The best Esports Games: Fortnite, Dota 2, Rocket Leagues, League of Legends &…

Esports are video games which are played in professional competitions, usually fall into a few major genres. The majority of esports titles are fighting games, first-person shooters (FPS), real-time strategy (RTS), or multiplayer online battle arena games (MOBA), with the MOBA genre being the most popular in terms of participation and viewership. Players around the world will compete in trying to win the prize pool. The following is a selection of games which currently have or had a professional scene, sorted by genre and ordered roughly chronologically.

What are Esports Games?

The growth of esports has been phenomenal, with new games being launched every year. Some games, however, dominate the landscape and are more popular than the others.

When we talk about the biggest esports games, it can mean different things to different people. Some games are more popular globally while others are regional successes. Some have a lot more players while others organize bigger tournaments with large cash prizes.

In this post, we have sorted the biggest esports games by the amount of reward money that they have awarded for tournaments. All information on this is collected from the Esports Earnings website. So, let’s get started with the list of the biggest esports games.

The Most Important Round in Esport Games

When playing a competitive tactical shooter, you must start each half with a pistol.

Whether you like it or not, if you want to play games like Valorant or Counter-Strike, you are going to be restricted to using handguns for at least two rounds.

You see, though pistol rounds seem kind of quotidian and forgettable when you first start to play these games, many veterans of the scene have often speculated whether or not they actually have too great of an impact.

Others don’t see it as a problem at all, and even excel at their pistol round proficiency. But why are pistol rounds so important? And when it comes to Valorant and CS:GO which pistol is more important?

The best Esports games

League of Legends

It can be difficul to judge the exact popularity of a video games since an estimate must factor in viewership, player counts, and the pro scene. But by all metrics, League of Legends has managed to keep a massive amount of players active more than a decade since launch.

13 years of lessons have helped Riot Games create the most played game in the world. A few games like Fortnite and PUBG have managed to eclipse it, but only briefly. After those titles fell out of the limelight, League of Legends still stood strong.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Counter-Strike was already one of the most played games of all time 15 years ago before LoL even existed. Global Offensive is the most recent addition to the Counter-Strike series, which consistently ranks as the one of the top games on Steam in 2022. With over 400 million hours of watch time, it’s second on the list, but the esports side of things don’t work with the biggest budget.

Even if the highest-paid player earns more than in LoL, it doesn’t come close to some Dota 2 players. The CSGO Major Championship in Stockholm was the most-watched event with a peak of 2.75 million viewers.

Dota 2

Dota has a similar history as Counter-Strike, but they are two very different games. Dota 2 itself spawned from an older strategy title called Warcraft. Now League of Legends is an offshoot of Dota, basically making it the propgenitor of several esports scenes.

After Dota 2 was released, huge changes were made to the design and overall feel of the game. Developer Valve figured out new ways to make money and they made crowdfunding the main source of income for the year-end event, The International.

Rocket League

Newly onto the list this year is Psyonix Studios title Rocket League, which doled out $2.63M in prize money over the course of the year through its Rocket League Championship Series. The car soccer game, which paid out $3.040M in prize money last year, is seen as a title with good growth potential.

Psyonix committed $4.5M to the most recent RLCS season, which will conclude in 2021. With more prize money than ever flowing into a revamped, open ecosystem, Rocket League is poised to rise up the rankings next year.

Hearthstone

Activision Blizzard’s digital collectible card game makes it onto this year’s list following a conspicuous absence last year. Hearthstone, which came in at $3.73M, is the only game in the digital collectible card category to make it onto the list, though it has new competition to watch out for from Riot Games’ Legends of Runeterra.

While Activision Blizzard continues to focus most of its energy and resources on its franchised leagues, Riot Games is steadily and meticulously ramping up esports investment in its newer titles, including LoR.

PUBG

There was a time when PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS had the potential to become a leader in the esports space. However, after multiple restructurings of its esports infrastructure and the departure of several prominent esports teams from the space, the game appears to have settled into a lower rung. 2020 was intended to be a new opportunity for PUBG to focus on international competition, but the COVID-19 pandemic threw a wrench into that plan before it could get off the ground.

The game only paid out about a third in 2020 from what it did in 2019, dropping in the rankings four slots year over year from No. 4 in 2019.

Fortnite

Fortnite is now one of the most popular survival and battle royale third-person shooter esports games developed by Epic Games in 2017. There are 3 type of games in Fortnite: Save the World, Battle Royale and Creative. Fortnite Battle Royale is the player-versus-player game for free with up to 100 players including you.

It is unique that players can not only fight with guns and other weapons but also build walls, stairs and other fortifications with various materials. The major competition Fortnite World Cup, sponsored with 100 million dollars by Epic Games, has been held since 2019.

Splatoon 2

Splatoon 2, released in 2017 when Nintendo Switch itself was on sale, is one of the most popular third-person shooter games developed by the famous Japanese game company Nintendo. It is the second title following Splatoon released in 2015 for Wii U. Players control the human-squid hybrid character Inkling and fight other players shooting, covering the ground and swimming with colorful ink.

There are 5 battle modes and players as a group of 4 fight against another group. Splatoon 2 offers over 100 weapons and over 40 battle fields. The Splatoon2 international championships were held in the largest game show ES 2018 and 2019. Many fans are expecting the next title to be released soon.

Arena of Valor

If you’ve never heard of a game on this list, it’s probably Arena of Valor (AoV) – in fact, the title isn’t particularly popular or even well-known in the West. Similar to League of Legends, AoV is a MOBA title, but it is played on mobile devices and the Nintendo Switch. The main market for the game is East Asia, and it is especially popular in China and Taiwan. It was developed by TiMi, the creator of Pokémon UNITE based on the same concept, which was released worldwide in 2021.

AoV is so popular in Asia as one of the best esports games that it has already made several guest appearances at pan-Asian sports competitions as a demonstration discipline for esports – in 2023 it will be present in this role at the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games. Incidentally, the roughly $12 million in prize money from this year is only a temporary peak: in 2022, AoV’s world championship will be merged with that of Honor of Kings, the original Chinese version of this international offshoot – that will nearly double the annual prize pool. The pros should be pleased.

Is PUBG an esports game?

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, or PUBG, is synonymous with battle royale. Responsible in large part for ushering in a new era for multiplayer games, PUBG is now tackling a different kind of challenge: growing its mobile version in the West.

Who is the best gamer?

PewDiePie. Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, is one of the top Youtube gaming influencers known popularly as PewDiePie to his 105 million strong subscriber. He is easily the most widely known gaming influencer of this decade.

Is Fortnite an esport?

Fortnite is a popular game and it is already making its way as one of the popular esports titles.

Is Minecraft a esport?

Minecraft is not known for esports – yet. There are some clans and teams emerging, and a few tournaments have been played around parkour-style courses, survival modes and time challenges. The British Esports Association understands it’s a game that could carve out its own esports scene in the near future.