One of the strongest industries to emerge from the late 2000s tech revolution was esports, which then benefited in the 2010s from the popularity of streaming and video-sharing platforms to become a multi-billion dollar industry.
US-based viewership is expected to hit over 30 million in 2026, though it’s far from a stateside industry and is even more popular in East Asian countries. Critics say that it can become rigid and repetitive, leaving many wondering if and how esports will innovate in the future. That’s the question we’re taking on today.
Online Entertainment
First, we should talk about online entertainment as a whole. Like esports, any online or tech-based industry is enhanced or limited by the platforms, hardware, or software that it uses. We have seen tech innovations enhance similar forms of entertainment, like when we use video streaming to watch shows or use the internet to check previous lottery results. In isolation, those are two experiences that pre-date the internet but have been improved by it, and the related hardware overhauls. Now, we can watch shows from all over the world or enter lottery draws outside of our own country.
So there is plenty of innovation to be had when the tools we use get an upgrade, which will doubtlessly apply to esports as crazy developments like better VR or even full-body haptic feedback enter the equation. Some believe that VR and simulation can get so advanced that esports will start to look closer to real sports, where players need to perform actions in real life that are translated in-game.
Esports is different from a lot of other online entertainment because it’s a post-internet industry, with multiplayer being essential to its competitive spirit. However, that will only inspire players to innovate due because of all that money and glory for the taking.
National And International Competitions
So, tech innovation will happen whether esports is along for the ride or not, but that’s where we get to brass tacks. Practically speaking, esports would be nothing without its competitions. Much like any other sport, cut out the biggest competitions and you end up axing most of its public interest and the moments that create sports superstars.
Fortunately, esports isn’t anywhere near as centralized as other sports. In esports, there are dozens of games that each attract millions of viewers and hold their own events. Industry mainstays include MOBAs like League of Legends, first-person shooters like Counter-Strike, and fighters like, well, Street Fighter.
However, at any moment, developers can drop a game that creates a whole new esports industry from seemingly nowhere. You only need to look at the battle royale craze from 2017 onwards to see this. It just takes another esports-friendly genre to arrive and make the entire industry relevant again for millions of people.
Strategies And Gameplay
The last but most human piece of this puzzle is in the strategies and gameplay that esports uses. Much like speed-running, the best players boil games down to a science, which can introduce repetitiveness. There are just some things coded into the software that incentivizes certain play styles over others.
However, this is solved by updates and live-service games. They are always being tweaked and prodded at now, enhancing underutilized parts of the experience and nerfing those that are a little unfair. Put simply, the sport in esports changes, sometimes from season to season. Any update can devalue a strategy, incentivizing new kinds of gameplay and rewarding experimentation.
So, on the fronts of tech, competition, and strategy, innovation is baked into esports due to it being a tech industry. As hardware improves, the way esports is played will change. As streaming and web hosting improve, esports events will continue to get bigger. Lastly, as software is improved through updates, players will be forced to switch up their gameplay strategies to come out on top.
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