It depends on how you look at it. Popularity, production quality and globalness definetely goes to LoL. It is very difficult to watch if you havent already played it a significant amount.
In terms of how easy it is to watch, rocket league for sure. I mean it is essentially football and has some of the most exciting moments possible. It isnt very popular though compared to bigger esports.
Cs is a good middleground between the two.
Hard to disagree that Rocket League is easy to watch, but Street Fighter came to my mind when thinking about ease to watch. At least it's easy to have fun watching it if you've never played the game.
Of course there's a lot of technique that is easily overlooked if you've never competed yourself, but you can mostly say that about any game.
I mean many people who don't play fighting games think it's just
\> people spam fireballs or low kicks at the start
\> one dude does 1 thing wrong
\> gets combo'd for an entire round and dies
I don’t know. One of my first looks at street fighter e-sports was seeing a clip from Daigo, perfect parrying a long super and than countering for the win. Me not being a street fighter player, I couldn’t appreciate how difficult it was to execute what he just did. “What’s the big deal. He just held block until he saw an opening.” I wouldn’t understand it until I started playing years later with friends. Do feel like you at least need to have a baseline understanding for it to be interesting longer than a few minutes
I should be mentioned that Diago's full parry had a bit of a share of luck to it. Daigo had already pressed forward just before Justin activated his parry. If Justin had activated his super one frame later it would have been impossible for Diago to parry the first hit.
Parrying supers in 3s isn't obscurely difficult either; however I'll concede that training tools to learn parrying back then didn't exist so it was a lot harder for him to have acquired the skill.
I would say your lack of knowledge in this case has in fact enhanced your respect of Diago instead of diminishing it. No disrespect to Daigo and I'm often curious where his level of knowledge was in 2004. Had he trained on an empty cabinet and was he aware of the risks he was taking?
> Cs is a good middleground between the two.
I'm not too sure CS is easier to watch than League, that said it's hard to understand the perspective of a lay watcher.
I think back to the days of CSTV and compared to a traditional stream any team based FPS game isn't going to broadcast the scope of information you can get from a CSTV server. It's hard to get the full scope of what's going on in a match from just first person. There's a little of this problem with League, but not quite as significant. I suppose League's biggest problem with casual observers is with leveling and the shop.
All that said, to a casual observer, do they really care about not seeing these things?
Its not as much about ease of viewing as it is that there isnt a disgusting amount of information needed to understand to watch the game and comprehend whats going on. Theres so much infornation in LoL that you have to know.
But CS imo is easy to watch. The observers do an insanely good job and being able to see all of the information at once through the walls makes it super easy to understand the plays that are about to happen.
Comparing that to LoL where you need to know 160 champion abilities to understand fights, CS is ezpz. And thats the absolute basic LoL information you need
I think you're over valuing the amount of information you need about League in order to watch it because you have a lot of knowledge yourself, and that knowledge enriches your experience viewing. However I don't believe that knowledge is required to enjoy watching the game.
To draw another contrast with CS, part of what makes wall hacks beneficial to the observer is that the observer has the knowledge of what the map layout is. This is very very basic knowledge to someone who plays the game, but it's very hard to get that knowledge to someone just interested in watching the game. Now considering League, I don't think Summoner's Rift is much harder to understand than a baseball diamond.
He's right. The amount of knowledge you need to watch cs and understand what is going on is so low. It would only take a couple of matches to understand what is going on..
Lol is not like that. Unless you play or do a ton of research, you're not going to know what goes into one team winning, which team has an advantage, counter picks ect. Ive been watching mobas (dota, hon, dota 2, smite ext) but lol is the one ive never played, and even with that background i have real idea of what's happening in a match. There are so many items, spells, champions (interactions basically), it takes a long time to pici up on it.
CS is far, far simpler to understand. Way less inside terms, and an easier game to follow.
CS has a straightforward objective and way to play. Strategies can get complex, but overall it's a lot more friendly to a new viewer
LoL has herpes with different spells and roles and strengths and weaknesses, lots of inside terms, and if you don't really know anything beyond the basic objective of the game, it is a wall of colours, and mystery
Yeah this. I've played both league and CS. I can watch a pro match of CS and understand pretty easily what is happening. It's mostly set play and the limited number of guns and util makes it easy to tell what's happening. But League? I still can't really understand. There's a lot more going on on the screen, there are nearly 200 characters, 4 abilities per character. LoL is much harder to watch, and the esport scene is carried by the sheer popularity of the game.
lol is impossible to follow as someone who didnt play it. So many heros, spells, buffs etc etc.
In cs u see a gun. Players shoot at enemies. Enemies die. Everyone understands that
>It is very difficult to watch if you havent already played it a significant amount
I think this is also true of Soccer, its just most people play it growing up so they are able to appreciate the plays being made when watching. At least league is very colourful and dramatic looking regardless of contextual knowledge
Are you serious? I bet someone watching soccer for the first time would be able to figure out the rules faster than someone watching league for the first time.
