The esports winter is something that was theorized during the golden years of esports, but one nobody assumed would come. Now that it’s here we are seeing what some are calling the Death of esports.

In the recent years we’ve seen organizations, in person events, and entire esports shut down. The venture funding has slowly dried up. There are many reasons for this, but to simplify the situation esports isn’t the money maker it was imagined to be.

Esports have had a long history, even before the influx of money and organizations. Grass root tournaments and close knit communities formed around games. This coupled with dedicated and honest gamers who genuinely loved games formed the competitive communities. From this devotement to a game came viewers, and organized tournaments followed.

From this we saw sponsors for these events, generally these were small and localized to the community. However once esport tournaments were getting serious views did the idea of esports to a wider community.

Esports was pitched as the future of sports to some, a way to get in on the gigantic markets that sports have during the earlier days. Many initially jumped at the idea. With the advertising power and market share of the Super Bowl, who wouldn’t want a piece before everyone else?

This is what game developers like Activision and Blizzard told advertisers when looking for investments for their own games esports scenes. While this is a great vision, it was heavily flawed. Incidents like these aren’t isolated to these companies, as the view counts and Ad revenue grew, shareholders took notice. 

More demands from investors, gamers, and from the esports orgs and teams. All of these are issues with regular sports and other industries, how esports is different.Advertising revenue can be constant, but esports lacks a physical drive and component. In person events are great, however the target demographic can be resistant to in person events. Not alone to mention Covid-19 and the devastating impact it had on in-person events. 

This alongside horrible mismanagement from several of the S-tier esports has caused ripples in the industry. This has caused economic instability within several of these top tier esports, and the lack of sponsors. Without them, organizations will continue to back out and move on. As without revenue there is no incentive to spend money on players, facilities, and coaches / analysts. 

Without these crucial aspects, the level of competition drops and viewers shy away from the esport. This is one of the final nails in an esports coffin. It’s sad to see an esport slowly die away, all from mismanagement and lack of help from the developers. Many fantastic games like Overwatch, Call of Duty, and as previously mentioned Apex legends. All of these games are fantastic, and have amazing fans and great commentators, players, and coaches. 

However due to poor balancing, bad anti-cheat, and just the lack of care on the developers side these games have regressed significantly. 

So what do we do? Are all esports bound to die? Is every game doomed to fall to corporate greed? I think not, and I’ll explain why…

While greed and the aim to make money is integral and natural for a game to aim for, it can’t consume or affect the gameplay. This is something that I feel Rainbow Six Siege follows. If you recall our last post we talked about how siege was one of the most viewed tournaments. Siege has a way of bringing people together, the gameplay loop is satisfying and has room for innovative and expressive style. 

However I feel that what they do best is listen. Ubisoft is typically hard in their ways and out monetization first inthere games. Siege puts the game and the state of the game first. The developers have a quick pulse on the life of the game, and are willing to make changes. 

Siege was close to dyeing several times, and only by asking the community were they able to fix competitive problems. This was called “Operation Health” and was aimed to overhaul the things players hated and implement ways to hopefully make the players happy. 

This worked and has been done once more in siege, and it’s a great example of good developers who care about the players. Not many esports or game developers can claim to actually listen and care about them. 

So is the esport winter coming? Yes absolutely. Esports will come back, and better than ever. Nothing that is as honest and impactful on so many people can just disappear. However I think during this winter we will find out what developers understand there games and their player base. 

However the only way we can stay warm is to be together. The communities and developers who are closer and understand each other will last this bitter cold. And will blossom in the spring