[someexgamedev]

Often viewers are incentivized to watch the tournament, by being offered exclusive cosmetic items in game or some premium currency for the game. This makes the view counts artificially inflated by people just looking for the handout. But the esports coordinator gets to flex the big viewer number as if it were organic.

Also esports competitors skew young because league participation means you are taking 3-6 months off work to earn below minimum wage. These young players are often delaying college educations to compete. You may mistake their hunger for competitive spirit, but they're actually just hungry. Watch their streams in the off-season and listen to them dread the return to the "gaming house" and its frequency of ramen meals.

[forrestthewoods]

Professional sports do tons of promotions all the time. Bobble head night! Deeply discounted multi-game packs. Twice a year the Mariners do “bark at the park” and you can take your dog into the stadium. It’s great fun.

[Semaphor]

That's different though because you actually have to go and pay the entrance fee. With esports you can just keep the stream running in the background, you can usually even mute it.

The Elder Scrolls Legends (TESL) had "drops", watching streamers play the game would give you in-game benefits. To the surprise of nobody, even small streamers (as long as they promised to host another TESL streamer afterward) had hundreds of viewers. Very, very quiet viewers who would not write in chat even once. Rebroadcasts became a thing with the biggest TESL streamer simply showing the same once recorded game-play over and over again. Because no one had to make any effort or pay to watch the stream.

[de_watcher]

There is also a very similar thing that we have in sports: betting.

Independent sites exist for esports betting. In Dota 2 there is also betting on pro games with the in-game shards that are earned only by playing (if the player is subscribed to this program with a fixed fee).

[libertine]

> Often viewers are incentivized to watch the tournament, by being offered exclusive cosmetic items in game or some premium currency for the game. This makes the view counts artificially inflated by people just looking for the handout. But the esports coordinator gets to flex the big viewer number as if it were organic.

Precisely.

Just to give you a quick example - since time shifting came into play for TV consumption, the perceived value of TV advertising campaigns decreased (though I don't think it became cheaper, but I think that's for other reasons) - except for live sports events. That's a premium in a world where people can see content on their own terms, and where our attention is constantly shifting attention between screens.

Live sports events is the only time we're comfortable assuming that a huge audience has their attention retained in the TV screen.

It's a emotional thing, a social thing, and truth be told, it's the most spoiled type of content even few seconds after major in-game events. Everyone wants to see it in real time.

There's no need to give any incentive for this behavior. Hell there's a whole sales event surrounding it (beers, snacks, etc, thrive on such events).

Now, there are people who act the same way for esports... but like you said, if they need to inflate those numbers, something is not triggering it the right way, or maybe it simply doesn't have what it takes yet.

Constant meta changes, forced metas by developers, grinding, balance issues, boring (but effective) strategies, predictable outcomes, a lot of small things that off put their highest potential audience - the players. If they can't retain their attention, it will be difficult to do it for anyone else.

[mrguyorama]

>Constant meta changes, forced metas by developers, grinding, balance issues, boring (but effective) strategies, predictable outcomes, a lot of small things that off put their highest potential audience - the players. If they can't retain their attention, it will be difficult to do it for anyone else.

I'm not convinced. The NFL has all of these, and it's still huge. The one important thing e-sports lacks is tradition and culture. "Everyone" watches the superbowl. "My family grew up watching football/playing in high school"

This is all stuff that took 100 years to organically come together, though maybe it really only got big the past 40ish, I'm not sure.

[libertine]

Well let me try to convince you precisely by grabbing the time span context when it comes to meta changes.

My main reference is football (or soccer) since I'm European, but I think it's safe to say that all major sports evolved throughout the years.

Yet these changes aren't "every new season changes", neither are "current season" changes, and that's what's happening in these games. Simple patches throughout the seasons that are game changers.

They are done for the sake of balance or entertainment, but it impact of even minor changes sometimes it's enough to be exploited.

Tradition and culture takes a long time to build, and maybe we underestimate the stability it's required within the game itself.

I bet that if you played one of the most played MOBAS and if you came to play, or watch, the game 6 month or even 1 year later, you would find that the game changed are you have a hard time trying to grasp the "what" and the "whys" without reading patch-notes.

I can also bet you the core of football(soccer) hasn't changed since I was playing it during school breaks 20 years ago. I can grab a ball and play, or watch a game, and there's a common understanding of the game.

Maybe it's the simplicity of sports, maybe it's the limits of human condition, that make the games stable enough during long periods of time so that small communities start to play it and grow from there.

You will never hear anyone say "oh "the sport X" from the season of 1998 was when it was at it's best, fun to watch and play!" , yet that's a common theme on a lot of e sport games "oh the game was way funnier/balanced/etc on season X".

Maybe it's too hard to claim, that some soccer team from 1979 would beat a current team 2019, because the game indeed changed and that would weight a lot. But you can easily claim a team from 1999 would beat a team from 2019, because the game didn't change that much in that time window - training and conditioning changed with tech, but the game itself, didn't change that much.

[gameswithgo]

Paragraph 2 sounds exactly like any normal athletic sport until (if!) you make it to the big time, if your sport has one, and most don't.