With how rapidly the gaming landscape has changed over time, it can feel difficult to keep track of what’s popular now. With technology more ubiquitous than ever, though, never has there been a better time to enter into the Esports landscape than today, given that the player base is higher than it’s ever been, and its constituent members are more variegated than ever before. So, with that being said, here’s our list of the biggest Esports games ever gamer should know.
Gamers always believe that an epic win is possible and that it’s always worth trying, and trying now. Gamers don’t sit around. Jane McGonigal
Most played: The Biggest Esports Games Of 2024
Dota 2
The first game on our list is Dota 2, and it’s a big one, though it doesn’t tend to appear in mainstream gaming news networks too much as it doesn’t – relative to some of the other games on this list – draw too much controversy. Initially released in 2013, Dota 2 is what’s known as a MOBA.
“MOBA” stands for “multiplayer online battle arena”, and it does what it says on the tin: you enter an online battle arena, and, in a multiplayer context, you battle! More specifically, you attempt to take the team’s base whilst attempting to protect yours, taking out the various obstacles in your way in order to do so. MOBAs often utilize a top down view on the basis that this view allows as much information about them to be conveyed as quickly as possible, and this one is no different.
If you enjoy the idea of being part of one of two teams, battling for supremacy, then MOBAs will be your cup of tea, so the only thing left to do is differentiate between the various MOBAs available. The best thing about DOTA 2 – is that every “hero” is available to you from the jump, free of charge!
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive 2
Counter-Strike 2 is a recent release – the most recent of our list, having released in 2023 – and replaced CS:GO outright in the sense that the latter was recently deleted from the Steam store. Counter-Strike is a tactical shooter that uses a first-person point of view, and you’ll play as a part of one of two teams: the Terrorists, or the Counter-Terrorists. It is currently at the top of Steam’s “most played” list, so choosing to play it would represent becoming a part of a large and thriving community, and represents the quality that Valve – the game’s developer – have come to be known for over time.
Fortnite
Fortnite – potentially more than any other game on this list – is perfect for people with low attention spans, as it is a game that prides itself on its state of constant evolution: just recently, the game integrated what is essentially a “Minecraft mode” in the form of LEGO Fortnite.
They integrated Fortnite Festival, which harkens back to Rock Band and Guitar Hero from way back in the day, allowing you to simulate being in a band alongside your friends; and they also integrated Fortnite Rocket Racing, and utilises a similar “boost” system to Rocket League. All of which is to say that Fortnite is a game that isn’t afraid to adapt and evolve, and their in-game mechanics can undergo massive overhauls from season-to-season.
In an attention-based economy, this might be one of their biggest strengths, but, for people with a limited amount of time with which to play games, the magnitude of some of the overhauls might prove daunting on a season-to-season basis. Its core formula is the same as it’s always been though – a Battle Royale that is a perfect combination of combat and crafting – and, if that sounds appealing, there’s never been a better time to jump in.
League of Legends
Released in 2009 by Riot Games, League of Legends was not the first MOBA – that honor actually goes to Aeon of Strife, a custom map of Starcraft that released in 2002 – but feels like the first MOBA to have had such massive culture significance
League of Legends, like Dota 2, is a MOBA, but might generally be considered to be a better entry-point for new players than Data 2 on the basis that it is generally considered to be less complex, for the following reasons:
1) You cannot kill your own minions in order to deny the enemy;
2) There are fewer complex mechanics in general, and;
3) There are more characters that you can play in LoL, meaning that there’s a greater probability that you find one that works for you.
LoL is incredibly popular, and extremely fun to discuss with friends, so definitely give this one a go!
Starcraft II
Having just mentioned Starcraft within the context of its custom map, Aeon of Strife, it seems fitting to touch upon Starcraft II next, its popular successor that released in 2010. A real-time strategy game – again with a top down view – Starcraft II is known to be a game whose top players boast insanely high APMs (actions per minute).
