Esports is a big industry these days. You get to choose from more than a dozen different titles and every one of them has a thriving professional scene.
Some games are better suited for FPS fans while others are great if you love the RPG and RTS genres. After all, that’s what MOBAs are all about. Depending on your preferences, you are always guaranteed to find what you enjoy. But you should consider other factors as well.
For example, it’s one thing to play a game casually and it’s another thing to consider an esports career. If you want to become a professional player, you should find a game that you love and enjoy getting better at. But you should also take into account who the company behind it is and whether it’s growing or dying.
Another factor to consider is the betting opportunities. CS:GO, for instance, offers the best opportunities of all esports, and Thunderpick will even give you the option to place bets with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. If you enjoy betting on esports and you’re searching for the best esports game, that is CS:GO 100%.
For a casual gamer, these are the best esports that you can get into in 2023.
Table of Contents
CS:GO
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has been around for 10 years but the Counter-Strike series has been around for more than 20. During this time, the game has been refined numerous times, reaching the excellent state in which it can be played today.
A great thing about CS:GO is that it’s very easy to learn but extremely difficult to master. You can easily spend 10.000 hours in this game and you’ll still have a lot to improve.
As an esport, CS:GO features dozens of tournaments each year, with prize pools ranging from $100.000 to $2.000.000. Top esports players earn a lot of money these days, so if you have the necessary skills to be one of them, you’ll have a great career ahead of you.
The player base of CS:GO is somewhere around 20 million. This game is definitely not dying anytime soon, and the company behind it is Valve Corporation. This is the same company that owns the Steam platform and other great games, such as Half-Life, Portal, and Dota 2.
CS:GO is a great esport to get into for another reason: its skins market. No other game community has such an obsession with skins or cosmetic in-game items that allow you to visually customize your weapons.
Thanks to the sheer amount of skins traded on a daily basis and the fact that there are skin markets that give you the possibility to sell skins and withdraw the funds to your PayPal or bank account, you can actually make money from this if you have the necessary knowledge.
The prices of CS:GO skins range from $0.1 to $10.000+. It all depends on quality, rarity, demand, and much more. Some players got rich by selling knife skins and rare stickers.
If you don’t like CS:GO, you can also try Valorant.
League of Legends
League of Legends is the best MOBA game that you can get into as an aspiring esports competitor. Its player base is over 100 million and the company behind the game is highly successful.
League of Legends functions like any major traditional sport and it’s not that difficult to get signed by one of the top teams if you’re skilled enough. Just prove yourself in pub games, climb the ladder, and you’ll get approached by serious organizations.
There are hundreds of professional LoL clubs around the world, which makes it easier for you to start your career.
If you want to play LoL casually, the game is fun, has a great atmosphere, and will keep you busy for years. There are more than 150 champions to choose from and every one of them is unique. You’ll need a few years just to learn the basics, and another few to master one position with all of its associated champions.
LoL is a team game and also a mental game, so you will feel engaged at every level. If you’re a strong person mentally, it will show in your results and in your attitude during each match.
Dota 2
Dota 2 is very similar to LoL but a lot more complex. However, this game is not as successful and will probably never get close to LoL’s success. Its current player base is somewhere around 8 million but the game has the potential to reach at least 15 million.
Dota 2 is a different flavor of the MOBA genre and as a game, it’s unbeatable. The community though is a bit toxic and has little patience with new players. So if you want to reach the top ranks, you’ll need to learn how to deal with all kinds of strange people. You’ll get flamed for just about anything. And unlike LoL, Dota 2 allows players to use voice chat.
StarCraft 2
If you want a purely strategic experience in which the result is 100% determined by your level of skill, StarCraft 2 is the best game out there. This RTS used to be one of the main pillars of the esports industry until the arrival of games like League of Legends, Dota 2, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
The StarCraft series has been around for 25 years and many gamers have tried it at least once in their lives. But this RTS is not for everyone. It is really challenging and will require you to play like a pianist. If your APM is not at least 100, you cannot possibly succeed in SC2 in the Platinum league or above.
Another crucial ability in this game is multitasking. There are always at least five different things happening at once and it’s your job to make sure that you don’t miss anything. Unlike turn-based games, real-time strategy games allow you to do as much as you can. The best players in the world have 300 APM or more and can make decisions incredibly fast.
