Esports has several overlapping definitions depending on the context in which it’s being used. In the strictest sense, esports refers to the competitive wing of the video game community, and is focused on a number of niche PC titles and genres.
More broadly, however, esports incorporates a huge array of competitive events, sports, and games that are contested through digital mediums. In this sense, the term can be taken to literally refer to ‘electronic sports’.
Competitive gaming has been around for as long as there have been video games, though the term ‘esports’ was seldom used before the early 2000s. The growth in popularity for this term can be attributed to the South Korean competitive gaming scene. Despite legacy interest in Western markets, it was in this small East Asian country that the scene took on its recognizable modern form.
South Korea modernized rapidly in the 1980s, and, by the time of the millennium, had widespread broadband internet connections, the highest number of internet cafes (or PC Bangs) per capita in the world, and a thriving gaming community. It was during this period of expansion that competitive gaming came to be definitively referred to by the moniker ‘esports’.
However, there are several other currents that have contributed to the world of esports as we know it today. One is mobile esports. For many years, PCs and consoles were the only platforms that enjoyed enough popularity at scale to give rise to professional players and competitions, but over the past decade the smartphone has changed all of this.
Mobile Esports and Mind-Sports
Now, mobile esports are among the fastest growing and most popular in the world – and while they’ve yet to displace the likes of CS:GO or Dota 2 in overall popularity, new disruptive mobile-optimized productions are increasingly assuming a dominant position in the market, especially in Asia.
Another tributary that contributes to esports’ impressive CAGR of 8.31% year-on-year is digital mind-sports. Simply put, mind-sports is a collective term that refers to competitive games that prioritize strategic thinking and mental dexterity. Over time, playing these games in digital formats has become increasingly commonplace, and this has resulted in their market presence and demographics blending with the wider esports industry.
These two esports disruptors below all come from outside of the dominant current of competitive gaming, but each presently enjoys some of the fastest growth of any esport today.
Poker
Variants of poker have been around for centuries, likely dating back to the 17th century Persian game, As-Nas. The modern variants with which we’re all familiar became firmly established during the mid-century golden age of Las Vegas casinos – but, at the turn of the millennium, poker would end up undergoing a further transformation.
Online poker had been growing steadily since the mid 90s, and by 2003 this had reached a critical mass. The poker boom of 2003-2006 saw the online and offline poker worlds collide, bringing hundreds of new players into the mind-sport.
In recent years, poker has further mingled with the wider esports scene, with reputable platform PokerStars, which has been facilitating people playing poker online for real money since 2001, sponsoring several high profile competitions on Twitch. One of which, the 2020 Stadium Series, was awarded the largest competition prize pool in the history of the Amazon-owned esports broadcaster.
Now it’s increasingly commonplace for esports athletes to stream and compete in online poker matches, and vice versa, further blurring the lines and erasing distinctions between these two sectors.
Mobile Legends: Bang Bang
The most popular esports genre in the world today is the MOBA – short for Multiplayer Online Battle Arena. The two biggest esports in the world, League of Legends and Dota 2, each belong to this genre, and its combination of team-based combat and potential for virtuoso performance has made it the perfect container to demonstrate the very best of gaming talent in the world today.
Yet many were skeptical that the MOBA could translate outside of the PC format, as the design of the game is intrinsically complex, and favored the flexibility offered by the Mouse + Keyboard input. But this didn’t stop several developers from trying, and the most successful MOBA to break out of the PC platform to date is Mobile Legends: Bang Bang.
By simplifying the gameplay, shortening match lengths and speeding up match-making, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang takes all that is compelling about the genre and streamlines it for casual mobile play.
It has proven so successful that it has caused Riot Games to wade into the space with their own mobile MOBA. At the time of writing, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang is the most popular esport in the world by hours played in 2023, knocking League of Legends off the top spot, a rare occurrence and a harbinger of things to come.