The global Esports or professional video gaming industry, has not stopped growing and amassing more and more popularity and revenue as time goes by. From entertainment media sources and tech-driven media outlets to even sports betting news sites, everyone nowadays talks about Esports. Ever since its true emergence in the early 2000s, the idea of making a living, and a pretty substantial one if I may say so, from playing video games professionally for a living has gone from being something out of opium fantasies to actual reality and achievable goal.
The overwhelming effect that Esports have had on society has gone as far as for the discipline of pro video gaming to be taken into account in the upcoming 2022 Asia Games, a competition moderated by the Olympic Council of Asia and which award medals on eight different video gaming titles in which different Asian Esports gamers will compete on. With all this said, and given the vast popularity that some of the most important Esports gaming titles hold, here we bring you our picks for the top Esports games that will continue to rule the pro gaming world in 2022.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Don’t even try to pretend like you’ve never played or at least heard of Counter Strike. Originally designed and put into the world for Windows in 1999 under the name Counter-Strike, the game was supposed to be a spin-off mod of an earlier game called Half-Life. But after some legal turmoil between the game’s designers and Valve, the developing company of the franchise, Counter Strike started its journey to becoming one of them, if not the most popular first-person competitive shooting game in the world of video games. Their simple scheme of having two teams, one of the terrorists battling to commit their specific crimes like bombings, assassinations, and kidnappings and another of counter-terrorists looking to prevent all this from happening, has been a hit all around. With Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, also known as, CS: GO, Valve put their mark in the Esports scene without any real plans of giving up their top spot at the table any time soon.
The game has a following of about 20 million players playing online globally, with those numbers in a constant increase, despite competition from other worthy gaming titles. While there are plenty of international CS: GO competitions around the world, their biggest tournament, “Counter Strike: Global Offensive Major Championships” is the biggest tournament out there for CS fans with cash prizes rounding the million dollar marks.
Fortnite
I can honestly say that video gaming enthusiasts must find it hard to remember what the world of pro gaming was like before Fortnite came around. While it’s been with us since 2017, no other game around has had the cultural and social effect that Fortnite has had on the world, with its rise to favoritism amongst fans almost reaching the speed of light. With games inside the game like Save the World, Creative, and Battle Royale, this third-person shooter game offers anyone and everyone a perfect style of playing to get down to and get immersed in for hours on in.
The game, which allows players to basically select, customize and build anything and everything they want about their character, his or her weapons and the fortifications they construct along their way has become a cult-favorite with Fortnite tournaments and competitions flourishing around everywhere almost from the beginning of the game’s run in the world of Esports. Given how straightforward it is to play, fans continuously flock to it, with the Fortnite World Cup becoming one of the most important Esports tournaments in the world since its creation in 2019 and with Epic Games, the major sponsor of the competition spending upwards of 100 million dollars per tournament for it to run as smooth as possible.
League Of Legends
If there is one thing that’s completely true about Esports, it’s that it will always be hard to compete against a true and proud classic, and League of Legends is just that, a classic multiplayer online battle arena game that has always held the highest standings when it comes to Esports gaming. Developed back in 2009 by Riot games, time doesn’t seem to do anything to LOL as it’s still considered one of the absolute best games for Esports purposes out there, without regards to newer but yet similar games showing up along the way.
One could easily argue that League of Legends holds the title of being one of Esports OG’s, with their tournaments and official competitions being some of the oldest yet most important and popular gaming competitions around the world to this day. The Large International Tournament League of Legends World Championship, considered as the pinnacle of all LOL related competitions in the world continues to be a favorite for gaming fans all over the world as well as general sports enthusiasts, with prize money for the winning teams ranging upwards of over 2 million dollars per year. LOL just goes to prove that while innovation is key, sometimes you can’t beat a classic.
