Esports refers to the world of competitive, organized online video gaming. Players from different leagues or teams face off in popular games such as Fortnite, Pubg, League of Legends, or Call of Duty, and these gamers are watched, loved, and followed by millions of fans all over the world. Most fans either attend live events or watch these gamers through their favorite streaming services platforms such as Twitch, Toornament.com, and even Youtube.
What challenges are the esports industry facing?
Intransparency: Currently, there isn’t a transparent system that provides fair rewards to players. While many players are keen to participate in solo tournaments, they often become victims of fraud or neglect due to 3rd party involvement and mismanagement. This all comes down to the 3rd party not keeping their end of the contracts, which results in withholding, refusing, or delaying players' payments.
Unfair conditions for players: Players only receive a small percentage of the total industry revenue. Yet, since they’ve invested time, energy, and immense effort into training for these competitive games and competitions, they’ve been left without any financial security. Therefore, players tend to depend on managers, organisers, and 3rd party representatives, and it leaves them with no control over the distribution of revenue or income.
Decentralized Esports Ecosystems
Blockchain technology allows industry stakeholders to connect in a peer-to-peer transaction module, which removes complexities, intermediaries, and 3rd party fraud; thus, blockchain permits the easy distribution of prize money, transfer of players, media rights, etc. Through tailor-made smart contracts (a contract that is executed automatically based on the code and the agreements), blockchain can also build trust in the Esports industry due to its transparent nature that allows all participants to watch what’s happening in the network from their wallet addresses. Smart contracts between organizers of tournaments, developers, and players also remove the risk of eSports players not being paid or concerns over the unfair distribution of prize money. This gives players better control since no changes can be made to the smart contracts while active tournament results in a fair and equal gaming experience.
Conclusion
Blockchain technology remains the most reliable and promising addition to the transformation of the eSports industry. It provides many direct and obvious solutions while bringing massive improvements to current issues, offering more effective, transparent, and non-fraudulent solutions to current outdated services. Not surprisingly, the number of online gaming platforms that are applying blockchain technology to their frameworks is increasing at a rapid rate. The more gaming platforms start to trust and adopt blockchain technology, the sooner the industry would be transformed into a transparent and efficient financial model, which would result in constant interest from consumers and investors. It’s only a matter of time before we see the eSports industry finally succeeding in the 4th industrial revolution, all thanks to the power of blockchain.