

With the debut of the newly geo-located and franchised Call of Duty League in 2020, the game largely held its own in this year’s ranking as compared to last, with a jump of three slots and only a slight downtick in prize payout. Rainbow Six was one of the only games in all of 2020 to host its biggest tournament in person, and therefore enjoyed the results of its continued year over year growth more than most titles.

That event alone paid out $3M, up from $2M in the previous year. This was due in large part to the game’s world championship, the Six Invitational, being held in early February prior to the majority of the world’s COVID lockdown. Rainbow Six Siege was one of the few titles to pay out more in the pandemic-plagued year than it did last year, with $5.02M in 2020 versus $4.1M in 2019. While Activision Blizzard distributed a similar sum of over $3M for its season-ending tournament, the necessary shift to online play impacted the games stage-based competition cycle, reducing the number of league-wide competitions which had previously culminated in large payouts themselves. The sport still had a solid prize payout, but the money was less than half of last year’s haul, which came in at $9.59M, and it has dropped from the rank of No.
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The Overwatch League had to shift to online-only play this year due to the pandemic, torpedoing its home-team model aspirations that were supposed to take off in full force this year. The game only paid out about a third in 2020 from what it did in 2019, dropping in the rankings four slots year over year from No. 2020 was intended to be a new opportunity for PUBG to focus on international competition, but the COVID-19 pandemic threw a wrench into that plan before it could get off the ground. However, after multiple restructurings of its esports infrastructure and the departure of several prominent esports teams from the space, the game appears to have settled into a lower rung. There was a time when PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS had the potential to become a leader in the esports space. That coupled with the rise of other competition such as Magic Arena (which made the list last year) means that Hearthstone’s status as the undisputed king of card games is now more in question than ever before. While Activision Blizzard continues to focus most of its energy and resources on its franchised leagues, Riot Games is steadily and meticulously ramping up esports investment in its newer titles, including LoR. Hearthstone, which came in at $3.73M, is the only game in the digital collectible card category to make it onto the list, though it has new competition to watch out for from Riot Games’ Legends of Runeterra. 9 – Hearthstone: $3.73MĪctivision Blizzard’s digital collectible card game makes it onto this year’s list following a conspicuous absence last year. With more prize money than ever flowing into a revamped, open ecosystem, Rocket League is poised to rise up the rankings next year. Psyonix committed $4.5M to the most recent RLCS season, which will conclude in 2021. The car soccer game, which paid out $3.040M in prize money last year, is seen as a title with good growth potential. Newly onto the list this year is Psyonix Studios title Rocket League, which doled out $2.63M in prize money over the course of the year through its Rocket League Championship Series.

The depressed payouts will likely continue in 2021 because the world is not expected to be back to a sense of normalcy till the middle part of the year, foreclosing many events that could have happened in Q1 and Q2. The esports space saw a huge contraction in prize money in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, halting the eye-popping purse numbers that were starting to catch mainstream attention.Īfter a nearly 30% jump from 2018 to 2019 that left last year’s prize money totaled at $211M USD, this year came in at a relatively paltry $65.5M.
