Do you know that the primary online game event was held in 1972? Now, over 5 a long time later, now we have lots of of tournaments in every massive sport yearly, and people video games deserve some recognition. So, right here is the record of the hottest esports in 2024, ranked by their mixed viewership, prize swimming pools, and event numbers.
15. Avenue Fighter 6
![Capcom Cup cover art](https://twinfinite.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/sf-6-capcom-cup-art.jpg?resize=640%2C360)
When Avenue Fighter 6 got here out in 2023, followers cheered it as the perfect sport this franchise yielded since SF3, proper when it began to appear that the times of large preventing sport tournaments had been gone.
The upcoming Capcom X Cup may have a $1,000,000 prize pool, which is totally large for a preventing sport event in 2024. That’s thrice greater than it was for Capcom IX.
One other good indicator that the legendary Avenue Fighter franchise is, effectively, nonetheless preventing is that it held essentially the most tournaments, drew essentially the most viewers and saved elevating the event rewards far above what was normal for Avenue Fighter V. Hopefully, they proceed that pattern within the years to come back.
14. Starcraft II
![Starcraft 2 Logo](https://twinfinite.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/sc-2-logo.jpg?resize=640%2C360)
Starcraft II continues to make its presence felt within the esports neighborhood greater than a decade after its preliminary launch. The one real-time technique sport on our record, Starcraft II has its roots in the old fashioned of aggressive gaming amid a scene dominated by MOBAs.
Of all of the video games on this record, StarCraft has recorded essentially the most tournaments and amassed one of many largest prize swimming pools at $40.6 million, although it has, in fact, been round for an extended time period.
What’s most telling is that usually, 50% or extra of the full hours of Twitch streaming had been spectators watching esports competitions, which is a far greater proportion than different video games listed right here.
Despite its age and barely waning curiosity, StarCraft II competitions nonetheless draw event prize swimming pools of $500,000. We simply couldn’t keep away from together with it among the many hottest esports on the earth proper now.
13. PUBG: Battlegrounds
![PGS PUBG esports tournament](https://twinfinite.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/pgc-pubg.jpg?resize=640%2C360)
Regardless of being banned from a few international locations, common outdated PUBG remains to be faring effectively on the esports scene and is unquestionably value noting as some of the standard video games at present.
It’s massively standard in China, amassing over 320 million lively month-to-month gamers. It’s additionally the one sport moreover Dota 2 and CS2 that recurrently reveals up within the high 3 on Steam charts.
Nevertheless, it has fallen in numbers steadily since 2021, partially as a result of lots of its gamers transitioned to PUBG: Cell and partly as a result of Apex Legends, Fortnite, and Valorant began placing out increasingly high quality content material, stealing their very own share of the participant base, while PUBG was centered on rolling out extra regurgitated cosmetics.
12. Crossfire
![Crossfire esports art](https://twinfinite.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/crossfire-esports.jpg?resize=640%2C360)
When you aren’t accustomed to it, Crossfire is principally the Chinese language model of CS 1.6. It’s massively standard there, and although many declare it is stuffed with cheaters, it nonetheless manages to garner tens of millions of {dollars} in funding for its tournaments, particularly in the previous few years.
One other factor to bolster the truth that this sport shouldn’t be practically as competitively profitable as it’s proper now’s that it’s massively P2W. Who is aware of, possibly that’s precisely what aggressive FPS video games should be profitable.
11. Apex Legends
![Apex Legends Lifeline](https://twinfinite.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/apex-legends-esports.jpg?resize=640%2C360)
The third largest non-mobile battle royale on the earth, Apex Legends, takes the eleventh spot on our record of hottest esports video games in 2024.
Since its launch in 2019, it proved to be some of the modern and genre-defining video games on the market. Every day, we see increasingly come into the sport, a lot sooner than Fortnite or PUBG ever did.
Additionally, regardless of being one of many youngest on this record, it has racked up over $21 million in prizes over 5 years of its existence; not too shabby for a sport dominated by gamepad abusers should you ask me.
10. Rainbow Six Siege
![R6 Siege Atlanta esports tournament venue](https://twinfinite.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/r6-siege-atlanta-major.jpg?resize=640%2C360)
Rainbow Six Siege has by far the sweatiest fanbase you’ll ever encounter. Simply turning on voice comms is a surefire means so that you can lose any psychological fortitude wanted to play a tactical first-person shooter you had left.
