The global lockdown and coronavirus pandemic has had a significant impact on the esports ecosystem. Many events were canceled or relocated online, and in certain sports (such as Dota 2), team disbanding resulted from the cancellation of international championships. At the same time, consumers now have more free time to play their favorite games, thus many esports titles have outperformed their traditional counterparts in terms of viewership. In 2020, which esports disciplines will be the most popular?
We evaluated the number of hours the audience spent watching competition broadcasts to identify the most popular esports disciplines among viewers. The figures did not include data from Chinese streaming providers.
2020 was characterized not just by the coronavirus and its associated issues. Mobile disciplines have progressed, and they are slowly but steadily surpassing some PC games at the top. Overwatch, in particular, bowed out of the top ten with a bang, with its popularity plummeting significantly after the move of OWL broadcasts to YouTube.
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Garena Free Fire
Garena Free Fire tops the list of most popular esports disciplines, with 132.2 million hours viewed in the last year, a 246 percent increase. The publisher is actively establishing new regional leagues, which attract new players and spectators, which contributes to the discipline's success on streaming platforms.
In the year 2020, Garena altered the Free Fire esports environment. Previously, the publisher had placed a greater focus on the World Series' international finals, which included teams from Southeast Asia to Latin America. The business is now concentrating on creating settings in specific areas using the Continental Series concept.
The Free Fire Continental Series is split into three major areas (Asia, America, and Europe, and the Middle East), each of which is subdivided into smaller regional leagues, with the number of these leagues continuing to increase in 2020. Despite the fact that Latin America had previously held the uncontested lead, Asia emerged as the game's most popular area last year.
In Garena Free Fire, the Continental Series 2020 Asia has become the most popular event of the year. At its height, the tournament drew almost 2.5 million spectators! Furthermore, the fact that its major rival, PUBG Mobile, was banned in India aided the discipline: local esports athletes and fans moved to the new game, and the Hindi-language broadcast of the event drew over a million people, a new high for India.
Streamers from Brazil are also aggressively promoting the game on streaming platforms. Twitch signed members of the LOUD group, often known as the "Brazilian FaZe," in 2020. And, although this has little impact on the development of esports indicators, the game's general awareness is increasing.
Free Fire has grown in popularity as a game and as an esports discipline. And it seems that it will only grow in popularity in the future. Despite this, Garena's game was defeated by PUBG Mobile, its primary rival.
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds Mobile
It's no secret that the smartphone version of PUBG is more popular than the PC version. However, few people are aware of the magnitude: In 2020, PUBG Mobile has four times the number of hours seen as PUBG: it is the most popular mobile discipline in the planet, with 134.5 million hours watched.
PUBG Mobile, like its primary rival, places a strong focus on regional league growth, and it pays off. The PUBG Mobile Club Open series, which takes place in over ten countries, and the PUBG Mobile Pro League are two of the most popular competitions in the genre.
PUBG Mobile, unlike other disciplines, is rapidly growing in the Middle East, with competitions taking place in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. However, Asia remains the game's most popular region: the PUBG Mobile World League 2020 East, which drew 1.15 million spectators at its height last year, was the most popular event in the discipline.
Because India has always been the primary market for PUBG Mobile, it is unclear how the game's prohibition would impact the discipline in the long run. On the one hand, publishers say that this has no impact on the overall number of PMCO members, but it remains unclear how viewing numbers will alter by the end of 2021.
Note that PUBG Mobile's results might have been much better, but the game's global championship matches took place in the first half of 2021, thus they were not included in the statistics.
Dota 2
Despite being affected harder by the coronavirus than any other discipline, Dota 2 remained in the third position in the rankings. It all comes down to the game's ecology, which has traditionally revolved around international tournaments. Valve has canceled all majors and minors, as well as The International, due to logistical issues. As a consequence, the game's total number of hours viewed dropped by 11% to 253.3 million.
Discipline was obliged to adopt a regional structure, which exposed a slew of issues. For example, teams from South America have found it difficult to grow since the local scene is of little appeal to a broad variety of spectators, and they have also found it difficult to compete with North American teams due to high ping. After learning that TI will not be held in 2020, several players opted to take a vacation from tournaments or perhaps retire.
During the epidemic, Europe hosted the most popular events, and CIS teams played there as well. The event that was intended to be a major, ESL One Los Angeles 2020 - Online: Europe & CIS, was the most popular in terms of peak views. Its final, in which Virtus.pro faced OG, had just 508K concurrent views, a pitiful performance in comparison to The International.
The game's third-place finish was aided mostly by Russian-speaking spectators who closely follow not just the CIS but also other areas. In addition, tournament organizers from the CIS staged EPIC League Season 2 Division 1 and OMEGA League: Europe Immortal Division, two of the three tier-1 events held in Dota 2 after the shutdown.
In 2021, the Dota Pro Circuit system was revived, but its format has significantly altered. Majors have been reduced to two; minors and regional qualifications have been replaced with regional leagues, which are not yet particularly popular with viewers. However, The International will still take place in 2021, implying that Dota 2 will have a greater audience in the current year.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
The CS:GO esports industry, like Dota 2, is mainly based on different international tournaments, thus the game began to have issues after the emergence of the epidemic. Furthermore, Valiant is presenting a significant threat to Valve's game, with many American and European esports athletes moving to Valiant.
CS:GO, on the other hand, has shown to be a more reliable game than Dota 2. Despite the issues, CS:GO competitions continue to draw a large viewership. In addition, the number of concurrent spectators in non-major events established a new record in 2020: nearly a million individuals watched G2 Esports versus Natus Vincere in the IEM Katowice 2020 finals at the same time.
In 2020, the discipline had an almost 25% increase in hours watched, reaching 354.2 million. This is because CS:GO is less reliant on the majors (which were also canceled). All of the discipline's major championships were still contested, although in an online version.
Furthermore, the Counter-Strike scene has improved its adaptability to the present situation of esports, since all of the major American esports organizations have relocated their teams to Europe, where the majority of the major events are now hosted. In reality, the competitions remained worldwide, which helps to explain the discipline's strong viewing figures.
It's also worth noting the effect of Brazilian supporters on discipline statistics. Gaules, the most prominent Brazilian content producer, worked with tournament organizers on a regular basis in 2020 and produced Portuguese-language broadcasts, which drew a large number of new viewers.
In general, CS:GO fared well throughout the epidemic and was able to continue to develop as an esports discipline on streaming platforms. However, it cannot compete with the game that received the highest rating.
League of Legends
The most popular esports discipline in the world is still League of Legends. The game also had difficulties during the 2020 shutdown, but Riot Games handled the situation well. In a year, League of Legends acquired 580.8 million hours of viewing (an increase by 21 percent ).
League of Legends has had a strong regional league structure for a long time, and even when tournaments were forced to migrate online, viewing numbers did not suffer much. In addition, the removal of the Mid-Season Invitational, when the world's best clubs meet after spring splits, hardly harmed the sport.
Leagues in Europe, South America, and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) established new viewing records in 2020. And LCS, LEC, and LCK continue to provide the most significant contribution to the success of the streaming services discipline: no other area has yet come close to the indications of Europe, North America, and South Korea.
Riot Games also managed to host the discipline's major event on LAN (!) and in front of a live audience (!!). At its height, almost 3.8 million people tuned in to witness the Worlds 2020 finals, an outstanding performance that was just marginally below the 2019 finals.