If you are interested in Esports marketing you would probably agree Esports is a broad terminology. Most people who are not into games think of Esports as one single sport but we all know different genres or games have much more different entertainment value in the eyes of gamers.
So this week I wanted to check, which titles had the best year in terms of esports viewership and the best place to do it is Esports Charts.
TLDR: Shooters are gaining viewership while MOBA is declining
#5- VALORANT
It’s not surprising Riot made a great move with Valorant. The game had 283M Hours Watched, with a +32.9% increase from last year. Also as a Turkish esports fan, I’m proud to see Valorant Champions Istanbul hit 1.5M Peak viewers.
If Valorant continues with this speed we can see by 2025 Valorant esports viewership can surpass CS:GO. Who knows maybe even earlier…
#4- Dota 2
2022 was not the best year for MOBA in general. Dota was able to hit 313M hours watched but this is 10% lower than last year. Also as a hardcore Dota noob, it’s sad to see while Valve making $ 293M from battle pass sales TI11 prize pool was only $ 18M which is much lower than $ 40M in 2021. For the last 10 years of TI history, every year’s prize pool was bigger than the previous year but this is just not the case anymore. Maybe Valve saw Riot is only putting $ 2.5M as a prize pool for Worlds and thinks it’s better to keep the profit.
#3- Mobile Legends: Bang Bang
Mobile Legends is the undisputed mobile title showing all of us what will be the future of esports. I don’t believe the major esports titles will die soon but mobile titles will be taking their places in terms of the ability to create attention in young generations.
Obviously, all mobile titles had a slight drop in viewership this year due to the ban in India but Mobile Legends was able to hit 2.8M peak viewers and 331M hours watched which is 14% lower than in 2021
#2- CS:GO
CS:GO hit 448M hours watched (+8.5% vs 2021) with 2.1M peaks. The strength of CS:GO comes from having multiple high-quality tournaments around the world. Especially this year PGL Major Antwerp was the best one with 2.1M peak viewers while IEM Rio, IEM Cologne, and IEM Katowice were all above +1M peak viewers.
#1- League of Legends
For years now League of Legends is still number one when it comes to esports viewership. The title was able to hit 617M hours watch and a new record of 5.1M peak viewers. Even though the total hours watched was 7% lower than last year, the increase in peak viewers from 4 million in 2021 to 5.1M in 2022 was something not to miss. It looks like until Valorant takes its stage League of Legends will be the number one esports for fans.
