14 DAY TRIAL // eSports continue to soar in popularity all across the world, with 2013 raking in an aggregate of 2.4 billion hours of videos of professional players doing their thing viewed by gamers.
Games such as League of Legends and Dota 2 are known for their highly competitive nature and for their highly toxic communities, at times, but they are also responsible for a very fierce eSports scene, which has been constantly growing over the last several years.
Almost every major tournament sees record-breaking statistics, and the newest report by IHS Technology, detailing the consumption of videos and streams relating to eSports, does not tell a different tale.
As DualShockers notes, the latest of their reports points out that around 2.4 billion hours of eSports-related videos were viewed over the course of 2013, with a staggering increase over the 1.3 billion hours recorded during 2012.
The popularity report showed that Riot Games' multiplayer online battle arena game League of Legends ranked first, being the most watched eSport of 2013, followed closely by Valve's similar title Dota 2 and by Blizzard Entertainment's real-time strategy game StarCraft 2.
In addition to the large growth registered over last year, nearly doubling the volume of content watched, IHS Technology also reported that its projections show the viewing trend greatly increasing over the next few years, especially due to the rising popularity of various streaming services such as Twitch, Azubu, and MLG, focusing specifically on the eSports scene.
While other outlets such as YouTube or Dailymotion provide a more general access to eSports, the dedicated streaming platforms have seen a surge in traffic volume that will manifest a steady growth through 2018, according to IHS Technology.
The incredible growth in eSports viewership has only been possible through the existence of services such as Twitch, which has become the most popular live streaming service in the entire world when it comes to gaming-related activities.
And this trend will not stop, as the streaming company has just announced its partnership with ESL, looking to further consolidate both parties' already strong position on the eSports market. The deal resulted in Twitch becoming the exclusive Western world broadcaster for all ESL events, such as the upcoming ESL One Frankfurt 2014, the biggest European Dota 2 competition, as well as the upcoming ESL competitions that will take place in North America.
In addition to this, the integration of Twitch streaming into popular games and into Microsoft and Sony's next-gen consoles, the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, has also been a boon for the global streaming audience, and it will further drive up the numbers as more and more titles come shipped with direct streaming integration.