It’s more than a semantic concern, however. Unlike traditional sports, it’s nearly impossible to tune in to games that you don’t play personally. For instance, I’ve never been into Overwatch , and although I understand how the gameplay works, Overwatch League is completely unenjoyable to watch. You can’t appreciate the level of difficulty that certain moves take to execute unless you’ve attempted them yourself. This rule is almost universally applied across all of esports. Unlike traditional sports, where pure athleticism can be appreciated void of any tactical or technical knowledge, esports requires a higher degree of familiarity. At best, this means that viewership rarely crosses between games. At worst, this means esports isn't viewer-friendly and may never have what it takes to reach wider audien

The game is very forgiving for players who are struggling as it rewards you regardless of how well you perform. For instance, if a player loses multiple rounds in a row they achieve a gold payout to help them win the next ro

In the beginning of the game it’s tempting to refresh the hero shop if you’re not finding heroes that you like. Gold is going to be a scarce commodity in this game and refreshing the shop costs two gold. It’s better to have back up strategies if you aren’t finding the heroes you want in the beginning rather than spend the needed g

Take Gragas’ bodyslam ability for example. It is one of these dash abilities that moves a player quickly. Except it does more in the sense that it can dash through terrain including solid rock walls. Where are the phys

DOTA2 was among the first big MOBA games out there, and sort of paved the way for titles like League of Legends . What makes it even more special is that Valve took the original DOTA , a mod of Starcraft , and made it into a clas

Imagine an esports equivalent of ESPN. ESPN works because coverage of most traditional sports is basically the same. You point a camera at the field and watch what happens while two "experts" talk about what’s going on. Esports won’t and can’t work like this. Every game is drastically different from the next, with its own graphics, mechanics, and strategies to be emplo

For instance, coverage of a battle royale is going to be drastically more complex than a game like Mortal Kombat and completely different than MOBA coverage. Asking one entity to develop the infrastructure to cover all games is quite a reach. This leaves developers in charge of covering their own events and lets them dictate how they set up tournaments, pay athletes, and cover the events. Could there ever really be a unified esports community under this system? Probably not. This means a lack of regulation, consistency, and viewership will always be an industry-wide conc

Part of the problem with esports is that there are simply too many games. There are hundreds of titles with professional leagues that award prize money, host tournaments, and stream competitions online. Each of these games and leagues has their own fans and their own way of doing thi

With Junglers seeing nerfs to the amount of experience gained from every monster camp, they are under increased pressure to play what is strong. Fortunately, even though there were nerfs to jungle overall, there are still champions that can be incredibly strong in the r

The second-half of The Flash season 5 will see Barry Allen and his fellow superheroes in Central City facing two threats; the super-powered serial-killer Cicada is still at large and the team faces an enemy within, as The Flash season 5 midseason finale revealed that Nora Allen - Flash's daughter from the future - has been working for the Reverse-Flash . It remains to be seen if she's a willing pawn or an unwitting dupe, but it seems likely this will end in tears in either c

With studios scrambling to keep up with light-speed growth, a reactive wait-and-see attitude seems like the industry-wide solution."I think it has all the tools to really go the distance and become something powerful," says Peter Guber, CEO of Mandalay Entertainment, to CNBC about the future of esports. This roughly translates to, "it looks cool, but no ones's really thought about it too hard yet." Until it becomes something more powerful, you can find me playing games instead of watching t

At the end of the day, esports is still relatively new. In the current state of things, most games are simply not worth watching. However, that may change. The most popular games will likely develop more polished ways of conducting business, acting as their own miniature industries. As a result, better coverage for games will take some time to arrive, with bigger titles leading the

For quite some time Riven has stood out for players that want to make serious outplays and really show what they can do. This patch is an excellent opportunity, as Riven is in a really good place. For tankier options, Nasus is still extremely strong. He can build very healthy while keeping a lot of damage through his stacks. Sion is nilah considered Melee the ultimate choice for a tank. His health can get to the point of him being almost unkillable and he still provides plenty of utility for the team. Top Laners should be happy with this patch because there are plenty of options available that suit every play st