We've already seen PUBG and CS:GO players in India make a ton of money competing at a professional level, and the same goes for Fortnite.
But Dota 2 just outshone everyone, with players snagging a prize bigger than sports that have been around decades.
Getty Images
At Valve's official Dota 2 global tournament, The International, OG won for the second year in a row, making them the first team to win back-to-back iterations of the gaming tournament. As such, they pulled in a whopping $15,603,133 as a cash prize, or almost Rs 112 crore. That's from a larger prize pool of $34,292,599.
That's the largest prize in esports history, and probably the largest individual sum ever that's gone to each of the five players.
As esports consultant Rod Breslau points out, each player on OG received a cool $3.1 million. To compare, Wimbledon singles champs Novak Djokovic and Simona Halep each took took home $2.9 million at the tennis tournament this year. Tiger Woods pulled in just $2.07 million at the 2019 Masters.?
Both of those are dwarfed by the earnings of this year's Fortnite winner 16-year-old Kyle "Bugha" Giersdorf, who raked in $3 million. And yet OG's individual winnings top that too. Even the second place winners, Team Liquid, pulled in $4,458,038, so about 892,000 per person (Rs 6.39 crore).
Tennis and golf fans would probably both claim their sport is certainly larger and more universally appealing than some kid clicking around on a computer screen. But this makes it clear which is the more lucrative opportunity.
There is a catch though. The average lifespan of a tennis player's career is pretty long. Andre Agassi retired after 20 years in the sport, Serena WIlliams is still playing after 24 years and even won the Australian Open for a record seventh time at age 36. Similarly Tiger Woods won his 15th Major in 2019 at age 43.
The International/Twitter
Esports players on the other hand don't have the luxury of a long career. Even the most successful players tend to decelerate by their mid to late 20s as their hyper-fast reflexes slow down. And that's not eve taking into account how the long hours of practicing (around eight hours a day is a conservative practice average) can take a toll on their bodies, not to mention the onset of carpal tunnel and the like.
Additionally, esports players focus on one sort of game in order to hone their skills, often just one game in particular in a specific genre. For instance, it's highly unlikely you'll see a professional Dota 2 player also compete in League of Legends tournaments, or a Call of Duty Player also participating in CS:GO. Fighting games are the only exception here, and it's not universal. And you'll never see a Mortal Kombat Pro fighting it out at pro-level Overwatch tournaments.
The International/Twitter
That means these players might rake in big money if they win a tournament, but the high-paying ones are few and far between. And because they're most often kids under 16 when they're first hired and signed, not to mention that there's not enough awareness of competitive gaming, so they're more vulnerable to be bamboozled into signing exploitative contracts.
Nonetheless, these numbers are certainly an eye-opener as to how big the esports scene is around the world. And you'd best believe it's only going to get bigger.