Mobile esports is just one of many growing branches of esports as a whole, and market intelligence company Newzoo has released a brand new report that indicates this branch has expanded significantly in recent years, increasing 102% in revenues between 2015 and 2017 alone.
There's a particular boom in mobile esports in Asia though, especially in China, helped by games like Honor of Kings (known as Arena of Valor in the West) and Battle of Balls. Newzoo also expects mobile esports "to follow a similar structure to that of PC, with the top games being played and scalable stadium events taking place with large viewership."
PC is still the dominant form of gaming and entertainment in the West though, and that's not expected to change anytime soon, although mobile esports is expected to experience success in other layers such as the amateur scene. "For the mobile esports scene, 2018 will be a year to uncover its own identity within the larger esports ecosystem," the report adds.
The report also compares PC to mobile, as on Twitch two million hours of mobile esports events were watched in 2017 between North America and Europe, compared to 405 million hours of PC esports events in the same parameters. Within mobile esports though, Clash Royale and Vainglory are leading the way, both of which have held sizeable events in the last year.
These results aren't exactly surprising, but they're still interesting nonetheless. How can mobile compete with other esports scenes in the West?