Mobile tournaments are massive in China, South Korea, India, and Southeast Asia, and are gaining prominence in Europe and North America.
From first-person shooters to card and strategy games there is something for everyone to watch or play.
The most popular mobile esports games
Some games like PUBG Mobile are mobile versions of current games, while others are original games that take advantage of the gameplay experience you can only get on mobile. PUBG Mobile is one of the most famous games, and its most recent tournament – the Global Championships tournament promises to help it grow even more. Arena of Valor, Free Fire, and Clash Royale also command huge audiences with big prizes for the victors.
Newcomers to the industry may think of Fortnite, PUBG, or Call of Duty when they think of mobile esports, it is more accurate to say that these games are mobile versions of wildly popular PC based esports. Aside from PUBG, they haven’t had anywhere near the same effect on the mobile scene as they do on PC esports.
Wild Rift was released in October 2020 so it is still a young title, but it is gaining a lot of popularity. That is to be expected given that it is a mobile edition of one of the most successful competitive games of all time – League of Legends.
What about Fortnite?
Mobile esports recently made headlines when Fortnite was banned from both the Apple and Android app stores due to Epic’s litigation with Apple and Google. While it is one of the most well-known videogames in the world, there are lots of mobile games that are bigger in esports circles.
It is possible for Smartphone Fortnite players to participate in and win big in full-scale Fortnite tournaments, but since they are cross-platform and PC or console players have an advantage they rarely manage to triumph.
If you want to keep track of Mobile esports then escharts.com is the destination for you.
So… should I give up my day job?
The good news is that, yes, there are some huge prizes in eSports, even for mobile games. The bad news is that it’s really really hard.
If you fancy a go then why not spend some time looking into the eSports community and entering a few tournaments. Just don’t quit your day job just yet…