For a while now, the eSports industry has been dominated by shooters, MOBAs, fighters, and until recently, RTSes like StarCraft. However, many believe that the industry has room for other game genres.

Just recently, Team Liquid made that a viable option by acquiring a team in turn-based strategy game Civilization VI. This has gotten some people asking what other genres of video games are worthy of having their own eSports competitions. Given the competitive aspect of already existing eSports games, other competitive games previously not included n eSports would be the first and most obvious choice.

Couch co-op games would be a very good candidate for eSports competitions. Games like Towerfall Ascension or Speedrunners where players are pinned against each other on the same screen contain the kind of competitive aspect that makes it exciting for players to play as well as for audiences to watch. The fact that these kinds of games don’t require any specific skillset from players, like CS:GO requires hand-eye coordination as well as accuracy, further makes them accessible by a wider audience of players.

“Definitely the couch co op games like Nidhogg, TowerFall Ascension, Speedrunners; the competitive same screen games. I feel like they were huge for awhile, then they have been kind of going away lately,” Supervising editor at Rush Hour Daily, Michael Consoli stated when asked about the possibility of these games in eSports.

With Microsoft advertising and supporting the Forza championship with a second season, I feel like racing games could very well have a comeback in eSports. While TrackMania, iRACING and Project Cars do have their own racing tournaments running, they are still fairly small and don’t have much exposure outside of the racing community. If a big name company like Microsoft promotes a big name game like Forza, more eyes will turn to the racing part of eSports and perhaps these smaller games would get more attention.

Speaking of small games, mobile eSports are starting to become a thing. A few weeks ago, Cloud9 bought their own team for Vainglory, a mobile MOBA developed and published by Super Evil Megacorp for iOS and Android devices. In a world where eSports games are PC and console only, Cloud9 could very well be paving the way for mobile eSports to take the spotlight or at least a part of it. After all, World of Warcraft is an eSports despite being an MMO with PvP capabilities, so mobile eSports could very well turn out to be a thing.

In conclusion, the eSports industry is a very dynamic place with no set games being a part of it forever. Just a few weeks ago the Korean eSports Association pulled the plug on one of the oldest running eSports tournaments, StarCraft ProLeague. Up until a few years ago, Counter Strike 1.6 was huge and CS:GO was just a dream. Things are always changing in eSports and other types of games always have the opportunity to make it big should they have the audience and support for it. This kind of flexibility is what makes eSports so great and so welcoming to newer members and audiences.