Nonetheless, plainly is precisely what produces nice gamers. These days, R6 is likely one of the hottest esports video games within the West, rewarding its professional gamers with very massive prize swimming pools, particularly at its manually held Six Invitational Tournaments.
Its Twitch viewership peaks when there are tournaments, however thankfully, there are streamers like Jynxzi, for instance, to maintain the fanbase entertained even when there are none.
9. Rocket League
![Rocket League esports tournament venue](https://twinfinite.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/rocket-league-esports-tournament-venue.jpg?resize=640%2C360)
Rocket League’s esport took time to materialize, however its worldwide recognition has seen it emerge as an unlikely drive. Not like a few of the different shock esports hits on this record, it grew organically, little by little.
Finally, Rocket League is only a enjoyable sport that held onto followers who ultimately requested for a extra aggressive scene to comply with. This can be a stark distinction to some video games that drive an esports scene onto its neighborhood and hope that it catches on.
Rocket League did extraordinarily effectively for itself in 2023 and isn’t displaying indicators of slowing down in 2024. It has set data for watch time and the variety of tournaments held and even got here near its 2022 complete event prize pool.
What bodes effectively for the sport in 2024 is that Rocket League continues to have a really sturdy informal following that performs the sport only for enjoyable. One thing that video games like Counter-Strike or StarCraft may solely dream of.
8. Valorant
![Valorant characters](https://twinfinite.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/valorant-esports.jpg?resize=640%2C360)
One of the latest releases on this record, Valorant is the best challenger Counter-Strike has within the squad-based FPS style.
It skyrocketed in recognition instantly after its launch again in 2020 and even had standard FPS gamers and streamers resembling Shroud, computerized, and Scream swap over to it.
Since then, it steadily rose in recognition, particularly after CS2 sort of flopped on launch. It’s nonetheless going sturdy with no indicators of ever slowing down. The numbers converse for themselves. In only a few years, it managed to share over $30 million in prizes and maintain over 5,500 tournaments, making it one of many fastest-growing esports scenes ever.
7. Fortnite
![Fortnite Season X cover](https://twinfinite.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/fortnite-esports.jpg?resize=640%2C360)
Seven years after its launch, and regardless of its decline after 2019, Fortnite nonetheless stands close to the highest of the battle royale esports scene with regards to recognition.
Its strongest level is the prize swimming pools. Final 12 months’s FNCS World Championship had a prize pool of $4,000,000 (nonetheless an extended shot from 2019’s 30 million) and managed to assemble over 700k viewers in some unspecified time in the future. These are all the very best numbers it had shortly.
Relating to its Twitch recognition, it typically hovers at round 50 million watch hours per 30 days. That’s a tad bit worse than what CS2 and League of Legends have, but it surely however makes it some of the standard, if not the most well-liked, esport within the West.
6. Cell Legends: Bang Bang
![Mobile Legends M4 esports Tournament stage](https://twinfinite.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/mobile-legends-m4-tournament.jpg?resize=640%2C360)
The primary League of Legends ripo… *cough*, I imply cell MOBA we’ll be mentioning on this record is Cell Legends: Bang Bang. Its resemblance to League is actually uncanny. Riot Video games and Tencent even went so far as to sue it thrice over copyright points.
Nevertheless, Cell Legends remains to be round and stronger than ever (it needed to change its identify, although). It’s principally performed within the Philippines and Indonesia, the place over 20 million individuals log into it every day.
Nevertheless, essentially the most stunning reality about it’s its viewership. Final 12 months’s MLBB M5 World Championship was watched by 5 million individuals at one level, rivaling the file League of Legends set simply 4 days prior. Mighty spectacular for a cell sport.
5. PUBG: Cell
![PUBG Mobile Esports art](https://twinfinite.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/pubg-mobile.jpg?resize=640%2C360)
PUBG: Cell is the foremost battle royale sport on cell. It blew up as quickly because it was launched again in 2018 and hasn’t stopped rising since then, racking up over 500 million downloads on Google Play Retailer alone.
Its massively aggressive participant base additionally produced an esports scene that gave away over $21 million in prize swimming pools to its gamers final 12 months solely, topping different esports giants resembling League of Legends, Counter-Strike, and Fortnite.
What’s extra, it outperforms the PC model each in participant numbers and in earnings, most of it coming from China, although. Regardless, a cell sport outperforming its PC model is as uncommon as a hen’s tooth and positively value credit score.
