Top 5 most popular eSports disciplines

2021 has been the year of intense expansion of mobile gaming in the cyber sports industry. Mobile games are likely to make a serious and lasting mark in the ratings of the most popular games. However, desktop games are not to be written off: they are also developing dynamically and increasing the audience of players and spectators. The top five eSports disciplines with the highest viewership include two mobile games and three desktop games.

Here are the rankings from Esports Charts, based on total viewing time for cybersport tournaments held in 2021.

5 – PUBG Mobile

Rounding out the top five of the rankings is a mobile game that is the most popular in its segment of those on which competitions are held. It was the fourth most played game in the overall ranking in 2020, and has significantly improved its performance over the past year, increasing it by 61% to 216.1 million hours. This was mainly due to the game’s growing popularity in Latin America and South East Asia. The game’s record-breaking viewership was PMGC Season 0 with 3.8 million viewers. However, the game’s overall performance against other disciplines dropped it from 4th position to 5th at the end of 2021.

4 – Dota 2

The popularity of this cyber-discipline has been unchanged over the years. The year 2021 saw a 27% increase in viewership (345.8m viewing hours) and a record-breaking $40m prize pool at The International 10. Incidentally, matches in that tournament yielded a total of 107.2 million hours of viewing time, a third of the total for the year.

3 – Mobile Legends: Bang Bang

This mobile game from Moonton knocked Dota 2 out of the top three. The game finished 2021 with a phenomenal viewership figure: 386.9 million viewing hours, 2.5 times the 2020 figure. The game’s main viewership: Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. “A personal record” for viewership interest in 2021 was set by the game in the M3 World Championship playoffs. At that time, 3.2 million people watched the game. The number of viewers exceeding the one-million mark has been recorded for the game’s tournaments 7 times in 2021.

2 – Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Good old shooter once again proved that the rumours about the loss of the audience interest to it are “somewhat exaggerated”. Contrary to experts’ predictions, the game’s competitor, Valorant, although gaining popularity, practice shows that CS:GO will long remain in the top five cyber disciplines that have the largest army of fans. The 2021 results confirm that: 410 million hours of views, a 14 percent increase over 2020. The highest viewing figures ever for 2021 were recorded for the PGL Major Stockholm 2021 Grand Final which was watched by 2.75 million viewers at the same time.

1 – League of Legends

League of Legends has been the all-time spectator champion for several years now. The result in 2021 is 664 million hours of views, 13% more than in 2020. Among the competitions, the Worlds 2021 Grand Final had the highest number of views. The game was watched by 4 million viewers at the same time. The main audience of the game is fans from Europe and South Korea.