What Can Anime eSports Developers Learn From CS:GO? Posted Apr 17, 2020
The eSports industry is growing rapidly and, according to https://www.businessinsider.com/esports-ecosystem-market-report, it will be worth $1.8 billion by 2022.
Up to now, anime themes and stylization have failed to earn much representation in the competitive gaming scene. To counter this, companies choosing to develop anime-style video games should look to the success of the sector’s giants for inspiration about how to make it to the top.
Undoubtedly, one of the most enduring and popular titles in the eSports industry remains Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. But how did the game, which was developed by Valve and Hidden Path Entertainment, become the biggest eSport in the world?
The Counter-Strike franchise has been around since 2000 and is one of the best known first-person shooters on the market. In 2012, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive was released, using the popularity of the previous entries in the series as a springboard for success. This version of the game was released at just the right time, in conjunction with the emergence of competitive gaming as a viable industry. In fact, it became known as one of the first global eSports. In the eight years since its release, the iconic title has stayed at the forefront of eSports and set the benchmark for others to follow.
In terms of viewing figures, no other game comes close to CS:GO for eSports hours on Twitch. CS:GO has been watched for a total of 20.3 million hours on the platform, with second-place League of Legends accruing 10.3 million eSports viewing hours, all according to https://newzoo.com/insights/rankings/top-games-twitch/.
It is also one of the most popular options among eSports bettors, as there are regular games to stake money on. According to https://vulkanbet.com/en/counter-strike, the game has some of the most varied betting markets of all eSports. Bettors can choose to stake on anything from the match winner to the correct map score. This means that there is a lot of careful thought that goes into betting on the game.
One of the main reasons why CS:GO has been so successful as a competitive gaming title is because it is highly skill based. Players are able to practice and master the game in the same way an athlete would go through years of rigorous training to get to the top in sport. There is little that comes down to chance, and players are rarely at the mercy of RNG. This makes it viable as a betting sport and sets a goal for other eSports to aspire to.
Anime has been hugely successful in the gaming industry in the past, with Pokémon perhaps being the most obvious example. Games like Final Fantasy and Valkyrie Chronicles have clearly taken inspiration from anime, and they are among the most popular franchises in history.
However, there are few anime-styled offerings of note in the eSports industry as of yet. An anime game developer could try to follow the path of CS:GO in an effort to break into the eSports scene. The key is to create a game which is predominantly skill-based and encourages cooperative gameplay while allowing for a variety of betting markets seems to help, too.