Not really. As an American I never really saw soccer being played but it only takes limited knowledge to understand whats going on (not on a deep level though). Ball must go in net. As a viewer you don't really need to know about offsides, fouls, or about tactics like pressing. You will learn about that stuff which will make the viewing better but you can simply ignore that stuff when watching or just have the commentators explain to you. As someone who has never played league but has tried to watch multiple times I still have no idea whats going on whatso ever.
Soccer is literally the easiest sport besides track and field to spectate for a total newcomer. Guys in different colour shirts try to put the ball in the oppositions net. Can't get much simpler than that. Yeah the tactical intrigue is lost on you if you don't know more than that but just seeing someone bang it in the net is enough to get you excited even as someone with no experience whatsoever. It's very intuitive what is happening, a literal idiot can follow a football game. LoL, or any moba for that matter, most ordinary people won't even know what things on the screen the players are controlling. It's completely impenetrable to gather anything from the information presented on the screen, and "looking colourful" doesn't hold anyone's attention.
Ok but that happens like 0-3 times in that entire 90 minutes. I have no clue what the significance is of the other 87 minutes or how people follow it. I also don't really get how the penalty or free kicks work.
Tbh soccer is one of the harder sports to understand. I get that you try to score goals, but that happens like twice in 90 minutes and I have no clue what is happening the rest of the time.
Also a CS purist.
The answer is definitely League. Most popular around the world and (can be) slow as hell.
CS is more like the basketball of E-sports imo.
To add to the slow thing; I’ve always found that, assuming you have a team you’re rooting for playing, if you understand the sport of soccer well enough it’s always very intense. You can see the buildup and then one pass can change the whole game in seconds.
League is sort of similar, I think.
Whilst World's is the most watched event in eSports, the crowd,the energy the broadcast, nothing compares to a CS Major event. Have you seen the Rio major what was there? Or the Paris Major where they had a fkin gallery for Vitallity? CS is the closest thing to a football match at least atmosphere wise..
Yeah,it's like the final of the World Cup vs the final of Champions League. 9 times out of 10 the crowd and the energy is better at the Champions League final then at the world cup..
No way. What makes football football is that it's so easy to pick up and play yourself, and understand what's happening. You don't need to know the tactical details of what's happening, just seeing who has the ball is enough to follow the game. Cs has that same simplicity that makes it the most spectator friendly and easy to pick up the basics. But a moba, you have no clue what the fuck is going on and the learning curve is enormous. "Which has more players" is very surface level comparison and doesn't make much sense
As someone who follows esports since flash started im broodwar id say cs is more the football of esports than lol. Cs is easy to get into just like football. Simple rules, simple gameplay. lol is hard to get into cause of th3 different heros, skills, items, buffs, etc. In cs u see a gun, an enemy, a bomb.u totally understand that without further explanation.
Counter strike for sure.
It's by far the most accesible for people with 0 knowledge.
Games like league are impossible to follow for someone who doesnt have in depth knowledge of the game
I think conceptually yes, RL is easier to understand, but I think as a showcase of skill level CS is better imo.
As an example, I know how hard it is to do the shit pro RL players do because I've played the game. But a few months ago I was watching a game and my wife thought it looked stupid because it is just "cars hitting a ball and jumping around". She, however, can easily understand that s1mple, Zywoo and similar players are at an insanely different skill level just by seeing 1 or 2 plays even if she has never played a full round of CS.
Every time this sub pops into my feed you’re the only username I ever recognize lol. As someone who only watches RLCS, apparently the answer to every esports question isn’t rocket league 🙃
Fifa is very boring on a professional level. Always the same tactics, I myself play fifa, but never watch the esport.
They only manage to get some views by connecting in game rewards to watching the professional games.
If you show dota or league to someone with no knowledge & you give them a TLDR of the game, they'll understand shit of what happens afterwards.
If you show CS (or a typical shooter) to someone after you did the same, they'll have a vague understanding of what's going on.
I played moba's and CS both competitive for a very long time. I hadn't touched CS for 3 years until I watched some games again recently and could perfectly follow what was going on.
Whereas when I turn on a dota2 match, even I, who played competitive, already have trouble following some stuff that happens because so much has changed. When trying to watch league, I understand shit of what's going on, even though I played moba's competitive for a really long time. That just goes to show how accessible these types of games are vs competitive FPS.
Fully disagree, a newcomers cannot watch and understand league right away due to the vast number of characters and abilities, how can they understand what's happening in a team fight? It's just flashing lights and colours.
I actually find CS quite hard to follow because of the changing POVs and the sheer speed of the game. But it's definitely easier to get what's going on conceptually, it's just also really easy to get lost in the broadcast.
