Minecraft Breaks on to the Esports Scene
- Edit
- Report
- Delete
- Delete
Certain types of games dominate the current esports scene. Fighting games and shooters like Street Fighter and CS:GO are easy to turn into competitive esports as they are already focused on a 'winner takes all' competition.
The same applies to the current kings of esports, League of Legends (LoL) and Defence of the Ancients (DOTA). Sports games like F1 simulations and the FIFA games are also being transitioned into esports with the support of the sports teams they look to emulate.
While real-time strategy (RTS) games like Starcraft aren’t as popular as they used to be, they still command a portion of the esports scene, especially in South Korea.
While these kinds of games are currently prevalent in the esports, and the industry's predicted $3billion value by 2020, developers started looking into other types of games and the possibility of turning them competitive.
Competitive MinecraftMinecraft itself started life as a sandbox video game created by Swedish developer Markus Persson and has grown to be the best selling video game of all time, having sold 154 million copies, made $110 million, and, as of 2019, has 91 million monthly active players.
The game itself is not inherently competitive, with players interacting in a procedurally generated 3D world, filled with intentionally blocky, pixelated graphics and pulling resources from this world to create structures.
While there currently are player versus player (PVP) and survival aspects to the game, it’s a far cry from the guns, fists, and magic of the more traditional esports fare.
However, the popularity of the game is making it attractive to esports tournament developers. With 112 million players and 4.5 million hours of dedicated Minecraft Twitch streaming already having been watched, there is a huge market that could be tapped into if Minecraft was to be turned competitive.
The Minecraft community itself is very active, with a
multitude of international severs, popular forums, community events, and a strong emphasis on modding. This has led some developers to try and tap into this potentially rich source of fans and revenue.While their popularity is growing, Minecraft tournaments have yet to sufficiently break into the mainstream to attract the media attention we now associate with the much larger LOL or DOTA scenes. You won't be seeing any team sponsorships, huge prize pots or pundits talking about Minecraft when it comes to celebrating the
winners of the major Esports competitions. At least not yet.
SuperLeagueMC recently ran a 16-city tournament series called “Minecraft City Champs” in cities across the US, including Los Angeles, New York, Miami, and Dallas. While the prize for the winning of this competition wasn’t monetary, winners did get to attend a party thrown for them by Nickelodeon and there where giveaways from Super League partners.
Other tournaments have also been announced, with themes running from PVP battles and the king of the hill survival modes to parkour-style foot races, which took advantage of the creative nature of the game.
One of the more unique aspects of Minecraft being transformed into an esport is the average age of a participant. Whereas the typical age of a CS:GO or LoL player is between 18-22, the majority of competitive Minecraft teams' players tend to range from 12 down to as low as 6.
The lack of overt violence, the pixilated graphics and the game’s popularity with younger gamers have led to some developers, like Super League, to position themselves as the “Little League for esports.”
In a world where the top-end
League of Legends players earn $300,000 a year in salary, esports is big business, and Super League is looking to create a pipeline of young American gaming talent by introducing competitive gaming at an earlier age through games like Minecraft. It might take a while before the competitive spirit of the Minecraft world builders really takes off, but when it does, it's going to be something marvelous to watch!
