Gaming has been highly controversial for years, and even now the video game addiction is still a problem, with some Fortnite players being sent to rehab for their addiction. The rapid development of the gaming industry has resulted in esports as a phenomenon and something many gamers look forward to. Now, a research and analysis by an analytics company, Newzoo, found that roughly 25% of CS:GO, Dota 2 and LoL fans are watching games just for the esports and not because they actually play the games.
The video gaming industry has rapidly expanded over the past few years. Just a few years ago, no one would have spend hours watching a streamer skim through gameplays and missions, if not solely for the tutorial and review purposes. Now millions of gamers around the world enjoy spending time watching esports competitions and CS:GO, Dota 2 and LoL are just some of the extremely popular titles for that purpose.
Now, this analytics company that shared its full results on its research, discovered that the ever-growing gaming community invests more time in cheering and watching their idols play the game and win, rather than playing the games themselves. The research focused on the most popular esports titles, some of which are the aforementioned MOBA and first-person shooter games.
The report indicates that more of the fans are becoming viewers only which means that they don’t spend as much time, or no time at all, playing those titles, preferring to watch over playing. That said, LoL had the highest percentage of viewing-only fans, at 26% compared to other games in the list, while Dota 2 and CS:GO scored with 24% and 23% respectively.
It’s worth mentioning that these games have been around for a while, which means fans of these games have lost interest in playing over time, finding it more interesting to watch these games. Fans are watching younger games like Honor of Kings mobile, Overwatch and others, although those games seem to be heading into the inevitable viewing-only death, with a total of 17% of the fan base watching the esports streams.
Also, Overwatch seems to be approaching toward the viewing-only fan audience based on this research, with the total percentage for this game being relatively close to CS:GO, Dota 2 and LoL. However, that might change with Overwatch 2 being announced earlier this month at BlizzCon. It’s still unclear when it’ll come out, although its PvE-focused content and various features that will be delivered to both versions of the game may change the fan base.