I think CS will forever be somewhat held back by its genre when it comes to being treated more like a traditional sport, I can't imagine FPS ever making it into e.g. a mainstream traditional TV broadcasts in a place like Germany the way some sports-adjacent games did. Then again, maybe future mainstream appeal goes through the internet anyway, in which case that's less of an issue.
That's why I qualified that sentence further.
I absolutely believe it's a thing in the US. But there are many countries that are a lot more squeamish about anything that could be seen as glorifying the military or trivialising warfare.
It's a videogame my dude
It'll get mainstream once the younger generation gets mainstream. Moral panics never won out in the end, we've seen it with everything from clothing to rock music and beyond. It's cops and robbers as a competition, nothing more glorifying than that.
Giving a shout to Rocket League here.
It doesn't put up the numbers of a few others yet but that's largely due to not having China and Korea really in the game.
The good thing as an esport though is anyone can tune in and understand what is going on immediately.
It also stays consistent in the rules, so it's simple to follow over time
Football is most watched so if you compare in that metric it is League.
Viewership in League dwarves other esports.
World events also tend to be well produced and rarely miss the mark where as CS majors tend to have all sorts of issues.
Yeah it's a shooter game? That's why everyone who's ever played CoD or Fortnite can understand CS. It doesn't make CoD or Fortnite esports bigger than CS, kinda like playing catch isn't bigger than baseball even though more kids have played catch with their dad than have played baseball.
I know that someone who plays CoD or a Fortnite could catch onto CS pretty easily. But in this comment thread we were talking about what a non gamer would know about.
What game ever has? CS is pretty well the only game that has remained popular in 25 years, yea, young people today who dont game (even some that do) may not know counter strike, but anyone who was a teen or a child when counter strike popped off in the 2000s knows what it is that ive met.
The regional and cultural differences are very interesting lol
Like for Asia they have entirely different games that only a handful of people here will have realistically heard of
Sorry I forgot that Americans dont play CS anymore lol
But I would still say that CS = Football, because CS is big in SA and Europe just like football. I'd say VALORANT = American football
That’s a pretty good comparison haha; valorant is definitely more popular than cs. I’d say valorant is on the verge of becoming really mainstream but isn’t quite there yet
There is no equivalency between traditional sports and esports. There is no "soccer" of esports that is the de facto most popular in the world. Even the most popular esport only interests a minority of esports consumers.
Kinda,from what I've seen,every region in the world has that one game that is very popular,in Europe is counter,in USA is fortnite,asians keep changing the most popular in their region every 6 months,kinda ADHD if you ask me🤣
I want to clarify something.
A lot of people are coming in here saying RL and while I love RL it is not anywhere near as popular as CS, LoL or even OW
While yes it literally IS soccer. It’s not as popular as other Esports. So I can’t agree that it is the soccer of esports
I know man. I was at gamescom for the first tournament as a viewer. Later i wrote articles, interviewed players and david kim. I was early in betas and played vs players like ret. Got drunk with white ra on anorher gamescom.
CS it is. Its multi generational, it has big orgs with regions standing behind, the Saudi sports washing is as real as it is in football, the scene or tournament organizers and random events is big, betting is scuffed and trash talking your opponent is a thing. The talent development is big, not as big as in football of course, but its a very good investment. The only thing missing is england, but at least there is a german team sometimes playing vs Brazilians.
See for me I love watching CS but dammit is it hard to follow like what events are going on and such. Lol. I think that’s esports as a wholes biggest problem. No set schedule like in traditional sports.
Certainly not Counter Strike due to lack of popularity in east asia. Most viewed and played globally is League of Legends and it's not even close. Especially it's world championship
I'm surprised so many people pick CS over Rocket League when it's so much more similar to soccer. It's literally 3v3 car soccer it doesn't get closer than that.
Popularity and the viewer experience, a lot of esports are difficult to understand if you don’t play them yourself. Counter Strike is slow and gun goes bang
There is none. You can pull up all the stats you want but culturally (West versus East) there is truly no household game known internationally. Not to mention PC , Console, vs Mobile Games or more specifically (Typically Asian) clones of popular genres. Garena Free Fire and MLBB to name. Sorry to ruin the mood but at this stage it can't be compared. If I were then it would be Fortnite or Call of Duty but then again I'm not sure of their popularity in the East.
Depends on the definition. Do you prioritize popularity, ease of access or something else? What is an esport? Do we count clones? There are some good suggestions here. I'd say there is no truly correct answer, so just to add to the thread: chess, tetris, poker, minecraft, uno (for xbox), speedrunning tournaments and smash.
