Gaming and eSports have come a long way. Since its humble beginnings in 1958 to mainstream adoption in the 80s, eSports and gaming have grabbed the imagination of billions of players and along with it, a massive global audience tuning in to catch live streams.
The facts and figures behind gaming and eSports are staggering, and the cultural impact PlayStation had on gaming is undeniable. Even companies like Betway are now enabling users to place bets on the outcomes of eSports.
Gaming would be a fascinating case study for cultural anthropologists. Everyone can nostalgically remember Atari, but it dates back to when William Higinbotham created a tennis game on an oscilloscope in the late 50s, and now look how far we’ve come! Gaming is no longer a pastime for boring Saturday mornings. eSports is now a multi-billion-dollar industry, and there’s big money on the line in these games. PlayStation consoles brought competitive gaming into living rooms and online communities and thereby changing the perception of gaming.
The Global eSports Marketplace
The numbers behind eSports are truly staggering. While some may scoff and say eSports are not ‘real’, the fact of the matter is that eSports are attracting the same audiences as physical sport, and along with it, the same cultures. From fans and followers to spread betting, eSports have legitimised itself. On platforms like Betway, for instance, people from Botswana can bet on the Botswana Premier League soccer matches, but only a click away is a dedicated section to eSports.
Nobody who got their first “TV Games” in the 80s could ever dream of the numbers and influence PlayStation gaming would give the world, and it has grown large enough to be covered by betting platforms like Betway.
3.2 Billion People Can’t Be Wrong
One may never have guessed it, but there are well over 3 billion active gamers. That is 40% of the global population! The audience, people who view and livestream eSports, stands at a gobsmacking 640 million people. That’s larger than the NHL and NBA. Combined.
And the eSports market size for 2024 was a mind-boggling $2.13 billion. With numbers like these and the culture that follows it, gaming and eSports can claim its space among ‘legitimate’ sports.
The Biggest Players in the Game
So, which of the range of games forms the foundation for eSports?
League of Legends still rules the roost. LoL can pull audiences larger than the Super Bowl (And that’s without the halftime show!). The grand Final between T1 and BLG drew over 190 million hours of watch time across the tournament – and that’s not counting the Chinese market.
Coming in at a respectable second is Dota 2. The 2021 prize pool for the Dota 2 world championship, The International, came in at over $40 million. While Dota 2 is losing some of its market share, it’s still one of the biggest eSports games around.
In third place, there’s Counter-Strike 2. Or CS:GO if you’re old school. It’s tactical, skills-based and unforgiving. Counter-Strike 2 is studied the way chess buffs study Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura.
The beautiful game comes in at number four, EA Sports FC. Or just “FIFA” if you’ve been playing this game since it was released in 1993, when FIFA International Soccer first hit the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis. Now a staple on PlayStation, FIFA in particular made PlayStation the console of choice for competitive football gaming.
Then there are PlayStation staples: Fortnite, Rocket League, Tekken, Streetfighter, and, of course, Call of Duty. While not as big as any of the others, even these games bring millions of audience views, and even more players.
The Growing Esports Culture
Saturday morning, summer, 1984: you were sitting on the rug and playing your video games in isolation. If you were lucky, you had a buddy who could come over and play 2-player games.
Fast forward four decades, and the evolution is startling. “TV Games” gave way to “PC Games” which gave way to online games. Dedicated consoles came along, and now, here we are, with over 500 million PlayStation consoles sold worldwide between 1994 and 2024.
And along with it, the audiences have come and made it their own. Chats on livestreams, team affiliation, side-bets, merchandise, and even corporate sponsorships, eSports is not the domain of the antisocial nerd. Quite the contrary. The professional eSports player can make quite the comfortable living from gaming. And honestly, in a market this competitive, why should they not?
What Will the Future Bring?
It is not inconceivable to think that this is just the beginning, and maybe, it is. One would be hard-pressed to see how the technology can improve. We have instant global communications and online streaming is in real time. The tech has matured, and PlayStation continually sets the benchmark for console gaming. This is great news for developers. Now, storylines, gameplay, strategies and other elements that make gaming fun to watch and fun to play can be explored.
And with this more engaging gameplay, we can expect even larger audience participation numbers and more public involvement in eSports on platforms like Betway. The future of gaming and eSports on PlayStation is looking brighter than ever.
