Over the last few decades, the industry of Esports has grown by billions of dollars in worth, starting from the days when esports “matches” were not much more than glorified LAN parties, the scene as a whole has experienced unprecedented growth. With millions of dollars on the line in every tournament, and tickets selling out for entire professional stadiums, esports has really carved out a space of its own. Many games are played competitively in this manner, but the most undoubtedly popular one would be Riot Games’ League of Legends. However, with the future looking bright for the newly released Counter-Strike: 2, could it and other games in its genre eventually surpass LoL in popularity? Today we’ll be trying to answer exactly that question, which would serve as some useful info to know for diehard esports fans, as well as other people who require in-depth knowledge of the scene, like analysts, journalists, or those who partake in online sports betting.
The current reign of League of Legends and how it came to be
Back in the early 2000s, the old yet popular game of Warcraft III had an incredibly influential community-created mod called Defense of the Ancients (DotA). The League’s development started in 2005 as a spiritual successor to this early MOBA, and development was completed with the game shipping in 2009. League of Legends isn’t referred to as a direct sequel to DotA because the developers truly weren’t aiming for that, along with the fact that Valve Corporation had shortly thereafter won the DotA name from Blizzard through a lengthy and arduous legal dispute (later releasing their own title, Dota 2, which was indeed meant as a direct sequel to the original Warcraft mod).
Over the years, League of Legends evolved into what can only be described as a cultural juggernaut. It differentiated itself by always remaining free to play, even back in 2009 when paying for your games was the standard, multiplayer or otherwise. As a result, (combined with the fact that it was always an easy-to-run game) the barrier of entry remained the lowest of any popular multiplayer game, resulting in many players who otherwise wouldn’t be interested in “giving it a shot”. Many stayed and became avid players and fans of the game, as well as the media associated with it.
Because of the sheer size of the player base, as well as the competitive nature of the game, the esports scene quickly grew into what we know today. League has many interesting tournaments, the biggest and most popular being its annual World Championship, consistently drawing in millions of concurrent viewers in its most exciting matches. Outside of the World Championship, the League also has many regional Championships, such as the LCK (Korea), LEC (Europe), and LPL (China). All of these regional leagues act as feeders into the global stage, though they’re just as fun to watch, and good places to look for who will most likely be the big new talents on the world stage. Riot Games has overall built up a considerable esports presence, being one that has dominated the scene for many years and looks to have no real sign of stopping anytime soon. Additionally, the slow-paced nature of most LoL games provides a comfortable environment for those who enjoy sports betting, with plenty of sites offering ways to do so, most prominently Stake.
This all goes without even mentioning the immense popularity of the media associated with League of Legends, with the most popular being the ever-popular Arcane TV show. Many millions of people had Arcane be their introduction to the game itself, and it helps that the show is indeed very well-written and animated. Riot Games is on a roll with how they’ve been marketing League, with the recent-ish release of Arcane Season 2 making waves just as big as when the show first hit Netflix.
While League seems absolutely unstoppable at the moment, no king rules forever, and today we’ll be looking at some candidates that could eventually dethrone League of Legends from the top spot that it currently enjoys.
Counter-Strike – a legend of its own
Currently enjoying the #2 spot, Counter-Strike: 2 has attracted an absolutely massive player base of its own, as well as a just-as-massive esports scene. Originating over two decades ago, the core formula of Counter-Strike gameplay has seemed to have been kept relatively untouched and consistent. Some have even called Counter-Strike: 2 a “soft sequel” due to the fact that it can sometimes really feel like nothing more than an engine port and high-quality reskin of its predecessor, CS:GO. Additionally, the game suffered a lot of criticism upon launch, due to its state back in 2023 only being able to be described as “half-baked”. Despite all of this, CS:2 has consistently enjoyed the second-place spot in esports popularity, as well as consistently ranking #1 in concurrent player count out of all of the games on Steam.
The thought process therefore would logically go: “If the game is #2 while being this hated, how will it perform in the future once Valve properly fixes it up and adds more content?”. Indeed, the gradual increase in popularity that this would provide, along with the fact that League is anything but a new game at this point could mean an overtaking for the top spot. However, Counter-Strike: 2 definitely has some obstacles it must overcome in order to have the best likelihood to accomplish such a feat:
- The barrier of entry: While CS:2 is technically free to play, the prime upgrade (which allows you to queue with other prime players, greatly enhancing the quality of your games) costs $14.99 USD, making for a higher bar than League’s true free-to-play nature. Additionally, Counter-Strike: 2 requires a more powerful computer to run than League does, due to being much newer and being built on a new engine.
