PHOENIX — The year 2020 was unlike any other.

On March 11, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, and suddenly nothing was the same.

Masks became mandatory, social distancing was enforced and stepping outside felt like a last resort. While most aspects of daily life suffered, a select few thrived.

Of these rare quarantine successes, one of the most prominent was esports. As the worlds of business, education and even traditional sports struggled to stay afloat, the esports industry found itself in the midst of its own perfect storm. The lockdown forced people to turn toward technology and the internet more than ever, which put esports in a prime position for growth.

Consumer spending on video games, gaming hardware, software and accessories reached a record high of $10 billion in March, according to SuperData, a Nielsen company that has analyzed the gaming industry since 2009.

“Digital spending has been gradually going up year-over-year, but this is the biggest month we’ve ever seen,” SuperData principal analyst Carter Rogers told TheWrap in April 2020.

Estimates from Newzoo, a gaming industry analytics firm, put the esports industry at just over $950 million in global revenue by the end of 2020. Newzoo approximated that about 61% of earned revenue came from sponsorships, 17% from media rights, 11% from publisher fees, 6% from ticket and merchandise sales, and the remaining 5% from digital content and streaming.

However, spin the wheel forward five years and a lot has changed.

The world has gradually returned to normal, technology has evolved, and several new esports titles have emerged. The only thing that hasn’t changed is the main question.

Participation growth

The global esports market is projected to be valued at $3.4 billion by the end of 2025, which is approximately a 21% increase from the previous year and a whopping 258% increase from 2020, according to Statista, a German online platform that specializes in data gathering and visualization. Statista projects revenue from the esports betting market alone to hit the $2.8 billion dollar mark at the end of the year, nearly three times the $1 billion amount totaled five years ago.

Obviously, this type of growth is largely thanks to a significant increase in audience size. Statista estimates 2025 will see an increase to 318 million esports enthusiasts (regular viewers) compared to 215 million in 2020.

Jason Lake, the founder and CEO of Complexity Gaming – the sister esports team of the Dallas Cowboys – predicted this explosion years ago when the pandemic was still in its early stages.

“We’re going to continue to see this growth in player base and viewership that (has) been growing exponentially over the past decade,” Lake told TheWrap in April 2020. “Ironically, this crazy quarantine we’ve been stuck in has exposed games to entire demographics that might not have picked them up — they run out of Netflix or Hulu shows and want to know what else they can do.”

Beyond the numbers

The numbers are nice to look at, but they’re not the only aspect of the industry that has evolved over the past few years. Newer titles like Valorant, which ranks in the top five most viewed esports games this year along with League of Legends and Counter-Strike, have skyrocketed in the esports world in recent years.

Mobile gaming has also seen a huge surge in popularity as of late, as Mobile Legends: Bang Bang sits at the top of that same list. The mobile esports scene is much more accessible and affordable than the alternatives, which means competitive players are no longer confined to traditional gaming platforms.

This year also has a strong chance of being the right time for college esports programs to take the next step forward. The industry is noticing increased investment at the collegiate level, and some of the bigger esports brands are even offering college scholarships to top players.

Connor Rawls, a research specialist from ASU’s School of Arts Media and Engineering who runs the Esports Lounge at Arizona State, has high hopes for ASU’s esports program in 2025.

“During COVID, we saw the in-person side of things really go down,” Rawls said. “Now we’re getting good participation again, and in the years since, it feels like there’s really been more attention and more of an audience around the program. Esports at ASU is looking good this year, and so is the whole industry.”

The increased support that the industry has received at the college level doesn’t surprise senior Phaelen Bride, the event coordinator at ASU’s Esports Lounge. She thinks investing in esports would be a smart move for any university.

“It’s only going to get more popular, and it brings in a lot of money,” Bride said. “Investing would be beneficial to any college that’s interested, and this would definitely be the best time to do it.”

