The eSport games of the future

As a huge eSports enthusiast, I have previously written about what makes a successful eSports game. As you may or may not know, the industry for competitive video games is constantly growing and there are nowadays a huge number of different eSport games that competitions with hundred and even million dollar prize pools take part in. As much as it’s interesting knowing what factors determine the success of an eSport game, there’s another thing that sparks my interest even more; what are the eSport games of the future?

We live in a highly technological era where new advancements in technology are increasing exponentially. From the creation of one of the first video games Pong and Spacewars, it took about 25 years until we reached somewhat realistic graphics on Playstation 1. This was however still a time where pixels were obviously seen in the games. Since then about 20 years have passed and nowadays we find games that are sometimes hard to tell from reality due to their amazing graphic engines. We’re also about to enter a world where gaming is combined with the actual reality through new technology such as AR (Augmented reality). 

There is more to expect from the MOBA genre

If we look at the timeline of modern eSports, first person shooter games were by far the most popular genre from the late 90’s up until 2009. It started off with Quake that got released in 1996 and then Counter-Strike took over the show in 1999. For many years Counter-Strike was the icon of professional video gaming and yet today it’s a very big part of the industry.

In 2009 the company Riot Games did however release League of Legends, which was considered the first standalone game in the MOBA genre. This took the eSport and gaming industry by storm as it quickly became the most played game ever. Since then several other MOBAs have been released, such as Heroes of the Storm, Heroes of Newerth and Dota 2 – the game that offers the highest prize pools in competitive video gaming with more than $24 million offered in the world championship. 

We’ve also witnessed the MOBA genre merge with FPS in games such as Team Fortress 2 and the popular Overwatch, which is a game showing a revolutionary future in eSports. Just recently the MOBA genre has made it big on mobile devices with the release of King of Glory. This game is currently mainly being played in China, but already has 50 million unique players a day and competitive tournaments held for it. 

The MOBA genre has proven itself to produce the most popular type of games ever and we can therefore count on more of these being released in the future. It may not be pure MOBAs as it’s tough to compete with those that have already been released, but we will certainly see the MOBA genre being combined with other genres, such as fighting, sports and racing. 

Sport and racing games as a result of Olympic eSports

There has recently been a lot of talk of eSports making it as an Olympic event. As much as this may seem like a farfetched reality, some people in the Olympic bid committee have shown positive responses towards it. Tony Estanguet who is the co-president of the Paris committee has promised to bring up the topic of eSports possibly being a part of the summer games in 2024. 

The president of IOC (the international Olympic committee) has however made it very clear that no violent games will ever be a part of the Olympics. This means that the FPS, MOBA, RTS and fighting genre could never make it as they all have components of violence in them. We can therefore expect that the first eSport game in the Olympics will either belong to the sports or racing genre. 

As it would mean a huge deal for a game developer to have their game featured in the Olympics, we can probably expect to see more games like FIFA and Rocket League being developed with eSports in mind in the future. It may even be that racing competitions will take place with simulator equipment that we find in arcade halls. That is games that are being played with a wheel, pedals and gear stick. 

The rise of AR and VR

What may be the most interesting factor of future eSport games is the rise of Augmented and Virtual reality. Although the technology already exists today, it’s far from a flawless one. The creator of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg has however invested billions in the VR technology and believes that this will be popular amongst the public within 5-10 years. 

With AR and VR predicted to become popular, we can definitely expect that a lot of future eSports will take place with this technology. While VR only changes our perception of the games, AR is bringing the games into the actual reality. 

An example of AR is Google glasses, which is a device that looks just like a pair of glasses. However, by just speaking you’re able to active a GPS and other features that will appear in front of your eyes as a layer of the actual reality. Imagine looking at a piece of chicken in the food store and getting information about calories and nutritional values right in front of your eyes. Now imagine this technology applied to games.

The technology is still in its early phase and exactly how this will be implemented on future eSport games is hard to tell, but it definitely opens up for some interesting ideas. You could for instance have a tennis match in reality, but with a computer generated ball and special abilities that can be activated, such as a power boost to your smash. You could also activate ultimate abilities that will slow down the ball for an easier hit. You could also play out an FPS game in real life, similar to how Paintball is being played. However, you would have computer generated bullets, which you could add effects to such as a scattershot. You could also have a scoreboard visible and see health bars on players. 

Augmented reality is a technology that could close the gap between traditional sports and eSports, which could mean a great deal for the eSport industry. 

Please feel free to comment what you believe could be the future of eSport games and discuss what possibilities there are with the technology of AR.