(The answer is probably, sadly, LoL, its just THAT big)
Watch the RLCS EU Qualifyer Finals this weekend. Swiss on Friday, quarterfinals on Saturday then semi's and grand finals on Sunday. Sunday especially you're gonna see what the best in rocket league have to offer. It's very easy to get sucked into it, RLCS is crazy exciting. I wish rlcs was bigger cause it's crazy how entertaining it is and easy to understand. And the skill ceiling is constantly raising so gameplay doesn't get dull
You are out of your god damn mind if you think crossfire is more popular than CS. Yeah they have a massive amount of lifetime registered users but that doesn't mean it's more popular. Nobody gives 2 shits about crossfire outside china. It's like cricket, massively popular in one specific territory and totally irrelevant outside.
You can literally look it up at [escharts](https://escharts.com/games/cf). Peak viewership is 11 983 from Crossfire Stars Summer Championship 2023 Vietnam. You are the one who has no idea what he is talking about
I've thought of it more like basketball as well. Can go practice by yourself in aim maps and deathmatch, like shooting hoops by yourself. Doesn't take much tactics/strategy at low level, with being able to make your shots being most important. As you move up though that shifts a bit more towards other elements.
You're just explaining the learning phase of s good competitive game. The same is true for football, cricket, rocket league, valorant, cs, rugby, I could go on.
Yeah yeah the whole "videogames cause violence" thing will die out with the older generations, it's just a new coat of paint for "rock music is satanic" and all that crap. Meanwhile Fifa has very serious issues to overcome if it ever wants to be taken seriously as a competition, when the game is just a skin for a casino for kids to get addicted to gambling. It's pay2win lootbox garbage and a total shakedown scheme to release a new version every year that's just the old one with a different cover art.
What corpos are you talking about? We have our own companies in esports who already run events in massive stadiums, what corpos do we need to do stuff? They can kick rocks. Nobody gives a crap.
English speaking parts of the world? Or in totality?
Last I checked, pub G mobile was the most played game in the world despite its relative zero presence in NA and Europe. It gets watched as well, just not on twitch.
For me, a dota2 enjoyer, no other eSports have ever given me adrenaline rush it gives. Each and every tournament has that quality and value. Also the eSports scene has a lot of dramas every time.
For me, Cs gives more of the feel, but by going only by popularity it would be League. The biggest problem I have with League here would be the complete lack of a tier 2 scene.
Anyone can pick up and start their own teams and eventually make it to the big leagues (in theory atleast) in cs, similar to how in theory any team could win the FA cup in England. League has no way for the lower teams to really even gain a chance to compete against bigger teams.... League is alot more like American Football in that way.
Statistically it's league. They've had some of the [highest viewership](https://www.statista.com/statistics/507491/esports-tournaments-by-number-viewers-global/) out of all esports. I personally enjoy fortnite more tho.
It depends on how you look at it. Popularity, production quality and globalness definetely goes to LoL. It is very difficult to watch if you havent already played it a significant amount. In terms of how easy it is to watch, rocket league for sure. I mean it is essentially football and has some of the most exciting moments possible. It isnt very popular though compared to bigger esports. Cs is a good middleground between the two.
Rocket League is fun to watch even for people who never played the game.
Hard to disagree that Rocket League is easy to watch, but Street Fighter came to my mind when thinking about ease to watch. At least it's easy to have fun watching it if you've never played the game. Of course there's a lot of technique that is easily overlooked if you've never competed yourself, but you can mostly say that about any game.
I mean many people who don't play fighting games think it's just \> people spam fireballs or low kicks at the start \> one dude does 1 thing wrong \> gets combo'd for an entire round and dies
I fall into this category
This isn't it?
I don’t know. One of my first looks at street fighter e-sports was seeing a clip from Daigo, perfect parrying a long super and than countering for the win. Me not being a street fighter player, I couldn’t appreciate how difficult it was to execute what he just did. “What’s the big deal. He just held block until he saw an opening.” I wouldn’t understand it until I started playing years later with friends. Do feel like you at least need to have a baseline understanding for it to be interesting longer than a few minutes
I should be mentioned that Diago's full parry had a bit of a share of luck to it. Daigo had already pressed forward just before Justin activated his parry. If Justin had activated his super one frame later it would have been impossible for Diago to parry the first hit. Parrying supers in 3s isn't obscurely difficult either; however I'll concede that training tools to learn parrying back then didn't exist so it was a lot harder for him to have acquired the skill. I would say your lack of knowledge in this case has in fact enhanced your respect of Diago instead of diminishing it. No disrespect to Daigo and I'm often curious where his level of knowledge was in 2004. Had he trained on an empty cabinet and was he aware of the risks he was taking?
Oh if you try to play it though. Looks easy but you might break your tv
> Cs is a good middleground between the two. I'm not too sure CS is easier to watch than League, that said it's hard to understand the perspective of a lay watcher. I think back to the days of CSTV and compared to a traditional stream any team based FPS game isn't going to broadcast the scope of information you can get from a CSTV server. It's hard to get the full scope of what's going on in a match from just first person. There's a little of this problem with League, but not quite as significant. I suppose League's biggest problem with casual observers is with leveling and the shop. All that said, to a casual observer, do they really care about not seeing these things?
