Evaluating where esports lie in relation to each other is a difficult task. But Jens Hilgers, founder of Turtle Entertainment and CEO of DOJO MADNESS, has slowly been developing criteria to do just that. Today, he published the first eSports Games Chart, a culmination of this line of thinking that has helped him throughout his many years in the industry.

According to Hilgers, the three best metrics to evaluate an esport are monthly active users, total yearly prize pool, and monthly hours streamed. By setting standards across those three variables, he has determined a series of tiers that esports can fall into. He has also limited inclusion to games that have been out for over a year, and have stable player and fan bases.

This kind of classification makes a lot of sense. Let’s break it down.

The qualitative criteria

All presented games have a lifespan longer than one year.

This requirement seems obvious, because it ensures that a new title has some time to settle down. Games like Rocket League already fulfill some of the criteria to be classified in the Tier concept. However, to prevent tiers from being misrepresentative due to overhyped titles—or underrepresenting slowly growing titles—a lifespan of at least one year seems reasonable for inclusion.

All presented games have a stable fan and player base.

This requirement works hand-in-hand with the first. To assure that the listed game counts as an esports title in the sense of a spectator sport, there have to be both a fair amount of professional players as well as a representative fan base. This prevents one-hit-wonder games from interfering with the rankings.

The quantitative criteria

To reach a certain tier within the system, a game has to show off a minimum amount in at least two of the three following requirements: Monthly Active Users, Yearly Prize Pool and Monthly Hours Streamed. The first criteria is explained due to the rule of thumb that a healthy player base is the foundation of a living esports scene. Research shows that players tend to be viewers of competitive play too. Furthermore, the level a game reaches with its yearly prize pool is a good indicator to measure the tournament ecosystem of that game in terms of its esports value. Monthly hours streamed works as an indicator towards broadcasting activity and viewership numbers.

Tier 1

Tier 1 games have a monthly active user base of at least eight million, a yearly prize pool of at least five million US dollar, and exceed 20 million hours monthly streaming time. With only two of the three requirements needed to enter a tier, Counter-Strike finds itself among the Tier 1 games regardless of lacking a yearly prize pool of $5M, for example. The same scheme holds true for Hearthstone.

Tier 2

Tier 2 games have a significantly lower active user base of at least 1.5 million each month, a yearly prize pool of only more than one million US dollar, and more than 2 million hours of streaming per month. Tier 2 is the tier to look for to see the most promising candidates for the future. You can find relatively new games like Smite and Heroes of the Storm in Tier 2, as well as some veterans among the esports industry, like the StarCraft franchise. Regionally successful titles like World of Tanks are also represented in this tier.

Tier 3

Last but not least, there is Tier 3. These games have at least 500,000 monthly active users, more than $100,000 in prize money per year, and are streamed at least 200,000 hours each month. The most prominent genre in this tier are fighting games. With a small but passionate user base in Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, and Super Smash Bros, this genre has found its own niche. Also, upcoming titles like Vainglory, which is starting to dominate the mobile esports sector, can be found here.

What do you think? Are there missing metrics by which to identify esports? Do you agree or disagree about where any of these games land? Let us know your thoughts!