It's that time again. From August 8–13 2016 all eyes in the world of eSports were on the KeyArena in Seattle. The annual DotA 2 championship cup isn't only of interest to eSport or MOBA enthusiasts though. Sport trend analysts and mobile game analysts alike were tuned in to this major event as an indicator of emerging markets and evolving trends in the video game business. In a nutshell, video games are a huge business and they are filling professional sports stadiums with spectators eager to watch these digital battles take place live and in-person. It's only a matter of time until a mobile game makes significant in-roads into this rapidly developing sector of the professional sporting world.
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The International 6 (aka: Ti6) is a major event. Like the World Series, the America's Cup, the US Open or the Super Bowl, Ti6 is one of the biggest championship events in the world of video games. The best DotA 2 teams from around the world were poised in front of their computer screens in a large stadium, battling virtual opponents in a fast paced Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) for a community-funded prize pool that sits at over 20 million U.S. dollars.
As impressive (or surprising, depending on how much you know about eSports) this may be, it's further proof that there is a viable and highly profitable market that's being built around pro-level eSport franchises. And it's not just DotA 2. League of Legends, Counter Strike: Go, and newcomer Overwatch are all managing to draw crowds while comfortably supporting players, developers, and sponsors alike.
The fact of the matter, however, is that there is no mobile game that has quite captured the same spotlight, or generated the same revenue as the above mentioned PC and console games have. Games like Vainglory, Clash Royale and Modern Combat: Blackout have all made their mark on the mobile eSport market, but none with the success that we see of games within the PC and Console communities.
This will change, and sooner than later, I'd reckon. Already the relatively new game, Vainglory, has offered hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash prizes for various tournaments over the past years, with more championship series slated to come, especially now that they have game streaming platform Twitch and online mega-store Amazon as some of their biggest sponsors. Vainglory is also unique among other mobile eSports in that it's the only mobile game that has had major, professional, internationally renowned eSports franchises such as TSM and Mousesports, flocking to the Fold.
One thing I feel fairly certain of is this; at some point in the not-too-distant future—perhaps within as little as six years—we will see a mobile game (maybe Vainglory, maybe a different, as yet unknown title) enter the professional eSport scene and draw crowds of players and spectators on par with the best of the console and PC titles. I know that mobile developers are looking closely at the growing success and profits of the annual International DotA 2 Championship, with the keen awareness that mobile games have already surpassed PC and console games in many areas of the overall video game market. People are already spending more time playing games on their mobile devices than on other gaming devices, it's just a matter of time until the mobile market finds a game that generates the kind of huge international following and highly competitive gameplay that something like Counter Strike or Overwatch generates. Who knows? It could even be a game that fuses the augmented reality experience of a game like Ingress or Pokémon Go with the strategic, real-time, capture-the-flag elements of games like DotA or LoL. Then it would involve both athletic prowess with virtual-world strategizing and battle tactics. Can you imagine?
