The esports industry continues to develop every day with its prize pools, viewership numbers and the quality of the events organized.
Last month we took a look at the MOBA games with the highest prize pools. Today, we are going to look at FPS games with the highest prize pools together. Without wasting too much time, let's get started with our list.
5. VALORANT
Fifth place is the newest game on the list, VALORANT. With Riot Games' vision, VALORANT has emerged as a successful game, in terms of esports. VALORANT's team with the highest earnings so far has been the Sentinels, with $551,500 in 18 tournaments. When we look at the countries that are successful in the game, the players from the United States catch our eye the most. The USA is followed by Russia, South Korea, Canada, Turkey and Brazil. VALORANT's tournament with the biggest prize pool so far was last month. The prize pool for VALORANT Champions 2021 was $1,000,000. The champion of the tournament was Acend. The total prize pool of VALORANT tournaments so far is $8,847,626.
4. Counter-Strike
The fourth place on our list is the legendary Counter-Strike — predecessor of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. With its release on November 9, 2000, Counter-Strike has defined esports and, maintains its fourth place in the list despite the passing years. The top winning team in Counter-Strike was Fnatic, which earned just $3,500 more than SK Gaming. There must be those of you who remember the great rivalry between the two teams at that time, and also players like f0rest and GeT_RiGhT. Many of the top Counter-Strike players were from Sweden. The countries that followed were Germany, United States, Russia and Denmark. The total prize pool in Counter-Strike tournaments is $13,553,955.
3. Rainbow Six Siege
The third place is Rainbow Six Siege, which Ubisoft has made one of the cornerstones of the industry by making it more suitable for esports every day. The game, which was released in 2015, did not affect esports lovers and professional players on those days as much as it does today. Ninjas in Pyjamas has so far taken the largest share of prize pools in Rainbow Six Siege tournaments. Having earned $1,726,762 from the game, NIP continues to increase this amount. The most successful professional players in the game, which attracts worldwide attention, usually come from Brazil and the United States. France, Russia and Finland are also countries with highly successful professional Rainbow Six Siege players. The Rainbow Six Siege tournaments with the biggest prize pools are from the Six Invitational series, one of the most prestigious tournaments of the game. The Six Invitationals in 2020 and 2021 had a prize pool of $3,000,000 per tournament. Spacestation Gaming won the Six Invitational in 2020, and Ninjas in Pyjamas won in 2021. Since its launch, Rainbow Six Siege tournaments have had a total prize pool of $20,584,184.
2. Overwatch
We have Overwatch in second place. Contrary to its former glory days, it is not mentioned much nowadays. The main reasons for this seem to be the lawsuits involving Activision Blizzard and the delayed Overwatch 2. One of the most successful teams so far is the San Francisco Shock. They won $3,365,000. Professional players of the game mostly come from South Korea. United States, China, Sweden, Finland and France players also take up a quite important place, but South Korea is ahead by a wide margin. The tournament where the top prize was awarded was the Overwatch League - 2019 Playoffs. The San Francisco Shock won the tournament with a $3,500,000 prize pool. Considering the upcoming Overwatch 2 and the decreasing popularity of Overwatch, it looks like we won't see a tournament with a bigger prize pool. $32,213,162 has been distributed to the teams in the tournaments so far.
1. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Here we are in first place. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, the game with the largest prize pool after Dota 2, is the first on our list. When it comes to first person shooters, the first game that comes to mind for most of us is CS:GO. The most awarded team in the game so far is Astralis with $9,217,918. If NAVI continues their form, it looks like it will close the gap. The game has successful players from many countries, and the most awarded professional players are from Denmark, United States, Sweden, Russia, Brazil, France and Poland, respectively. The biggest tournament in terms of prize pool is the PGL Major Stockholm 2021, which was held a few months ago. NAVI won the tournament with a prize pool of $2,000,000. They've been winning every tournament they participated in lately anyway. With an enormous prize pool and still no clear rivals, it looks like CS:GO will top the list for many years in the future. The mind-blowing total prize pool of $128,866,630 is the biggest indicator of this.
We have come to the end of our list about first person shooter games, one of the genres that come to mind when esports is mentioned. Stay tuned to Luckbox to keep up to date with the esports news and updates.
If you are an FPS lover as well, you can watch the matches of your favourite teams and place bets on Luckbox.
