’t rooted in a particular culture or religion, giving it a more global appeal. And as we all know, the ability of a product to reach many is crucial to building its commercial value, and certainly a must for gaming sites like Netbet and streaming services like Netflix and Spotify.
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Passion is paving the way
Let’s face it—eSports wouldn’t be as popular as it is today if not for how passionate the community is about their prospective games and players. In other words, it is a phenomenon built entirely around its fanbase. In the past, events were held in small venues with little more than a modest audience and player-base. Nowadays, they fill up stadiums and offer cash prizes that surpass many other sports. For example, the M2 championship had managed to gather millions of viewers.
A gamer’s dream
The phenomenon behind eSports is usually misunderstood. It can be hard to imagine anyone who spends money and time just to watch another person engage in a video game. But the reality is that the same people also attend their preferred team or athlete’s opening day, admiring the participants who perform the best. The thing that sets eSports apart is their level of accessibility to casual and hardcore gamers. Whether or not you play well, it is easy to enjoy watching and living vicariously through the pros.
Another advantage of eSports is that it offers men and women to play against each other on neutral grounds. It means that the industry is the only place where all gender identities can compete against one another.
You can’t have eSports without sports
When mentioning the word sport, the first thing that comes to mind is the physical and mental preparation that competition requires. In this aspect, it’s similar to eSports. To perform at a high level and equally high stakes, players must also train themselves physically and mentally. A lot more goes into how the professionals perform than the uninformed give them credit for, and being physically and mentally healthy is essential to succeed in eSports.
It’s especially true when you consider how incredibly demanding gaming has become, thanks in no small part to new technologies like virtual reality. Because of this, countries like China, Russia, Denmark, and South Korea consider eSports to be a real sport. And it’s only a matter of time until the rest of the world follows in their example.
Conclusion
The eSport industry’s future will eventually lead to the emulation of its traditional counterpart in terms of structure and based on how well it’s doing now, could potentially rival them. With the behavior of the gaming community, omnichannel marketing mediums, and advancing technology, eSports may even get ahead.