Consumer spending on video games, gaming hardware, software and accessories reached a record high of $10 billion in March. (File photo by Samuel Nute/Cronkite News)

Pandemic predicaments

The pandemic benefited esports in numerous ways, but there were still plenty of obstacles the industry had to endure. The transition to quarantine in the competitive gaming world wasn’t as easy as it would seem. There were still several issues that needed to be solved, especially for high school programs with an unforgiving budget.

“We learned that from-home play is not really reliable,” said Kenya Corrigan, coach of Gilbert High School’s esports program which started in 2019. “We were creating systems out of nothing. Our schools weren’t ready, our networks weren’t ready and we had to educate a lot of our community that not all computers can run esports games.”

Corrigan was aware of the industry’s potential for growth during the pandemic. For her, it was just a matter of getting through the early roadblocks. Five years later, high school esports programs are stronger than ever, but they are facing new problems that emerged during the switch back to in-person schooling.

“It did feel a little bit more like a club once we came back, compared to the other programs that started up again, and I think that some schools still kind of struggle with that,” Corrigan said. “It’s about treating your program like a sport, but a lot of students and parents are used to video games being more of a casual thing, which makes it a lot more difficult.”

In-person esports tournaments might have taken the biggest hit in 2020 as far as the industry is concerned. Live events were called off, lockdowns forced fans to tune in from home and although in-person tournaments have been brought back, they still haven’t fully recovered.

Players had to continue playing at high levels while adapting to different online formats and having their usual training routines altered. Sponsorship deals were more unstable than ever amid economic uncertainty. The only aspect that improved was online viewership, surging from the occasional entertainment drought during quarantine.

Bride is just grateful the esports in-person tournament scene came back at all.

“Oh, it’s so nice to be able to watch in person again,” Bride said. “The pandemic was a rough time because you could really only tune in online, but now it’s back and I’m so happy. Now players can hear the fans cheering in the background again, and that just makes the tournaments so much better and more fun for everyone involved.”

Technology five years later

By this point, it’s clear that the entire landscape of the esports industry has changed within the past five years, and technology has been no exception.

Gamers are now offered high-powered hardware and peripherals that allow for faster response times than ever before and seamless game play. Available software and game development continue to improve each year, and now 5G technology boasts a more reliable connection along with lower latency.

Blockchain technology is also rising in relevance, introducing alternative models for competitive gaming that focus more on economic participation and player ownership. When incorporated into the world of gaming, Web3 technology has shifted more attention toward play-to-earn tournament structures that include cryptocurrency rewards, as well as NFT-based character ownership and trading systems.

Virtual reality also seems to have its own future in esports. VR headsets and sensors allow the player to move, engage and think tactically in the third dimension. This introduces a new type of immersion that was previously thought unattainable.

Special Olympics Arizona has its own esports program currently testing a virtual cycling prototype that translates real world movement into a virtual character that can compete in races with others around the world. Jameson Gorman, Special Olympics Arizona’s unified esports consultant, believes that VR is the future of the industry.

“I think that VR in the world of esports will become the norm as technology advances and at-home VR becomes more affordable to the average consumer,” Gorman said. “I have already dabbled with VR, and it was breathtaking having that form of technology.

“In my ideal world, VR would look a lot like it does in the movie ‘Ready Player One.’ People can use their VR headsets for any type of game, with the inclusion of a passthrough mode that allows for seamless viewing between the game and what’s in front of you.”

Leaving quarantine behind

As the world moves on from the COVID-19 pandemic, the esports scene does the same. Five years ago, the industry was just beginning its rise to mainstream success. Now, it’s right in the thick of it, and competitive gaming has immersed itself in high school and college campuses around the world as it continues to grow.

The industry has seen a dramatic uptick in overall participation since quarantine, and it has secured a much more prominent role in betting markets as well. Advancements in technology and a constantly evolving audience base ensure that esports will only improve from here. The industry’s future is getting brighter each day.

“I think esports will continue to advance into mainstream media as more and more people recognize the skill, creativity, dedication and teamwork it requires,” Gorman said. “I think the possibilities are really endless with where esports can go and what the next big idea will be.”