If you are either a pc, console or mobile gamer, you probably heard of esports. It is where professional players from all over the world compete against each other to win a huge sum of money. Most of the esports games include different genres like MOBA, first-person shooter, racing, and strategy. There are multiplestreaming platforms such as Twitch, Youtube and Facebook where you can watch other pro players showcase their skills to the audience.
Now, mobile esports are starting to get even popular than ever. In China, there are some mobile esports games that havemore viewers than League Of Legends. The question is though, which are the mobile games that have already perform very well as an Esport? Here are the top 8 mobile Esports games that you should be interested in.
Vainglory
Vainglory is a MOBA game where you can either play in 3v3 or the new 5v5 where the objective is to destroy the opponent’s team base. Each hero has its own set of abilities and recommended items to purchase at the shop. There are also towers, jungle monsters and special monsters like the Kraken where killing it gives a huge advantage for your team. The 3D graphics are very smooth, the hero animations are great and the gameplay is very intense.
In 2016, the Vainglory World Championship has one of the biggest prize pool of$120 000. A year later,it has more than 100 000 concurrent viewers and more than 15 million total viewers from around the world. Main regions such as NA (North America)(Total prize money$216,009), Korea(Total prize money $185,603) and China (Total prize money $62,807) obtains the top 3 highest prize money. Right now, we do not know the current amount of players assome players have switched to other MOBA games even before the 5v5 mode was released.
Top 5 highest player earnings in Vainglory:
Ahn “druid” Hyun Joon (Phoenix Armada) – $41,507 (2015 –$1,910, 2016 –$36,930, 2017 –$2,666)
Jeong “Mango” Eu Taek (Phoenix Armada) –$36,089 (2016 –$33,422, 2017 –$2,666)
Gabe “gabevizzle” Villarin (Cloud 9) –$29,124 (2015 –$12,452, 2016 –$5,589, 2017 –$11,083)
Michael “FlashX” Valore (Team Solo Mid) –$29,110 (2016 –$25,526, 2017 –$3,583)
Hamza “IraqiZorro” Najim (GankStars) –$24,646 (2015 –$12,452, 2016 –$6,461, 2017 –$5,733)
Clash Royale
This game was used to be a 1v1 game but with the recent update, you can team up with another friend as a clan to battle against other clans. It is a real-time strategy card game where you use cards to summon different types of units on the battlefield. The objective is simple, destroy all the opponents’ towers to win the game. The gameplay and the controls are easy to learn. Each match lasts for less than 5 minutes which is great for a mobile game. It was released in 2016 globally and has generated a revenue of $1 billion in less than a year.
The Esports scene of Vainglory was very popular worldwide that it has over 100 000 concurrent viewers and over 350 000 total viewers. The biggest prize pool was$400,000 (2017 Clash Royale Crown World Championship). Main regions such as NA (Total prize money $321,004), Mexico (Total prize money $192,695), and China (Total prize money $189,576) obtains the top 3 prize money. Although is not as much compared to the other PC games, it is still a lot of money on the line. This game was actually included as a demonstration Esport during the 2018 Asian Games.
Top 5 highest player earnings in Clash Royale:
Sergi “Sergioramos:)” Ramos –$157,080 (2017 –$150,587, 2018 –$6,493)
“MusicMaster” –$90,000 (2017 –$90,000)
Jakub “Wróbelka” Wrobel –$61,787 (2018 –$61,787)
“Ming” –$59,862 (2016 –$59,862)
Frank “Surgical Goblin” Oskam –$47,977 (2016 –$2,500, 2017 –$42,677, 2018 –$2,800)
Hearthstone
With the success of World Of Warcraft, Blizzard Entertainment released Hearthstone in 2014 on the PC. It is an F2Pcollective card game where you battle against another opponent in a turn-based match. You can collect cards from either playing or using real money to buy booster packs. You can use these cards and built different decks to your liking. This game has its own meta every update where certain cards/decks are very overpowered. Many of the PC players were excited when the mobile version of Hearthstone was released as they can play this game on the go.
Even though the mobile esports scene for Hearthstone is kinda small, their prize pools are one of the topfew highest prize pools. The prize pool of theHearthstone World Championship 2017 is 1 million dollars with the winner bringing home $250 000. It has over590 000 concurrent viewers and over 8 million viewers. In 2015, the format for Hearthstone was used to be when players can bring multiple available decks. The player who ran out of available decks is the loser. But now, the format is changed to Conquest where each player chooses a deck to battle with and it will be hidden from their opponent. Each round, the deck that wins will not be played on the next round. The first player to win all his decks is the victor.