4. Counter-Strike 2
![FaZe vs NaVi in a CSGO esports tournament](https://twinfinite.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/cs2-major.jpg?resize=640%2C360)
Counter-Strike is as outdated because the hills. The web squad-based shooter first gained traction means again within the late Nineteen Nineties as a modification working off Half-Life. It rose to fame as one of many pioneering esports again when the CPL and World Cyber Video games had been in full circulate.
Later, Supply tried to replace the format, powered by Half-Life 2’s extra trendy engine, but it surely by no means fairly gathered the identical momentum. Then we had World Offensive, which proved a smashing success and has seen the franchise clamber again to the highest of the esports pile.
In late 2023, we had fairly an abrupt transition to CS2. The sport was very unpolished, forcing many modifications that gamers didn’t like. What extra to say than that the largest CS:GO legend, S1mple, determined to take a break due to how dangerous the AWP was.
Nevertheless, a few months later, CS2 is lastly beginning to take form as a superb aggressive sport, with its first main event occurring in March.
Time will inform whether or not it’ll break any earlier Counter-Strike data, however for now, it nonetheless stays the most-played sport on Steam and one of many most-watched video games on Twitch.
3. Dota 2
![Dota 2 Aegis of Champions](https://twinfinite.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dota-2-the-international.jpg?resize=640%2C360)
When one thinks of OG MOBA video games, Protection of the Ancients absolutely springs to thoughts first. It’s the godfather of the style that’s liable for kickstarting your complete battle enviornment scene.
Beginning life as a modification of Warcraft III, Dota shortly rose in recognition. Its successor, Dota 2, refined the bundle, which has since emerged as essentially the most profitable and some of the standard esports video games on the earth.
Certainly, the numbers converse for themselves: a cumulative $300 million in prize cash throughout greater than a decade of its existence, peaking with the 2021 TI when the full prize pool was a file $40 million.
It shouldn’t shock you then that 48 out of fifty of essentially the most paid esports gamers on the earth are all Dota 2 gamers. Think about successful one event and already making extra money than 99.99% of all esports gamers ever will.
Nevertheless, when it comes to beginner participant numbers and complete views of live-streamed Twitch video games total, Dota 2 doesn’t peak at fairly the identical data as League of Legends. The place it does trump LoL, although, is within the common quantity of these tuning in solely to look at skilled sport tournaments, which reveals that it has a extra die-hard fanbase.
2. Honor of Kings
![Honor of Kings esports World Championship trophy](https://twinfinite.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/honor-of-kings-world-championship.jpg?resize=640%2C360)
When you like cell MOBAs and haven’t but heard of Honor of Kings, it’s most likely as a result of most of its participant base is from Asia. For now, know that it’s popping out with a world launch quickly, and you may pre-register proper now.
Honor of Kings is a sport extraordinarily much like League of Legends. I imply, it began off as an LoL ripoff, the identical as Cell Legends. The map, the champions, the sport modes, you identify it. All of it seems to be and seems like taking part in League (solely on cell, although). It even has League’s recognition, hovering round 100 million day by day gamers for the time being.
What surprises me essentially the most about it, although, is that it has one of many highest prize swimming pools of all esports video games on the earth. Final 12 months’s Worldwide Championship alone had round $10 million unfold amongst its members. That’s an enormous dub for the cell MOBA market in my ebook.
1. League of Legends
![League of Legends esports World Championship 2017 RNG squad](https://twinfinite.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/worlds-2017-rng.jpg?resize=640%2C360)
Dota may need been the primary to blueprint the acquainted MOBA formulation, however League of Legends has been liable for its complete explosion into the mainstream. The sport is a whole phenomenon, recording statistics that absolutely boggle the thoughts.
Final 12 months, through the 2023 League of Legends World Championship, over 6.4 million individuals across the globe tuned in to look at the finals, making it by far the most well-liked esports occasion of all time.
The one factor LoL hasn’t managed to match Dota 2 with is prize cash. Since 2016, the Worlds prize pool has fallen to simply $2.25 million, which is means under the requirements that different high esports have set. We are able to solely hope that can change sooner or later.
That does it for our record of the world’s hottest esports! Keep tuned to Twinfinite for all the most recent gaming information and guides, and make sure to take a look at the associated articles we listed under.