Mobile games in e-sports
Growing importance of mobile games
E-sports events are attracting an ever-larger audience – including in the mobile sector, here at the “PUBG Mobile Global Championship” in London at the beginning of December.
© Tencent
Mobile trend: In the shadow of major e-sports tournaments, competitions with smartphone games are attracting more and more viewers and sponsors.
E-sports is booming like never before. The statistics portal “Statista” predicts that the entire e-sports industry will have a turnover of four billion euros in 2024 – a sum that includes, among other things, media rights, betting, sponsorship, but also event tickets and fan articles. And while well-known games like “Dota 2” or “Counter-Strike” dominate the headlines at tournaments with double-digit million amounts, a new trend is developing in the shadow of the big events: professional gaming on the smartphone.
A current example is the “PUBG Mobile Global Championship” in London at the beginning of December, which marks an important milestone for mobile e-sports with prize money of three million dollars. The eponymous “PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds”, or PUBG for short, is played there. The principle is based on the “Battle Royale” approach: whoever is the last player standing out of sometimes hundreds of players wins.
Mobile gaming is reaching the masses
“Accessibility and the size of the player base are the key differences between mobile and other platforms,” explains James Yang of Tencent, the Chinese investor that co-developed “PUBG.” “Almost everyone has a smartphone, while consoles and PCs are expensive and take up a lot of space.” This statement is proven by the increasing number of recreational gamers.
In Germany alone, around 24.6 million people regularly play games on their smartphones, according to the German games industry association “game”. At 52 percent, women make up the majority of mobile gamers. “There will be more professional female e-athletes at the top level” and “mobile e-sports”. “Both offer enormous potential for future growth,” is how the association consistently formulated its theses on the future of e-sports.
The market for mobile games is already growing steadily: in Germany alone, sales of mobile games rose by a further 4 percent to 2.9 billion euros in 2023, according to “game”. 98 percent of sales are generated through in-app purchases, while the purchase of individual games only accounts for a small part at around 5 million euros.
Worldwide, the numbers are even more impressive: 2.8 billion people play mobile games, they generate sales of around 90.4 billion euros – and therefore almost half (49 percent) of the total international video game sales, according to data expert “Newzoo “. “ for its Global Games Market Report 2023.
Established e-sports tournaments at a glance
In this respect, it is only logical that this development is also evident in the e-sports sector. Compared to the mobile versions, the largest e-sports tournaments based on PC or console games offer significantly higher prize money. “The International” in the game “Dota 2” tops the list with over $40 million. “Fortnite” ($30 million) and other major tournaments also regularly reach double-digit millions in prize money. But mobile e-sports is developing rapidly.
“Mobile esports prize money and viewership are already reaching, and in some cases exceeding, PC and console levels,” says Yang. And further: “It won’t be long before there is no longer a difference between PC, console and mobile e-sports, but just e-sports.” He is not alone in this assessment – and the data from the gaming sector seems to underline this forecast.
