eSports games are gaining more and more popularity worldwide, especially at the professional level. Championships move the international scene and mobilize players and fans to support teams.
For both DotA 2 and CS: GO there are championships called Minors. They take place separately in different regions around the world and select the best teams and players for the Major tournaments – bigger prize international championships.
League of Legends, on the other hand, maintains the same dynamics, but with some different features. Each world region has its own professional league, which competes in national tournaments to win a place in the World Championship. In addition to this big tournament, LoL also has other championship models, with the guests and players most voted by the public.
<h2> CS:GO </h2>
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, or CS: GO, is a first-person shooter (FPS) online game. Valve is the game developer, and it participates in the organization of two Major tournaments per year. These are the world championships, which have the biggest prizes of the season, reaching US$ 1 million each.
During Major tournaments, usually, stickers are launched – and they represent participating players and teams, which can be purchased by users and placed on weapons. Thus, the game is customized and the casual player demonstrates financial support to the team or the professional player since they keep 30% of the money invested.
CS: GO works with an open circuit, with singular championships in different regions of the world. There are also several companies that organize these competitions, such as ESL, ESEA, FACEIT, PGL, BLAST, ELEAGUE, DreamHack, StarLadder, WESG, and more. Majors select participating teams from the best in Minors.
It is important to highlight that in CS: GO, the nationality of a team is not determined by the country of the organization, but by the majority of the players’ nationalities.
DotA 2
DotA 2 is also developed by Valve, and is known for multi-million dollar awards in competitions. The biggest championship is called The International, which has teams selected from Major and Minor championships all over the world, which gather scores for a general ranking. The other vacancies are filled through qualifying stages of the regions participating in the professional circuit: China, Europe, Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Southeast Asia, North America and South America. This strategy guarantees the participation of at least one team per region in the main tournament.
Each of the Majors’ championships distributes 15,000 points and US$ 1 million in total prize money, while Minors provide 500 points and US$ 300,000 in prizes. At the end of the season, the teams’ points are added up, and the top 12 guarantees a place in the World Championship.
On the DotA 2 professional circuit, Majors are the most important events. In total, 16 teams compete in person, defined by qualifiers, with a minimum of two per region. Minors are face-to-face tournaments organized exclusively for teams that did not qualify for the Major in the qualifiers. Participants are also defined in qualifiers, with one spot per region. In addition to securing ranking points and cash prizes, Minors represent the last chance for a team to reach a spot in the next Major on the calendar. This benefit is exclusive to the tournament champion.
League of Legends
Considered one of the most popular Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) games, League of Legends is developed by Riot Games and moves millions of fans from all over the world, with a well-structured competitive calendar throughout the year.
The championships are divided into 13 regions, and each has its own league: North America (LCS), Europe (LEC), South Korea (LCK), China (LPL), Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau (LMS), Vietnam (VCS), Russia, Ukraine and other former Soviet republics (CIS), Turkey (TCL), Brazil (CBLoL), Latin America (LLA), Japan (LJL), Southeast Asia (SEA) and Oceania (OPL).
LoL has regional and international tournaments in the closed-circuit format. The main and biggest of all is the League of Legends World Championship, when top teams from each region face each other, competing for the title of World Champion. In addition to this, there are also three international events promoted by Riot Games: the Mid-Season Invitational, which is a dispute between the champions of the 1st Split, the Rift Rivals, which involves the best representatives of the leagues between rival regions, and the All-Star, which brings together the most voted players from each region for duels from the traditional 5 x 5 to 1 x 1.
