Who are they?
The current generation of gamers are the first to have grown up playing console games and this is reflected in the comparative youth of the gamers dominating the sport, the eldest of these elite gamers is twenty-six and the youngest, Sumail Hassan, a mere seventeen. As of August 2016, Sumail’s Esport earnings totalled $2,287,947. Quite an income for a teenager.
Where do they come from?
You might assume that Esport is dominated by a single country such as Korea or America but an indication of its global reach is the fact that the top ten players represent seven different countries. An indication of the massive fan base is that a player like Danil Ishutin, ranked number four, attracts three hundred and eighty-four thousand twitter followers.
Prize Pots
It is perhaps the consistently increasing prize pots that is driving the increasing popularity of Esports as much as anything and the game which is really raising the stakes is Dota2, reflected in the fact that the top seven players all use this platform. Three of the players netted an incredible $1,326,932 in a single Dota2 win. When you set this against the $2,607,145 total earnings of top earner Saahil Arora of the USA you can see why the Dota2 tournaments dominate the scoreboard.
And the top ranking Esport gamer in the world?
Not the man with the biggest earnings or the biggest twitter following but with twenty-six wins out of seventy-three tournaments and a forty-nine percent strike rate, Clement Ivanov, who goes by the gamer tag of Puppey, is currently ranked number one in the world. With interest in Esport growing relentlessly there’s going to be plenty of young guns out there eager to topple him from the top position.
You can see the Top 10 here.
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