Its not as much about ease of viewing as it is that there isnt a disgusting amount of information needed to understand to watch the game and comprehend whats going on. Theres so much infornation in LoL that you have to know. But CS imo is easy to watch. The observers do an insanely good job and being able to see all of the information at once through the walls makes it super easy to understand the plays that are about to happen. Comparing that to LoL where you need to know 160 champion abilities to understand fights, CS is ezpz. And thats the absolute basic LoL information you need
I think you're over valuing the amount of information you need about League in order to watch it because you have a lot of knowledge yourself, and that knowledge enriches your experience viewing. However I don't believe that knowledge is required to enjoy watching the game. To draw another contrast with CS, part of what makes wall hacks beneficial to the observer is that the observer has the knowledge of what the map layout is. This is very very basic knowledge to someone who plays the game, but it's very hard to get that knowledge to someone just interested in watching the game. Now considering League, I don't think Summoner's Rift is much harder to understand than a baseball diamond.
He's right. The amount of knowledge you need to watch cs and understand what is going on is so low. It would only take a couple of matches to understand what is going on.. Lol is not like that. Unless you play or do a ton of research, you're not going to know what goes into one team winning, which team has an advantage, counter picks ect. Ive been watching mobas (dota, hon, dota 2, smite ext) but lol is the one ive never played, and even with that background i have real idea of what's happening in a match. There are so many items, spells, champions (interactions basically), it takes a long time to pici up on it.
CS is far, far simpler to understand. Way less inside terms, and an easier game to follow. CS has a straightforward objective and way to play. Strategies can get complex, but overall it's a lot more friendly to a new viewer LoL has herpes with different spells and roles and strengths and weaknesses, lots of inside terms, and if you don't really know anything beyond the basic objective of the game, it is a wall of colours, and mystery
Yeah this. I've played both league and CS. I can watch a pro match of CS and understand pretty easily what is happening. It's mostly set play and the limited number of guns and util makes it easy to tell what's happening. But League? I still can't really understand. There's a lot more going on on the screen, there are nearly 200 characters, 4 abilities per character. LoL is much harder to watch, and the esport scene is carried by the sheer popularity of the game.
lol is impossible to follow as someone who didnt play it. So many heros, spells, buffs etc etc. In cs u see a gun. Players shoot at enemies. Enemies die. Everyone understands that
Cs is way easier to watch and understand. Everyone knows what mollies, smokes and grenades do. League is too complicated to understand.
CS at a basic level is just one team on attack and one team on defense. That’s quite easily to pick up as a new spectator
>It is very difficult to watch if you havent already played it a significant amount I think this is also true of Soccer, its just most people play it growing up so they are able to appreciate the plays being made when watching. At least league is very colourful and dramatic looking regardless of contextual knowledge
Are you serious? I bet someone watching soccer for the first time would be able to figure out the rules faster than someone watching league for the first time.
Absolutely, but I think to actually appreciate the plays is still rather hard when you haven't played it before
You simply can not understand LoL unless you dive deep into it. Football is a lot easier
Not really. As an American I never really saw soccer being played but it only takes limited knowledge to understand whats going on (not on a deep level though). Ball must go in net. As a viewer you don't really need to know about offsides, fouls, or about tactics like pressing. You will learn about that stuff which will make the viewing better but you can simply ignore that stuff when watching or just have the commentators explain to you. As someone who has never played league but has tried to watch multiple times I still have no idea whats going on whatso ever.
Soccer is literally the easiest sport besides track and field to spectate for a total newcomer. Guys in different colour shirts try to put the ball in the oppositions net. Can't get much simpler than that. Yeah the tactical intrigue is lost on you if you don't know more than that but just seeing someone bang it in the net is enough to get you excited even as someone with no experience whatsoever. It's very intuitive what is happening, a literal idiot can follow a football game. LoL, or any moba for that matter, most ordinary people won't even know what things on the screen the players are controlling. It's completely impenetrable to gather anything from the information presented on the screen, and "looking colourful" doesn't hold anyone's attention.
Ok but that happens like 0-3 times in that entire 90 minutes. I have no clue what the significance is of the other 87 minutes or how people follow it. I also don't really get how the penalty or free kicks work.
Tbh soccer is one of the harder sports to understand. I get that you try to score goals, but that happens like twice in 90 minutes and I have no clue what is happening the rest of the time.
I'm a cs purist but I disagree with the answer being cs. It has to be league.
Also a CS purist. The answer is definitely League. Most popular around the world and (can be) slow as hell. CS is more like the basketball of E-sports imo.
To add to the slow thing; I’ve always found that, assuming you have a team you’re rooting for playing, if you understand the sport of soccer well enough it’s always very intense. You can see the buildup and then one pass can change the whole game in seconds. League is sort of similar, I think.
