Esports is a sport in which competitions and tournaments are held in multiplayer video games. In other words, esports games are the official name of the discipline for professional gamers (yes, they exist). Competitions can be held both between teams and individually. The winner is the one who demonstrates the best skills, reaction and endurance. As in boxing or football, participants and teams fight for glory, recognition and large cash prizes, which often reach several million dollars. But instead of a ring or a field, gamers compete in a virtual space.

Often, multiplayer games with a developed competitive element end up in eSports. Participants fight each other in a closed gaming arena online. In the early 2000s, real-time strategies were suitable for eSports. But since 2010, MOBA games (multiplayer online battle arena) and first-person shooters have become the most popular. However, almost any game with a competitive edge can attract the attention of professional gamers. Fighting games, racing games, and even collectible card games are all in demand today. The rule is very simple: if the game is fun and dynamic and interesting to watch, it has a chance to enter eSports.

Esports: before and now

Although gaming competitions have been around for a long time, starting with the first Space Invaders championship in 1980, eSports in their current form began in the early 21st century. Many say that the first eSports game was StarCraft, which was released in 1998. In 2000, StarCraft’s popularity took South Korea by storm, and a community of professional gamers formed as a result. Since then, gamers have become celebrities in the country, and tournaments are broadcast on three dedicated TV channels. The game’s influence on South Korea has been so strong that if you Google “South Korea official sport” today, the search engine will return StarCraft II. Although it’s actually taekwondo.

Soon, eSports games spread far beyond South Korea and Asia. Today, eSports is recognized in Europe and the Americas. Tournaments between professional gamers attract stadiums of fans and are broadcast live on many Internet channels. In fact, eSports is now the hottest trend in video games. In 2016, 324 million people around the world watched, discussed, or participated in various eSports events. In total, this brought in about $500 million in revenue, mainly from the sale of media rights and tickets, as well as advertising and sponsorship.

Any game developer strives to create something cool for eSports, and for good reason. In 2015, the free-to-play MOBA game League of Legends alone brought Riot Games more than $1.6 billion in profit. The number of active players in it reaches 100 million per month. This is one of the most famous games in eSports with an official league system. It hosts world championships with a large prize pool. For example, in 2015, the winning team received $2 million.

Many would agree that eSports is a very promising direction, and any developer of a multiplayer game wants to get into it. But there is one genre that has not been affected by the craze for virtual sports: MMO.

MMO and eSports: The Rapprochement Continues

Massively multiplayer online games, or MMOs , are large-scale worlds where millions of users can socialize, form clans, battle, or simply explore the game world. The most well-known subgenre of MMOs is the MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game), which rose to prominence in the early 2000s largely thanks to World of Warcraft and RuneScape. Other subgenres include MMORTS (real-time strategy games), MMOFPS (first-person shooters), and even social MMOs like the infamous Second Life. For simplicity, we'll focus on MMORPGs.

It would seem that MMO games are ideal for eSports: they have both multiplayer and a competitive element. So why aren't tournaments held so often? The problem is not that MMO developers don't want it.

Take, for example, World of Warcraft, which many consider to be the most famous MMORPG . It was released in 2004, but PvP battles appeared in it only in 2007. Only by that time did Blizzard realize that WoW tournaments were attracting whole crowds of new players. For some time, the game was indeed very popular among gamers and viewers, but not for long. Already in 2010, Major League Gaming, the largest professional video game league, excluded World of Warcraft from the list of disciplines. The reason was problems with the broadcasting software.

However, many people still enjoy watching WoW PvP tournaments. This is confirmed by Jackson “Bajheera” Bliton, who won Blizzard’s Best World of Warcraft PvP Streamer award in 2014. Jackson has over 300,000 subscribers and 20 million views on Twitch, a popular streaming service. These may seem like huge numbers, but they are nowhere near the numbers of top League of Legends streamers. For example, Michael “Imaqtpie” Santana, a former professional LoL player and one of the most popular streamers on Twitch, has over 1.5 million subscribers and 180 million views.

And this is despite the fact that League of Legends is not the most watched game on Twitch. According to a recent study from Newzoo, it is in 3rd place, in 2nd place is Dota 2 (another MOBA game). And the first place is taken by the shooter Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. WoW did not even make it into the top ten. Not to mention any other MMO game. Jackson Blyton believes that MMOs do not get along with eSports for one simple reason: when players watch World of Warcraft, they are not interested in the matches and the spectacle. They are simply watching the battles of professionals to improve their playing style.

Esports games and PvP

It's hard to blame a viewer who doesn't want to watch someone else play an MMORPG. These games are pretty slow-paced and don't look very impressive. It's worth remembering that eSports is primarily designed for viewers. So a game that doesn't captivate them can't get into a tournament.

One of the best ways to attract the attention of eSports fans is to organize spectacular PvP matches. But not all MMOs are built around battles. Many emphasize exploration, questing, and cooperative activities - all of which are referred to as PvE (Player versus Environment) mechanics. Unlike PvP, PvE involves overcoming an enemy controlled by a computer. And since the competitive element in PvE is much weaker, many MMOs sometimes have a hard time getting into the list of eSports disciplines.

Sometimes developers, wanting to fix this situation, put more emphasis on PvP. But in this case, they risk changing the game significantly and losing their target audience. Content in MMO games is everything, and the best way to maintain user loyalty is to constantly release updates. But few will be able to work on PvP and release new PvE content at the same time. That's why most MMORPG developers focus most of their attention on PvE.