Esports: A Real Sensation for Spectators
Competitive gaming or eSports have come a long way since the Space Invaders tournament, back in 1980. Having once been considered a small enterprise, have proven to sell out arenas and make millions of dollars every year. We have been wondering how is the eSports industry getting bigger and richer by the minute, so we’ve taken a closer look at the numbers shown in the infographics dealing with this matter, put together by NJGames.
Over the last few years, streaming has played a significant role in eSports’ explosive growth as a new form of entertainment. Twitch and eSports have been closely related for almost a decade, and Twitch has become the platform for every major eSports tournament. However, in 2014, Amazon had raised a lot of eyebrows when it bought the Twitch streaming service for $970 million in cash. With the acquisition of Twitch, Amazon now has a huge competitive edge over its competition – Facebook, Google, and the like.
By obtaining Twitch, Amazon has now become the streaming media powerhouse as Twitch media accounts for 43% of all live-video streaming traffic, which is far more than anyone else. Furthermore, Twitch nowadays accounts for 1.8% of the total Internet traffic, only behind Google, Netflix, and Apple, and ahead of Valve, Facebook and Hulu. The platform that accumulated more than 8 million users during its opening month is now the world’s leading social video service with 55 million users worldwide.
The estimates show that about 7.58% of Twitch users spend more than 20 hours a week watching gamers play their favorite games. In 2017, the most popular game on Twitch was League of Legends, attracting 274,7 million viewers throughout the year. In the same year, Counter-Strike Global Offensive and DOTA 2 were broadcast to more than 440 million users combined, while Starcraft II managed to amass 95.5 million viewers.
eSports games attract billions of users worldwide and the fact that the cash flow in this industry is substantial and that it’s growing fast by the minute shouldn’t surprise anyone. If you want to find out more about the rise of eSports as a spectator phenomenon, keep on reading the infographic below.
