We have prepared a selection of the most popular esports games. Here the best gamers of the world who earn millions of US dollars collide. The same number of spectators root for their favorite teams or cybersportsmen, worry and rejoice at the victory. Everything here is like in ordinary sports and even better, because this is e-sports and the future lies with it.
Esports blooms and smells, and more and more popular projects of various genres and directions fall into the category of esports disciplines. In this article, we have collected the top esports games on PC. If you want to devote yourself and your time to the sport of the future, then read this material and choose the best game in your opinion.
DOTA 2 Popular esports games
Dota 2 does not have the largest gaming community, but the largest prizes for the World Cup. The first Dota 2 world tournament was held in 2011 . The legendary roster of the Ukrainian team NAVI became the champion of The International 2011. The prize fund of that championship was $1.6 million.
Then and now, the Dota 2 World Championships are the biggest cash draws in all of esports, and the prize pool is growing at a frenetic pace. Thus, the prize fund of The International 2017 amounted to 23 million US dollars . The winning team, in 2017 it was Team Liquid, took home an impressive $10.8 million. The silver medalist, the Newbee team, took $3.9 million. This amount is several times higher than the money that the winners of other eSports games earn in a year, or even a couple of years.
During The International 2019, a record prize pool was raffled off, already amounting to $34 million. The winner of these competitions was the OG team, the first two-time champion in history.
As with CS:GO, Dota 2 has a ton of tournaments, leagues, majors, regional and sponsored championships. The largest among them are ESL One Birmingham, MDL Changsha Major, Epicenter XL, WESG 2017, DAC and The Bucharest Major.
COUNTER-STRIKE: GLOBAL OFFENSIVE
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is one of the most popular esports games. Thanks to its long history and past games in the series, CS: GO attracts not only schoolchildren and students, but also gamers under 30 and older.
There are many tournaments, leagues and championships in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The main one is the World Electronic Sports Games. In 2017, its prize pool was US$1.5 million.
In addition to it, the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship stands out from the major championships , where half a million dollars is raffled off. Don’t forget the European esports league Electronic Sports League, SL i-League StarSeries, ELEAGUE Major and dozens of smaller sponsored leagues unblocked games 66.
At the end of 2019, the StarLadder Berlin Major 2019 tournament took place with a prize pool of $1 million, and at the beginning of January 2021, PGL announced the Major with a prize of $2 million.
In CS: GO, teams from the CIS countries often rule. The favorites are Ukrainian Natus Vincere and Russian Virtus.pro. In 2017, the Russian team Russian Forces won WESG 2017 among women.
LEAGUE OF LEGENDS
MOBA League of Legends , the brainchild of the Riot Games studio, is consider the most popular esports discipline in the world. The number of gamers, who are called “summoners” here, has long exceed 100 million people. But in terms of money that can be earn from championships and leagues, the project is significantly inferior to Dota 2 unblocked games.
In addition to the official League of Legends World Championship – the League of Legends World Championship, which has been held annually since 2011, there is a Continental League where participants are select for the World Championship.
Also read: Why You Should Motivate Children To Play Sports
The prize fund of the first World Championship was 100 thousand US dollars. In 2017, it reached $4.6 million, in 2019 it decreased to $2.2 million, and in the 2020 season, the teams competed for $2.225 million. Compared to The International in Dota 2, this is pennies, but if you take into account other eSports games, these are big money.
OVERWATCH
Action shooter Overwatch went into eSports immediately after the release. The first leagues to emerge were in Asia (APEX, OPS and OPC). The prize fund of such regional tournaments immediately amounted to 300 thousand US dollars. Then the Overwatch cham犀利士
pionships reached America and Europe. This resulted in the Major League Gaming, DreamHack, and Intel Extreme Masters tournaments. True, here the prizes are already smaller and rarely exceed 100 thousand.
In 2016, the first Overwatch World Cup, the Overwatch World Cup 2016, took place. Judging by it, South Korea became the aggressors in Overwatch. In 2017, Blizzard launched the official Overwatch League with 14 teams. The league’s total prize pool was $3.5 million. In 2019, this amount increased to $5 million, and the number of teams included in the league became 20. In 2020, tournaments were cancel for obvious reasons, but they were move to an online format.
True, in order to take part in the official championship, an esports team must buy a permanent seat. Depending on the region, its cost reaches $20 million. This scared away some of the professional teams and yet almost all the places are occupied. Notable teams in the Overwatch League include Cloud9, Immortals, Team EnVyUs, Lunatic-Hai, NRG eSports, and Misfits.
STARCRAFT II
The continuation of the cult strategy Blizzard came out back in 2010 . After the release, the game immediately hit the top of the eSports disciplines and fixed itself at the top of this list.
In 2012, the StarCraft II World Championship Series was held – a series of tournaments, the winners of which took part in the World Championship Finals. Korean gamer Lee-Sak “PartinG” Won became the first world champion in StarCraft 2. Then he took home 100 thousand US dollars.
Due to the fact that single gamers or triples play here, and not whole teams, the prize fund of the World Cup is growing weakly. The final prize for StarCraft II World Championship Finals 2018 was $500,000. In 2019, another stage of these competitions took place, but it was the last one. It was replace by the ESL Pro Tour tournament series.
In addition, the discipline hosts many regional, sponsor and continental tournaments, but the interest in the game among gamers from all over the world is gradually fading. Home StarCraft II – Asia. Here this game does not slow down, and top players are equated to stars along with actors, musicians and other celebrities.
Nevertheless, the players continue to fight for the greens – for example, at the DH SC2 Masters 2021 Summer Europe tournament, they competed for $74 thousand.