- Lack of associated media: Counter-Strike: 2 for now stands as a game and nothing but a game. While Riot Games have done their best to turn League of Legends into an entire complex universe with characters that feel alive (further being fleshed out by the aforementioned Arcane), Valve seems to have no real aspirations to provide anything of similar value, as they rarely expand their IPs into other forms of media, nor do they do any kinds of collaborations very often. Possibly influenced by the development hell disaster that was the canceled Team Fortress 2 Adult Swim TV show, Valve has been very conservative with putting their name on anything other than the games that they directly make.
- Competition: While Counter-Strike did pioneer its own genre, it has since encountered competition, the majority of which has come from Riot Games themselves, due to the release of their direct competitor Valorant, a game that’ll be covered a lot more in-depth shortly. Regardless, Valorant has undoubtedly taken some of the market share from CS:2 and has therefore heavily contributed to Counter-Strike falling short of the #1 spot.
The steady rise of Valorant
Valorant was launched in 2020 by Riot Games and serves as their entry into the genre of 5v5 competitive twitch shooters, one pioneered by and historically comprising almost entirely of Counter-Strike. While Valorant’s core gameplay is very heavily influenced by CS, it differentiates itself via its playable characters (referred to as “agents”), each of which features its own unique abilities in order to properly shake up the game. These abilities are reminiscent of games such as Overwatch and provide a level of depth that CS cannot match.
As far as popularity in the esports scene goes, Valorant experienced its peak to date during the pandemic in which it was originally released. Many people were required to stay inside of their homes, and therefore started playing a lot more online games than they usually would. The Launch of Valorant unexpectedly perfectly coincided with this, and the game experienced an explosion of popularity in the mainstream gaming space.
What helped create this global following is the pricing of Valorant (or, lack thereof). Valorant being a free title helps with making it an obvious choice compared to CS for someone who’s not looking to spend any money in order to have a good time with their friends online. The low barrier of entry, combined with the fact that It’s slightly easier to run in comparison to CS:2 makes for a much more accessible title while attempting to boast even more game content.
Additionally, Riot Games has done an excellent job in supporting the game over the years that it’s been out. It, similar to LoL, features regional championships that feed into internationally hosted tournaments. It has therefore built a very healthy and consistent global following of players. While Valorant certainly isn’t the current favorite to take the #1 spot, it does feature distinct advantages to CS that make it stand out and provide some good competition.
Could Valorant and/or CS dethrone LoL?
While both Valorant and CS:2 are absolutely formidable challengers to the throne, trying to overtake League of Legends is what can only be described as an uphill battle. The two challengers for taking the throne being direct competitors between each other unfortunately doesn’t help either, and it seems that for the time being, League of Legends will sit at its top spot quite happily. However, the future is much more uncertain and may not be as kind to the aging LoL as it will be to its main competitors in the esports space (one could argue that even Riot Games knows this, which is why they’re investing into making more games to begin with, though that is, of course, nothing but speculation).
As for a prediction on how the future could unfold, one bold prediction could be a slow decline of Riot’s entire video game empire. LoL is itself a very old title and will be on the decline at some point after spending as much time as it has at the top. What goes up, must come down, and CS:2 would be right there to fill its shoes. Valorant, while still holding the #3 spot isn’t as popular as it was a few years ago, making the future slightly uncertain. Many argue that while CS:2 technically has less depth as a game, what is there is much more polished and of greater quality than Riot’s FPS offering. Indeed, this translates into CS:2 enjoying over twice the average concurrent viewership in official live streams of esports tournaments, in comparison to Valorant. Whether Valorant can do enough to keep players coming back remains up to Riot Games, though one must remember that they are masters at properly advertising the media that they create. Still, assuming the aforementioned scenario, the result would be a future, more polished, and more content-filled Counter-Strike:2 enjoying the top spot by far, with #2 and #3 being Riot’s own two esports titles. Despite the fact that this is considered a worst-case scenario for Riot, they would still own a sizable chunk of the entire market share of esports, which really speaks volumes about how influential the media that they create truly is.
We must, however, recognize that Valve is Valve. They are a company notorious for taking forever to add anything new to their catalog. However, when they finally do get around to releasing something new, it’s usually groundbreaking and sets a huge precedent in its entire genre. The phenomenon has been coined as “Valve time”, due to the fact that they’re the only AAA studio that is this slow and reclusive with their projects and everything related to them. Assuming that Valve stays down the path that they’re going, the most likely scenario would be exactly nothing changing. While this is a really boring answer, it’s the most likely one for the foreseeable future, with CS:2 enjoying its 2nd place spot quite comfortably, and LoL remaining the king for many years to come.