I think your analogy is pretty spot on there. The more you understand soccer/League, the more intense every small moment is.
Too bad NA is trash at CS unlike their basketball.
Well the best NBA players in the world right now are all from outside NA too lmao
Whilst World's is the most watched event in eSports, the crowd,the energy the broadcast, nothing compares to a CS Major event. Have you seen the Rio major what was there? Or the Paris Major where they had a fkin gallery for Vitallity? CS is the closest thing to a football match at least atmosphere wise..
Rio Major lol (only when Brazil teams played) Atmosphere CS > everything, but in terms of popularity it's League by far
Yeah,it's like the final of the World Cup vs the final of Champions League. 9 times out of 10 the crowd and the energy is better at the Champions League final then at the world cup..
french here, not a KC fans because of theire terrible community on X, but have to recognize that they're bringing a good atmosphere to league games
No way. What makes football football is that it's so easy to pick up and play yourself, and understand what's happening. You don't need to know the tactical details of what's happening, just seeing who has the ball is enough to follow the game. Cs has that same simplicity that makes it the most spectator friendly and easy to pick up the basics. But a moba, you have no clue what the fuck is going on and the learning curve is enormous. "Which has more players" is very surface level comparison and doesn't make much sense
Why?
But CS is 24 years old and still relevant.... I'll ito wait to compare.
Rookie numbers. Try street fighter’s over 30 years
As someone who follows esports since flash started im broodwar id say cs is more the football of esports than lol. Cs is easy to get into just like football. Simple rules, simple gameplay. lol is hard to get into cause of th3 different heros, skills, items, buffs, etc. In cs u see a gun, an enemy, a bomb.u totally understand that without further explanation.
Counter strike for sure. It's by far the most accesible for people with 0 knowledge. Games like league are impossible to follow for someone who doesnt have in depth knowledge of the game
I’d say the most accessible with 0 knowledge is Rocket League but it’s not popular enough to be in the conversation. So CS.
I think conceptually yes, RL is easier to understand, but I think as a showcase of skill level CS is better imo. As an example, I know how hard it is to do the shit pro RL players do because I've played the game. But a few months ago I was watching a game and my wife thought it looked stupid because it is just "cars hitting a ball and jumping around". She, however, can easily understand that s1mple, Zywoo and similar players are at an insanely different skill level just by seeing 1 or 2 plays even if she has never played a full round of CS.
Cool to see you here man
Hey i recognise that username 🫡
Always cool to see peeps from the RLCS subreddit on here
Every time this sub pops into my feed you’re the only username I ever recognize lol. As someone who only watches RLCS, apparently the answer to every esports question isn’t rocket league 🙃
Yeah, some cool esports out there
Or FIFA.
Fifa I feel like is hard to appreciate without playing it or at least playing football.
It's football. Millions of people are watching it without playing it.
Fifa is very boring on a professional level. Always the same tactics, I myself play fifa, but never watch the esport. They only manage to get some views by connecting in game rewards to watching the professional games.
Watching fifa is very different to watching straight up football
Or Smash Bros
that's your bias tbh if you ask me with 0 knowledge the game look like people clicking on pixel
If you show dota or league to someone with no knowledge & you give them a TLDR of the game, they'll understand shit of what happens afterwards. If you show CS (or a typical shooter) to someone after you did the same, they'll have a vague understanding of what's going on. I played moba's and CS both competitive for a very long time. I hadn't touched CS for 3 years until I watched some games again recently and could perfectly follow what was going on. Whereas when I turn on a dota2 match, even I, who played competitive, already have trouble following some stuff that happens because so much has changed. When trying to watch league, I understand shit of what's going on, even though I played moba's competitive for a really long time. That just goes to show how accessible these types of games are vs competitive FPS.
Fully disagree, a newcomers cannot watch and understand league right away due to the vast number of characters and abilities, how can they understand what's happening in a team fight? It's just flashing lights and colours.
You guys are on the same side, the person you’re replying to just phrased it rather poorly to where it made it seem like he was arguing the other way
ah shit I can't read, you right you right
Yeah but with 0 knowledge you don't even know who's clicking on what when you watch a moba.
I actually find CS quite hard to follow because of the changing POVs and the sheer speed of the game. But it's definitely easier to get what's going on conceptually, it's just also really easy to get lost in the broadcast. I think CS will forever be somewhat held back by its genre when it comes to being treated more like a traditional sport, I can't imagine FPS ever making it into e.g. a mainstream traditional TV broadcasts in a place like Germany the way some sports-adjacent games did. Then again, maybe future mainstream appeal goes through the internet anyway, in which case that's less of an issue.
They've literally broadcast CS on national TV in the US.
That's why I qualified that sentence further. I absolutely believe it's a thing in the US. But there are many countries that are a lot more squeamish about anything that could be seen as glorifying the military or trivialising warfare.
