Now a days, eSports & Competitive Gaming are very much used interchangeably and therefore, it has become imperative to highlight the difference in both of them for various stakeholders like gamers, brands & investors. Although both are defined in a very similar way, however, there is a lot of difference between the two
“eSports” is also known as ‘electronic sports’, ‘eGaming’, however “eSports” is altogether a different genre of gaming in itself. Mostly eSports take the form of “organised” multiplayer gaming competitions, basically between the professional players either as individuals or as teams. On the other hand, Competitive gaming is that in which gamer “play against a bot”. Also it’s like an offline platform where there is a scoreboard rather having a one-on-one competition. It is more often referred to as casual gaming. Competitive gaming is when one wants to win his next game to “rank up” or improve his stats.
The major difference between eSports and competitive gaming is that in eSports multiplayer play online in a flock, whereas, in case of competitive gaming the culture of online multiplayer playing together is not there. Live matches, large number of audiences or bystanders can be noticed in eSports, whereas in competitive gaming it’s altogether different, as it doesn’t promote live matches along with lots of viewers or audience. When one says offline, yes it occurs majorly under the competitive gaming parameters because it’s more about boosting up the ranks or levels instead of playing live with the opponent.
One of the basic features of competitive gaming is “NPCs” (bots are all the non-player characters) in a game and the character is controlled by a computer, whereas in eSports it’s a live-go-tournament look alike. There is a fixed format for eSports tournaments having qualifying criteria, rules and regulations whereas competitive gaming doesn’t need one. In eSports, sponsors plays a big role like any other physical sports where brands can promote themselves by becoming a sponsor to an offline or online tournament and by providing sponsorship to the player or team. Sponsorship attracts more players, viewers, streamers, audience etc. whereas in competitive gaming there is no such promotional activities required as it’s one click go.
Consequently, it can be construed that whether eSports and competitive gaming are same or different is a debatable issue in the gaming industry since there are different perceptions prevailing in the market.