Top 5 most played Esports in Pakistan

By Taimur Nadeem

Screen Play: Gaming is an incredibly entertaining past-time, and turning it into a full-time profession is a dream come true for many

Esports, once considered as a purely entertaining past-time, is now taken more seriously by people around the world. Gamers are competing on a professional level to make careers out of it. Esports is competitive gaming where top players compete, either as a team or individually, in order to win big prize pools.

Since Pakistan is home to many gamers, Esports is rising in Pakistan with many players making a living out of it. The journey for these competitive players has not been easy as they have to go through a lot of hurdles, but the future seems to be very bright for them.

Pakistan has also become a hub to many Esports’ gamers; here are the top five most played Esports in Pakistan:

1- Dota

The Dota series —an online multiplayer battle arena video game—began back in 2003 with the release of Defence of the Ancients (DotA). Due to the growing interest of people in this game, DOTA 2 was created as a sequel to the original DotA. It was published and developed by Valve Corporation, which also owns the gaming platform Steam.

Dota is a multiplayer online game in which two teams of five players each compete and try to destroy a large structure known as the 'Ancient', which is defended by the opposing team while defending their own structure.

In March 2016, Dota reached its record high peak number of concurrent players, measured at almost 1.29 million gamers competing at the same time. The month recently calculated was September 2020, where the game peaked at over 0.6 million concurrent participants at the same time.

Just like other popular shooter games on console and PC, there is a healthy amount of money which players can win—who play on competitive levels. The International 2018 is the biggest Dota 2 world championship Esports tournament, which took place in Vancouver, Canada back in 2018.

Sumail Hassan, who started playing Dota at the age of seven, is considered the best Dota 2 player in Pakistan with a total earning of $3.6 million. He also holds the record of becoming the youngest professional gamer to win $1 million.

2- Counter-Strike Global Offensive

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) was released on 21st August 2012. That is eight years of CS:GO, and the game is still going strong.

CS:GO was the newest iteration of the previously popular CS 1.6, and fans were hesitant to move on from CS 1.6 as it was revamped. CS:GO is a team game of five people against another five people, where one team has to plant the bomb, while the other team protects the bomb site to ensure that the bomb is not planted.

Fans might forget that CS:GO was initially also released on console—PS3 and Xbox 360—although the console didn't get the hype it was expected to, but the game took off on PC as soon as gun skins and cases went live in an update.

In 2019, Valve honoured 20 years of Counter-Strike with the biggest in-game event which the game has ever seen.

As of January 2020, Counter-Strike had more than 22 million active users on a monthly basis, while some say that the game is dying due to hackers. Adam Ahmad is the most earned CS:GO player in Pakistan with almost $6000 in total earnings.

3- PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds Mobile

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) Mobile was released on 9th February 2018 for both Android and iOS devices. Two separate versions were released for this game, and they had a combined total of 75 million pre-registrations.

PUBG is a battle royale game in which 100 players drop into the same city and fight with each other until one remains alive, who is then crowned victorious. There are different game modes such as solo, duo or a small team of up to four people. As of today, PUBG Mobile has 600 million online players bringing in a revenue of $1.3 billion—alone in 2020. Covid-19 has played a significant role in PUBG Mobile gaining the hype it has till now due to the lockdown. PUBG Mobile now has 734 million downloads worldwide.

Earlier in 2020, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) suspended PUBG game in the country after receiving numerous complaints against it. But shortly after, the Islamabad High Court announced to lift the ban. Ali Khan from Portal Esports has the highest earnings in Pakistan when it comes to PUBG Mobile—with total earnings of $275.

In November 2020, PUBG Pakistan announced the second edition of its PUBG Mobile Pakistan Challenge, offering Rs10 million in prizes for the winners of the tournament.

4- Fortnite

Fortnite has become one of the world's most popular game with 200 million people playing the title since its launch. In Fortnite Battle Royale, 100 players battle against each other on an island until only one man is left standing. With Fortnite being free to play, and playable on PC, console and mobile, it has a massive fan base, making it an ideal game to play for profit.

The biggest Esports competition in Fortnite is the Fortnite World Cup which takes place in July every year. However, due to Covid-19, the 2020 World Cup was cancelled. Nevertheless, other competitions are still taking place—such as the Fortnite Championship Series with a $2 million prize pool. In Pakistan, Sameer Hassan is the highest-earning Fortnite player, with total earnings of $2,130.

5- Tekken 7

Tekken 7 is a combat game that was released back in March 2015—developed and published by the Bandai Namco Entertainment. Tekken 7 was the ninth instalment in the Tekken series. Tekken has a gameplay of one against one where players have the option of picking multiple characters and using their special powers to battle against their rivals. As easy as it may sound, Tekken is one of the most technical games where the learning ability of each character is the key. As of October 2020, Tekken 7 had almost 10 million players, with nearly 100,000 new players every month. The biggest Tekken 7 tournament was the EVO, held in Las Vegas back in 2019. Arslan Siddique, also known as Arslan Ash, won the tournament and became the Pakistan’s most earned Tekken 7 player. Arslan won the contest with almost $14,000, raising his total earnings to $67,556.