Most popular competitive games in South Africa

eSports is growing in South Africa, with an increasing amount of gamers becoming involved in the local competitive gaming scene.

Prize pools for local gaming tournaments have risen substantially over the past two years, with many competitions now boasting prizes in excess of R1 million.

VS Gaming, previously Telkom DGL, provides one of the biggest online platforms for competitive gaming in the country – with many online gamers using it to compete in online leagues.

The platform supports servers, tournaments, and online leagues for numerous titles across PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.

MyBroadband spoke to VS Gaming CEO Cambridge Mokanyane about the current state of competitive gaming in South Africa.

eSports in South Africa

Mokanyane said the majority of serious competitive gamers who participate in eSports leagues and tournaments play on PC.

85% of players regularly competing in tournaments and events are PC gamers, with only a small percentage playing on a PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

At the more casual level, PC users comprise 50% of the gaming population – with consoles making up the other half.

Due to the amount of PC gamers competing at a high level, the most popular titles largely consist of PC games.

Mokanyane said Dota 2 was by far the most popular competitive game in South Africa, followed by Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

Dota 2 and CS:GO are massive eSports titles globally and regularly feature in international tournaments with million-dollar prize pools.

Other popular titles in South Africa include:

League of Legends
Battlefield 4
Call of Duty
Hearthstone

Mokanyane said FIFA 17 was another game with a big local following, and VS Gaming’s R1.5-million FIFA 17 tournament received great interest from the community.

He said VS Gaming would continue to monitor player interest and is looking at adding new games to its online platform for the next season.