Starcraft II is a real-time strategy game developed by Blizzard, and the aforementioned fact about some players’ APM within the game should indicate to you that this game is a real-time strategy game wherein intelligent actions performed rapidly will tend to cause you to triumph, meaning that this game has a high skill ceiling. This one is not for the faint of heart, but is incredibly fun, and the feeling of improving within this game is incredibly satisfying.
Call of Duty
People often meme its “toxic” lobbies, this is a game that tends to get the adrenaline going as it simulates war. An FPS – short for “first-person shooter” – Call of Duty has a variety of game modes, and has the capacity to voice-chat, for better or worse. An extremely easy game to play, but an extremely difficult game to master, definitely give this one a go if you enjoy strategizing verbally in lobbies, and love the thrill that a certain kind of fear can bring!
Overwatch 2
Overwatch 2 fully replaced Overwatch at launch, which caused some amount of controversy, but is still a massively popular first-person shooter with colorful characters and striking scenery, with fast-paced action that does not feel as heart-stopping as COD’s does. Overwatch is another Blizzard release, so you can expect high quality and memorable characters.
Hearthstone
is a card game initially released in 2014, and it follows the formula of many card games whereby it releases various “expansions” every season that can be bought with real money or in-game gold.
Mechanically, it is – relative to a lot of other card games – super easy to learn. However, one of the biggest issues facing newer players when it comes to this game is that building competitive decks can take either a lot of real-world money or a lot of time. Furthermore, it has been argued that, since the departure of Ben Brode, certain facets of the game have ceased to be as simple as they used to be, catering to a higher level of player to a greater extent. That being said, Hearthstone is free to download, so you might as well give it a go!
Heroes of the Storm
Heroes of the Storm is, like our last title, a game made by Blizzard Entertainment, and is, just like LoL and Dota 2, a MOBA.
If you have played any of Blizzard’s other games before, one of the benefits playing this game offers to you is recognition, in the sense that the heroes of this game are taken from Blizzard’s other games. For example, Deathwing appears in World of Warcraft and Hearthstone, and is also a playable character within Heroes of the Storm: think of Heroes of the Storm as being a MOBA version of Super Smash Bros.
In the sense that you’re getting to enter combat using some of your favourite characters from other games, though, of course, you’re relegated to only using characters from games that Blizzard owns. Still, the feeling of recognition – and the nostalgia that it can induce – is a palpable one, and I’d definitely advocate for any fans of Blizzard games to give it a go.
Arena of Valor
Again, we have a MOBA. Arena of Valor is the MOBA on our list that released most recently – 2016, to be precise – and differs from our other MOBAs in the sense that it is not, by normal means, playable on PC: it is available on Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android, and iPad. As a result, this game might appeal more to the casual gamer – to the gamer who takes the bus to work, and wants to play a MOBA on the way on their phone – and it surging popularity is a testament to the fact that inclusive mobile games can make heaps of money for their developers.
Rocket League
One of the more famous games on this list, Rocket League is basically vehicular soccer. Initially released in 2015, Rocket League is known to be a game that is very viewer-friendly, and friendly for newer players on the basis that its goals are more obvious than something like a MOBA.
In Rocket League, there is a single ball, and your only goal is to get it into the enemy’s net. Of course there are certain strategies that increase the likelihood of success but, at its core, its a game that is easy to understand for first-time viewers: simpler even than soccer proper, given that tenuous rules like the offside-rule aren’t a factor.
Valorant (the winner of Best Esports Game at The Game Awards 2023)
Valorant is a tactical shooter, just like CS:GO 2, and won Best Esports Game at The Game Awards 2023. Released in 2020 by Riot Games – who are, if you recall, the same company that developed LoL – it evokes Overwatch, visually-speaking, and is, as fast-paced, first-person tactical shooter, adrenaline-spiking in a good way. Playable characters have unique abilities, and the vibrancy of the game design makes it, to a certain kind of person, an extremely beautiful game.
