By Anna Sunderbrink
On the battleground of competitive sports, an unexpected revolution is gaining popularity: Esports are storming the market and transcended their niche origins to become a cultural phenomenon, reshaping the gaming industry.
With events like “Die Werksliga”, which InnoGames also attended with a talented team of colleagues, esports are no longer just filling arcades, but also arenas.
But why is this market so interesting and what does it bring to the table of the gaming industry?
Over the past few years, the esports market has shown incredible growth with a global audience of more than 540 Million people, continuously growing.
What once was not more than a pastime for the few, now became a mainstream event for enthusiastic fans tuning in from all over the world to watch their favorite teams compete at the highest levels.
But not only did this new market grow a big audience, it also proves to retrieve a huge revenue as well. The US market of Esports is currently valued at over 1 billion US-Dollars.
Esports is nowadays accepted as a legitimate sport, with some Universities even offering scholarships for esports athletes.
Through this institutional embrace, esports gain broader social acceptance as not just a game but an actual discipline, demanding skill, strategy, and dedication.
Additionally, esports are promising to be an inclusive community, breaking down physical barriers and allowing people from various backgrounds to compete on an equal platform.
Apart from the opportunity of being a competitor in esports, esports also offer some other promising career paths such as engineers, event managers, content creators, journalists, and many more. This proves that the esports market is promising a transformative impact on the job market.
The Final Round: As we can clearly see above, the esports market is a rising star in the gaming industry, enduring new career opportunities, economic benefits, and forming communities. Esports make the gaming industry an even more interesting market, bringing fresh wind into the world.
If you want to learn more about InnoGames, visit our corporate website, or start playing one of our biggest titles like Forge of Empires, Sunrise Village, or Elvenar. To stay up to date, we invite you to follow us on social media. You can find the handles of your favourite game in the product page of your title of interest.
Sources:
numbers and data
scholarships
career paths
https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/jobs-in-esports-industry-other-than-gaming
Andreas Hackel 
Julia Spiegel