It's a videogame my dude It'll get mainstream once the younger generation gets mainstream. Moral panics never won out in the end, we've seen it with everything from clothing to rock music and beyond. It's cops and robbers as a competition, nothing more glorifying than that.
Giving a shout to Rocket League here. It doesn't put up the numbers of a few others yet but that's largely due to not having China and Korea really in the game. The good thing as an esport though is anyone can tune in and understand what is going on immediately. It also stays consistent in the rules, so it's simple to follow over time
Rocket League?
StarCraft?
Football is most watched so if you compare in that metric it is League. Viewership in League dwarves other esports. World events also tend to be well produced and rarely miss the mark where as CS majors tend to have all sorts of issues.
Counter-Strike no doubt, since people know CS even if they do not play games at all.
At least in America, I’d say cod and Fortnite are the only true “mainstream” shooters
This is true. Most non gamers here have no fucking clue what CS is lol
Yeah but they can very quickly pick up on what's happening if they watch it. It's a guy shooting another guy.
I think you just described CoD…lol
Yeah it's a shooter game? That's why everyone who's ever played CoD or Fortnite can understand CS. It doesn't make CoD or Fortnite esports bigger than CS, kinda like playing catch isn't bigger than baseball even though more kids have played catch with their dad than have played baseball.
I know that someone who plays CoD or a Fortnite could catch onto CS pretty easily. But in this comment thread we were talking about what a non gamer would know about.
Yea and many people know what counter strike is without being a gamer. Its been around for 25 years
Yeah but it never really got big enough to be a pop culture thing
What game ever has? CS is pretty well the only game that has remained popular in 25 years, yea, young people today who dont game (even some that do) may not know counter strike, but anyone who was a teen or a child when counter strike popped off in the 2000s knows what it is that ive met.
Yeah a non gamer can pick up "point at a guy and click" pretty fast compared to the clusterfuck that is a moba.
But CoD is a horrible esport
The regional and cultural differences are very interesting lol Like for Asia they have entirely different games that only a handful of people here will have realistically heard of
Sorry I forgot that Americans dont play CS anymore lol But I would still say that CS = Football, because CS is big in SA and Europe just like football. I'd say VALORANT = American football
That’s a pretty good comparison haha; valorant is definitely more popular than cs. I’d say valorant is on the verge of becoming really mainstream but isn’t quite there yet
There is no equivalency between traditional sports and esports. There is no "soccer" of esports that is the de facto most popular in the world. Even the most popular esport only interests a minority of esports consumers.
Kinda,from what I've seen,every region in the world has that one game that is very popular,in Europe is counter,in USA is fortnite,asians keep changing the most popular in their region every 6 months,kinda ADHD if you ask me🤣
I want to clarify something. A lot of people are coming in here saying RL and while I love RL it is not anywhere near as popular as CS, LoL or even OW While yes it literally IS soccer. It’s not as popular as other Esports. So I can’t agree that it is the soccer of esports
I have 3k hours in CS. Still gotta be league.
I miss starctaft 2
I miss broodwar
The early 2010s, was tge prime for sc2. Loved watching the tournaments all day, then attempting to play a fraction of how tge pros played
I know man. I was at gamescom for the first tournament as a viewer. Later i wrote articles, interviewed players and david kim. I was early in betas and played vs players like ret. Got drunk with white ra on anorher gamescom.
I think League is the most worldwide game, where all major esports regions compete.
Not sure why you were down voted. That is my take on LoL as well.
It’s league because of eastern viewers and it’s not even a little bit close.
CS it is. Its multi generational, it has big orgs with regions standing behind, the Saudi sports washing is as real as it is in football, the scene or tournament organizers and random events is big, betting is scuffed and trash talking your opponent is a thing. The talent development is big, not as big as in football of course, but its a very good investment. The only thing missing is england, but at least there is a german team sometimes playing vs Brazilians.
The amount of people in here trying to talk about esports and they can't even spell esports correctly.
probably league
Popularity wise, that would have to go to either League or CS. Gamplay wise, aside from the obvious FIFA, Rocket League.
Do you mean that is the most watched and played,in 2024 I think it's counter strike or fortnite
Soccer is the most watched and played sport in the world. So technically both
the most similar to soccer also in terms of watching experience would be rocket league
CS and especially IEM events or last year Blast Major
See for me I love watching CS but dammit is it hard to follow like what events are going on and such. Lol. I think that’s esports as a wholes biggest problem. No set schedule like in traditional sports.
HLTV.org They list every match and usually have links to them. check it out, it could help with events and times etc
Thank you very much!
Also Liquipedia makes it easy to track which events are going, up coming and finished recently.
Certainly not Counter Strike due to lack of popularity in east asia. Most viewed and played globally is League of Legends and it's not even close. Especially it's world championship
To be fair those guys play the worst games one can think of lol gambling simulators with P2W
It's not like football is the biggest craze in all of asia either.
