Mobile Gaming is here to shake up esports

Esports and gaming aren’t exactly new – they’ve been around for a few years at least. The world of gaming is always in flux though, and things that are popular today may not be so popular in the near future – trends change at the drop of a hat and the most recent big change is the rise of mobile gaming.

At the moment, in the west, the world of esports is mostly focused on PC gaming, and to some extent console gaming as well. In Asia on the other hand, mobile gaming is already further along – mobile gaming tournaments are relatively commonplace and the attitude that mobile esports games are ‘less’ than PC/console titles is far less prevalent. This change in attitude isn’t limited to the East though, it is slowly coming to Europe and the Americas as well.

The ESL Mobile Open

There are some companies that are leading the charge here, and two of the biggest names are ESL… and AT&T. American phone giant AT&T heavily sponsors various esports events, among which are now also titles like Asphalt 9: Legends, a racing game, Clash of Clans and PUBG mobile.

Along with ESL, these three games and their competitive communities are going to be joining the ranks of more established games on different platforms. The ESL Mobile Open as it will be called will run across 3 seasons for the time being. The first one is launching in just a few days, on the 18th of March this year.

Each season will consist of 3 phases, namely an Open Qualifier that lasts a month, the top 50% will then move on to the Closed Qualifier stage, and finally, the best few players from that will move on to see themselves featured in live broadcasts produced by ESL.

If you want to participate in the Clash of Clans or PUBG Mobile tournaments, all you need to do is to go to the ESL Mobile Open website and sign up via ESL Play. If you want to join the Asphalt 9: Legends tournament, you can do so through the Daily Events tab in-game, but only after the 18th of March. The other two sign-ups are already open.

The DreamHack Mobile Series

Of course, ESL and AT&T aren’t the only tournament hosts that want to focus on mobile gaming – another huge name is DreamHack. The Swedish tournament series is now launching the DreamHack Mobile Series which will feature two games – Brawl Stars and Clash Royale.

Both games will be featured in separate events this June, one in the US in Dallas from the 31st of may to the 2nd of June and one in Sweden from the 15th of June to the 17th of June. While Brawl Stars will feature 3v3 tournaments, Clash Royale will use a 1v1 game made to find the best of the best.

Both the ESL and DreamHack tournaments feature small but considerable prize pools – while they can’t compare to the sometimes million-dollar prizes we are by now used to seeing from ‘regular’ esports tournaments, earning a few thousand dollars by winning a mobile gaming tournament is still incredibly impressive.

Good luck to all participants!