© Sam Churchill
With the majority of sports hugely hit by the COVID-19 pandemic over the last 18 months, including this summer's delayed Olympic Games in Tokyo, esports have remained relatively constant in comparison, as the upwards trajectory has continued in 2021.
The global industry is predicted to generate almost $1.1bn this year, and is set to be worth more than $1.6bn by the end of 2024, with plenty to excite fans in the coming years.
Here, Sports Mole rounds up five key trends to follow in the industry for the remainder of the calendar year and beyond in the future of esports alongside CasinoWow.com.
Growth of College Esports
Collegiate sports in USA continuously provide entertainment for huge viewerships, with the likes of basketball and football competitions widely covered and watched worldwide. As the pandemic forced the postponement of these competitions, more light was shone on the esports side of college competition, with players able to compete from home.With an increasing number of Universities looking to get into the new market, esports scholarships are now widely offered in a similar way to regular sports scholarships, meaning this side of the industry will only grow further as esports become more mainstream and more money is pumped into a href="https://nacesports.org/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Collegiate setups.
Rise of mobile esports
While esports are currently primarily competed on PC and console, the rapid improvement of mobile device systems allow a better playing experience than ever, leading to the development of games such as PUBG Mobile, Call Of Duty: Mobile and Mobile Legends, that have quickly taken over the market.With these devices now equipped to run more games than ever, it is only a matter of time before mobile esports truly take off, with the growing offerings providing new battlefields for players to compete on.
FaZe Clan have already established a mobile gaming team, recently adding a PUBG player to their roster, and other teams across the world are bound to follow suit as the limitations on mobile gaming continue to lessen.
Furthermore, the development of 5G software will only speed up the growth of mobile gaming, and while its effects may not be felt on a worldwide scale until 2022, the improved worldwide connection should be a huge boost for download speeds and streaming capabilities, further helping mobile platforms catch their competitors in the world of esports.
Growth of the Next Generation
In recent years, console gaming has fallen far behind in the esports industry, with PC dominating the market by offering far better gaming performance.However, with the recent releases of Sony's PlayStation 5 and Microsoft's Xbox Series X/S, the gap between console and PC has been hugely reduced, providing more reason for game developers to offer high-quality options on the new platforms.
Over time, this should certainly lead to a growth in the market share of console esports, and while they are yet to level PC in terms of performance, there is now plenty more excitement than in previous years, when the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 lagged behind by industry standards.
We would not be at all surprised to see an explosion of the Next Generation consoles in the esports industry this year and beyond, as Sony and Microsoft continue to develop their platforms to push the boundaries and narrow the gap to PC gaming.
Sony's PlayStation 5 dominated sales in 2020 and continues to be in high demand, posting unprecedented numbers, and their latest iteration could dominate for years to come as gaming experience improves with future updates.
Hitting the mainstream
Given the availability of esports while much of the world's sport has been on hold for large parts of the last two years due to the pandemic, and the growing celebrity of the world's leading gamers, this industry is set to continue its integration into the mainstream media, as it becomes more appealing to casual viewers.With players now earning millions of followers and acting as social media influencers, while celebrities such as Post Malone and Drake are entering the esports world as part of organisations, more people than ever are being exposed to the industry, and the millions of views collected on streams and competitions are only set to further push esports further out into the wider internet.
The immense growth has made watching esports much more of a common pastime for the casual fans, who may have previously not been on board with the idea in a world with constant easy-access sport, meaning the pandemic could have had an ultimate benefit on the industry as more fans than ever are tuning in alongside their preferred sports.
Virtual Reality implementation
Another huge change in the gaming world in recent years is the development of virtual reality, offering a completely new experience for players with a more immersive feel.While they are yet to truly be announced on the world stage, constant improvements to VR technology means it is only a matter of time before it is implemented into global esports, and we see a huge growth coming before the end of this calendar year, with that upwards trajectory only continuing in 2022 as the technology offers a different experience to anything else currently in an ever-changing industry.