Top 5 highest player earnings in Hearthstone:
Thijs “Thijs” Molendijk –$403,589 (2014 –$13,536, 2015 –$86,525, 2016 –$86,908,2017 – $8,019, 2018 –$208,600)
Chen “tom60229” Wei Lin –$343,621 (2014 –$8,330, 2015 –$26,450, 2016 –$4,625, 2017 –$50,416, 2018 –$253,800)
Pavel “Pavel” Beltiukov –$337,048 (2015 –$4,732, 2016 –$269,607, 2017 –$59,708, 2018 –$3,000)
Zhou “Jasonzhou” Bin –$296,734 (2016 –$126,072, 2017 –$69,161, 2018 –$101,500)
– “XHope” – –$281,225 (2016 –$4,521, 2017 –$275,541, 2018 –$1,162)
PUBG Mobile
The game was released on both mobile platforms for free with the success of the PC port of Player Unknown Battlegrounds (PUBG). PUBG mobile includes features from the PC counterpart. You and 99 other players will land on an island and collect weapons, ammo, armor and other supplies to be the last remaining player standing (Chicken dinner). There are also vehicles where you can hop on them and drive to get to certain locations faster. The game has 2 maps: Erangel and Miramar, both of them are very huge. They also include Co-op where you can either team up with another random teammate/friend or with 3 other random teammates/friends to work together to get that chicken dinner.
The Esports scene for the PUBG is very huge in 2017 for the PC. Even though the PUBG mobile Esports scene has just started this year, it has been already been very popular in Asia recently. The first ever official PUBG Mobile Esports event is the Star Challenge 2018 with a prize pool of $600 000. The preliminaries will start from each of the 6 different regions fromEurope, Asia, North America, South America, Japan/Korea, and China. The top 20 teams from each region will compete in the final for the top prize of $200 000.
Mobile Legends
Most of the Southeast Asia players will say that they prefer Mobile Legends than Vainglory as it works well with budget phones and addictive gameplay. This game though has its own share of controversy like the maps and heroes copied mainly from League Of Legends. I would say that this game is still quite enjoyable to play. The animation is not as smooth as Vainglory but its core gameplay and easy controls make up for it. One cool feature of this game is that it supports built-in live streaming (Similar to Dota 2 replay). Being able to livestream your gameplay online or seeing other pros playing is pretty neat.
Many people say that this game killed the Vainglory esports scene due to its popularity. Some of the players actually came from Vainglory players. So far, there is no official worldwide tournament for Mobile Legends. There are multiple Southeast Asia tournaments from countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Malaysia. The highest prize pool for Mobile Legends currently is $100 000 (Mobile Legends Professional League 2017).It has over 500 000 total viewers from both Youtube and Facebook Livestreamduring the event.
King Of Glory/Arena Of Valor
Another game that has similar gameplay and visuals is King Of Glory. This game was made by Tencent Games, which is currently one of the biggest game companies in the world. Tencent actually approached Riot Games to produce League Of Legends into a mobile title but Riot refused. So Tencent decided to create a similar game which is currently one of the most popular downloads in China. It was so popular that it even has a Nintendo Switch release.
It is no surprise that this game was very famous for its Esports scene. With over 5 million concurrent viewers and over 17 million total viewers. It currently has the highest viewer count on the Esports mobile game scene. But it does not have an international Esports event for this game and the prize pool is not as big as the others. This game does generate a lot of revenue so it is no surprise that it will have a much bigger prize pool in the future. It was also featured in the 2018 Asian Games.
ShadowVerse
ShadowVerse is another F2P digital collective card game similar to Hearthstone. This game was made by Cygames which is famous for its Granblue Fantasy and other popular Japanese mobile games. The main difference is that it uses an anime art style for all the cards and there is not a lot of RNGoccurred. One of the special features in ShadowVerse is the ‘Evolve’ mechanic. After the fourth turn, you can ‘evolve’ a follower card which grants them 2 more bonusattack and defense. It will also activate Rush which basically has the ability to attack other followers. In 2017, ShadowVerse has generated a revenue of $100 million.
I was actually quite surprised that this game was part of the Esports scene considering there is not a lot of people watching their tournaments. Their highest prize pool, however, is massive with the champion coming home with 1 million dollars (The Contenders Cup). It consists of regional qualifiers from Pan-America, Europe and Southeast Asia & Oceania where the top 20 players will compete in Japan for the Cup. It does have its own stream on Twitch which you can click here to see the full action of the event.
Summoners War: Sky Arena
Summoners War: Sky Arena is a turn-based strategy MMO game where you can acquire monsters and use them in battles. Each monster has its own set of skills and has its own role like tank,support,attack,etc. One special feature of this game is the rune system where you can equip up to 6 runes. Each rune gives bonus stats to that monster and it can also be upgraded using mana. It has a variety of modes especially the multiplayer modes such as the Rift of Worlds (3 player Co-op) and the World Arena (Real-time PvP). This game has generated over $780 million which is a lot.
So how does this game got into Esports you might wonder? Fans of the game actually requested the developers of Summoners War to make this game into an Esport in which they did. Their Esports Youtube channel has over 5 million views. Their biggest prize pool currently is $110 000 which is the upcoming Summoners War World Arena Championship. The players who are representing are from America, Europe, and Asia. The mode that was used in the tournament is theSWC 2018 Battle which each player on each sideselects 5 monsters and ban one of the opponent’s monster before battle.
Future of Mobile Esports
Even though mobile Esports has been on an upswing in recent years, it is going to take a while to reach the target audience similar to PC Esports games. I do believe though is that there will be more multiplayer games that will be successful as an Esport in the future. Newer phones are much more powerful than before that games like PUBG mobile can be easily played at smooth frame rates. We will update the list in due time so thanks a lot for reading this article.
Charles Chan
Charles (not Xavier) is a known rage gamer who throws controllers, flip tables and bottles… But strangely, he has never smashed a smartphone before.