Popularity of Esports Games to Continue to Surge Forward
As society grows more and more interconnected via the internet, online games will continue to surge as forms of both connection and competition: hierarchical structures will necessarily form as long as competitive-minded people exist and, if you yourself are a competitive person, rising through the ranks of a game’s hierarchy can feel fulfilling in and of itself. After all, esports provide opportunities for people to set themselves apart from their peers – to shine; to compete; to win – and are far more inclusive than your average traditional sport, given that certain disabilities might preclude you from participating in certain sports, but might not preclude you from participating in various esports.
And, as companies pump more and more money into esports to try to get a piece of the very sizeable pie that esports represent, get ready for a new generation of incredible esports games. After all, nearly every popular esports game of 2024 have dedicated esports tournaments with massive prize money awarded to whomever exhibits the best gameplay, and popular games like League Of Legends have huge total prize totals given their team-based nature (in order that every single player that is getting a piece of the pie doesn’t feel hard done by).
What is the biggest esport game 2024?
There are a lot of valid metric that one can utilize when assessing the biggest game of any given year: “fastest-growing” is a future-facing metric, whereby one attempts to extrapolate, based upon current growth trends, which game might be the one to watch moving forward; “concurrent players” is a metric that assesses success as being a function of actual players playing simultaneously, presupposing a correlation between players playing at any given time and microtransactions bought over that same period of time; “total downloads” begins with the presupposition that the initial download is especially important, as you can’t get a “returning player” without it.
All of which is to say that there are far too many metrics to consider for me to be able to confidently assign the label of “biggest esport game 2024” to any game in particular. Future dramas might have a huge impact – one wrong move by a major developer can drive clients away, inducing them to play other Esports – and even without anything like that happening, it’s hard to say which games are “biggest” unless we apply our own subjective definition to that term.
Come December 2024, we’ll find out which esport wins at the Game Awards. Until then, ardent gamers can argue it out.
The one point gamers all hate is the point where they have to put the controller down. Reggie Fils-Aime
The Rise of Esports Betting
People have been betting on traditional sports for as long as traditional sports have existed, and it’s no surprise that the capacity to bet on esports has come to be a thing. Actually playing esports can be time-consuming, after all, for a number of reasons:
1) The time spent downloading a game in the first place is not always inconsequential;
2) The time learning the actual mechanics of a game sufficiently well for playing to be an enjoyable task can also be substantial, especially for games with many different mechanics to interact with (League of Legends, for example);
3) The time spent playing can often be long, too: sometimes, a single League of Legends game might end up going for multiple hours, meaning that certain games represent a time-sink even if you have the wherewithal to not get addicted to gaming.
Betting upon the result of esports games and tournaments, though – for example, betting for a certain team to win the world championship – requires far less time investment, and, therefore, why esports betting has continued to rise in popularity is obviously not a mystery, and betting on your favorite esports player – whomever you consider to be the greatest at the type of game you love – can feel like a kind of belief, backed up by your money.
Be careful, though: betting itself can be addictive, and ensure you research properly. Also, don’t be afraid to get specific: even if you were, for example, a Canadian that specifically wanted to use, like, “Interac” (a Canadian interbank network), googling indicates that you could use MightyTips in order to find various Interac e-transfer betting sites and compare them against one another, all of which is simply to say that there are sufficiently many sites nowadays that your specific needs are probably being catered for somewhere on the internet, so don’t settle.
Kate Richardson from MightyTips once said: “With there being so many games upon which one can bet within the esports scene as it stands, betting on games today has never been easier. Of course, MightyTips has the strength of directing you to Interac e-transfer betting sites, but don’t be afraid to search around! The fact is, games have never been more popular, and finding the right betting site for you is like finding the right game for you: it’s all about personal points of compatibility!“
Conclusion
In conclusion, there’s no doubt that esports are especially popular in today’s day and age, and there are sufficiently many of them that your specific playstyle and preferences will be catered for somewhere. Whether you end up playing one of the most popular on this list, and end up joining a vast and thriving community, or end up playing something a little more niche, it is my hope that you have an amazing time gaming among a community that you come to love, playing a game that you come to love. Happy gaming!