In June, mobile developer Critical Force closed a $6.3M funding round, stating that the capital would be used, in part, to expand the esports market for its mobile shooter Critical Ops. At the time, Critical Force CEO Veli-Pekka Piirainen told The Esports Observer that “about $2.0M is reserved for esports and organizational development.”

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]”One of the key advantages for mobile is accessibility.”[/perfectpullquote]

That same month, Critical Ops debuted a spectator client at Amazon’s Mobile Masters event, a multi-game tournament highlighting mobile esports, at which a Critical Ops tournament awarded $40K in prize money. To learn more about this event, and the role esports has played in the growth of Critical Ops, The Esports Observer spoke with Critical Force’s esports manager: Kasperi Kivistö.

While major tournament organizers like ESL and DreamHack still operate large multi-game events, developers like Riot Games , Blizzard Entertainment , and Epic Games have reduced their games’ presence at third party festivals in favor of first party leagues and circuits. For mobile games, however, Kivistö believes that multi-game events like Amazon’s Mobile Masters can be more beneficial than trying to do everything alone.

“Competitive mobile gaming is a recently new phenomena, while mobile games in general are often considered more casual than PC or console games,” he said. “This creates an opportunity to create multi-game tournaments showcasing the deep, skill-based action and tactics that mobile games like Critical Ops have to offer.”

“Casual” is a common criticism leveled at mobile games attempting to enter the esports industry. Without the use of mice, keyboards, and controllers, there are inherent limitations on mobile games for player choice and control. For established esports genres such as first-person shooters, a game like Critical Ops could be perceived as simply a lesser version of a PC esports title like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive .

However, Kivistö has seen a demand for a competitive, tournament experience in a mobile shooter. In 2017, 350 community-driven tournaments were held through Critical Force’s Critical Ops community tournament program. “We took our time to experiment with different type of formats and standards for the top tier competition,” Kivistö said, “to create the best competitive experience for Critical Ops. Based on these experiments and statistics, in 2018 we’ve expanded to live events and region based online leagues.”

[perfectpullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]In regions where mobile gaming culture is stronger, that accessibility has already led to a few standout mobile esports.[/perfectpullquote]

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Mobile esports still have a long way to go to reach the level of viewership, sponsor interest, and general audience awareness of more traditional PC and console esports, but Kivistö believes that mobile games have one distinct edge on the competition to aid in their growth:

“One of the key advantages for mobile is accessibility. Not only do more people own a mobile device compared to PC but we also carry our mobile devices everywhere. This kind of accessibility makes it easy to set up for example an instant LAN – all you need is a bunch of friends in the same location with an internet connection.”

In regions where mobile gaming culture is stronger, that accessibility has already lead to a few standout mobile esports. China’s Honor of Kings has become a phenomenon in the country with its own TV series and million-dollar player transfer deals. In Southeast Asia, mobile MOBA Mobile Legends has grown so popular that Malaysian airline AirAsia purchased its own professional team. While Western mobile culture is a bit behind these markets, there have been major steps forward in recent months such as the debut of the Clash Royale League and AT&T stepping into esports through Arena of Valor.

Looking forward, Critical Force is ready to invest in the growth of its esports market. Kivisto said that Mobile Masters allowed the company to collect data on how to run live events for their game. “It also worked as a proof of concept moving forward with developing Critical Ops esports in the future.”