According to The EsportsObserver’s Q3 2020 analysis, Call of Duty climbs the ranks to become a Tier 1 Esports game, while Rainbow Six Siege drops another tier once again.
League of Legends, one of the biggest Esports titles in recent days, is accompanied by Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare in the Tier 1 position for the first time ever.
TheEsportsObserver (TEO) takes a number of data and analyses it to create an Impact Index. Some of the indicators they took into account were the game’s monthly active players, Esports hour watched, number of tournaments, and more. And according to them, League of Legends dominates the chart by a big margin, thanks to its huge player-base.
Q3 2020 analysis
While many other Esports titles have been on a decline because of the global pandemic, Call of Duty on the other hand has risen to the top. The first season of Call of Duty League (CDL) has given this franchise a massive boost in the Esports scene. The huge prize pool of $4.6 million for the CDL Championship has also provided them an edge in TEO’s impact index.
“Additionally, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare was the most-streamed game on Twitch during the third quarter of 2020. Despite a significant share of users playing on consoles, the game’s PC player base was the fourth largest of all games in this ranking resulting in the title’s jump from rank No. 6 to rank No. 2.”
Unfortunately, Rainbow Six Siege has suffered a lot amidst this pandemic. Ubisoft’s FPS tactical shooter dropped from a Tier 1 rank in Q1 2020 to rank No. 13 in Q3 2020. The cancellation of the international LAN Majors such as the recent Six August Major was a big contributor to this decline. Although the regional online tournaments did replace this LAN event, the viewership was not strong enough compared to a few months ago.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive also dropped down a Tier “primarily due to the absence of large in-person tournaments”. While Riot Games’ first-person shooter VALORANT continues to thrive ahead with its growing player-base and an increasingly active competitive scene. You can check out the complete analysis for more titles here.
Although this ranking does provide a general sense of the position for these Esports titles, the impact index sometimes doesn’t show the complete picture.