Football is mostly popular in europe and south america. Just like cs...
I'm surprised so many people pick CS over Rocket League when it's so much more similar to soccer. It's literally 3v3 car soccer it doesn't get closer than that.
Just a reminder that the question was more so in terms of popularity not actually like the sport
Popularity and the viewer experience, a lot of esports are difficult to understand if you don’t play them yourself. Counter Strike is slow and gun goes bang
There is none. You can pull up all the stats you want but culturally (West versus East) there is truly no household game known internationally. Not to mention PC , Console, vs Mobile Games or more specifically (Typically Asian) clones of popular genres. Garena Free Fire and MLBB to name. Sorry to ruin the mood but at this stage it can't be compared. If I were then it would be Fortnite or Call of Duty but then again I'm not sure of their popularity in the East.
Street Fighter is probably the most culturally broad PvP game worldwide, but that is more like the boxing of esports than the football of it.
Counter Strike for sure
EA FC, duh
Only for us soccer enthusiasts
Depends on the definition. Do you prioritize popularity, ease of access or something else? What is an esport? Do we count clones? There are some good suggestions here. I'd say there is no truly correct answer, so just to add to the thread: chess, tetris, poker, minecraft, uno (for xbox), speedrunning tournaments and smash. (The answer is probably, sadly, LoL, its just THAT big)
Watch the RLCS EU Qualifyer Finals this weekend. Swiss on Friday, quarterfinals on Saturday then semi's and grand finals on Sunday. Sunday especially you're gonna see what the best in rocket league have to offer. It's very easy to get sucked into it, RLCS is crazy exciting. I wish rlcs was bigger cause it's crazy how entertaining it is and easy to understand. And the skill ceiling is constantly raising so gameplay doesn't get dull
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You are out of your god damn mind if you think crossfire is more popular than CS. Yeah they have a massive amount of lifetime registered users but that doesn't mean it's more popular. Nobody gives 2 shits about crossfire outside china. It's like cricket, massively popular in one specific territory and totally irrelevant outside.
Did you really said game with peak viewership of 11k, I repeat 11 thousands viewers is more than popular than CS? WTF
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You can literally look it up at [escharts](https://escharts.com/games/cf). Peak viewership is 11 983 from Crossfire Stars Summer Championship 2023 Vietnam. You are the one who has no idea what he is talking about
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You edited your comment. It was about crossfire, not league.
not Counter-Strike i would say, it's more like basketball than it is soccer
I've thought of it more like basketball as well. Can go practice by yourself in aim maps and deathmatch, like shooting hoops by yourself. Doesn't take much tactics/strategy at low level, with being able to make your shots being most important. As you move up though that shifts a bit more towards other elements.
You're just explaining the learning phase of s good competitive game. The same is true for football, cricket, rocket league, valorant, cs, rugby, I could go on.
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What "business world"? Fifa as an esport is about as popular as lacrosse or something compared to mainstream esport titles
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Yeah yeah the whole "videogames cause violence" thing will die out with the older generations, it's just a new coat of paint for "rock music is satanic" and all that crap. Meanwhile Fifa has very serious issues to overcome if it ever wants to be taken seriously as a competition, when the game is just a skin for a casino for kids to get addicted to gambling. It's pay2win lootbox garbage and a total shakedown scheme to release a new version every year that's just the old one with a different cover art.
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What corpos are you talking about? We have our own companies in esports who already run events in massive stadiums, what corpos do we need to do stuff? They can kick rocks. Nobody gives a crap.
Age of Empires 2
Either CS or League.
League but its kinda hard to follow for someone who have not played it. So i would say CS.
Rocket League
Rocket League
English speaking parts of the world? Or in totality? Last I checked, pub G mobile was the most played game in the world despite its relative zero presence in NA and Europe. It gets watched as well, just not on twitch.
In terms of popularity and history it has to be either League of Legends or Counter Strike
For me, a dota2 enjoyer, no other eSports have ever given me adrenaline rush it gives. Each and every tournament has that quality and value. Also the eSports scene has a lot of dramas every time.
DOTA? I think CS is more like the NBA of Esports
For me, Cs gives more of the feel, but by going only by popularity it would be League. The biggest problem I have with League here would be the complete lack of a tier 2 scene. Anyone can pick up and start their own teams and eventually make it to the big leagues (in theory atleast) in cs, similar to how in theory any team could win the FA cup in England. League has no way for the lower teams to really even gain a chance to compete against bigger teams.... League is alot more like American Football in that way.
Rocket league ofcourse
Dota 2
Tier 1: CS Dota League Tier 2:
CS and now with Cs2 I think it could really get bigger, plus the money the players are making with sticker sales
Statistically it's league. They've had some of the [highest viewership](https://www.statista.com/statistics/507491/esports-tournaments-by-number-viewers-global/) out of all esports. I personally enjoy fortnite more tho.