Aussie Esports and their growth

Aussie Esports over the past early decade had been for the lack of better words, underwhelming in the international scene. Very few players and teams had made their mark on the international scene. Recently, Australia had started to pick up steam as more investment and better players started to appear.

Talent then and now

Australia had very few organisations and players involved in the world of esports earlier this decade. Not at the fault of the players, however, weaker infrastructure had slowed the uptake and interest of esports. With poor download speeds and upload speeds, it wasn't a wonder why Australia seemed to lag behind in the scene.

For single player titles like Starcraft 2, there had been success for Australia on the international scene. Players such as Andrew "mOOnGLaDe" Pender had a solid showing on the international world stage as early as early 2011.

Whereas team games like Dota 2, League of Legends or CS:GO, Australia had a more difficult time showing on the international stage. Despite this, there were a few Aussie players that didn't represent Australia but found success by playing for other teams.

Players like Damien "Kpii" Chok played for a Chinese team Newbee. His record for a strong showing in a number of Chinese and international tournaments is quite large. His team had been consistently placed top 4 from 2016 to early 2018 for a game called Dota 2.

There are still some incredible teams that originated in Australia and had done pretty well on the world stage. Renegades division for CS:GO had done consistently well on the international stage from 2015-2017 on the international stage.

Australian esports spotlight

Though we had a number of talented Aussie players leaving for other countries in search of better opportunities, Australia wasn't idle on their growth for the scene. Australia was slow due to a number of reasons such as; smaller amount of players and fans or weaker infrastructure. There had been a number of projects initiated to work through it.

In the past years, a number of Australian organisations had put in a lot of work to gain publicity in our country. To give an example, Northern Territory Racing Commission had officially declared esports as an actual sporting event. It only lists a limited number of games for it to be seen as esports. However, a government organisation recognizing esports is a huge step to making esports bigger.

Even mainstream sporting teams like the Adelaide Crows acquired a League of Legends Australian team, Legacy esports. The AFL had also expressed a lot of interest in integrating esports to their system and encouraged many AFL clubs to join them on this venture.

Bright future

There are many ways of pushing esports in Australia forward. Supporting your local Aussie teams is incredibly vital to the scene in Australia, more organisations will notice the exposure and fans. Perhaps they might even consider the AFL's footsteps and dive into the world of esports as well!