New dawn, long shadows

Esports is stable again, but a new benefactor puts devs, teams and fans in a moral quandary

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The story within videogames is that esports is on the rise. Or at least that's been the narrative line for the past decade, helped along by gold-rush tales of six-figure crowd sizes and teenagers winning millions of dollars for outplaying other competitors. But after its initial boom, and then the dizzying highs of the COVID era, when everyone was stuck at home and needed something to watch, commercial competitive gaming has been hit with significant setbacks.

Major teams such as 100 Thieves and SoloMid have been downsized. The Overwatch League has collapsed. As big-name partners have successively backed out, the entire esports world has been hit with a realisation: you can’t prop all this up on sponsorship deals alone. There have to be other, better ways of making esports make money.