The Best Games For Competing Against Others
One of the fastest developing industries, the world of online gaming continues to reach new heights. With hype around big games like Fortnite and FIFA, more people than ever are playing games online. Digital games and interactive media, like esports, brought in $119.6 billion in revenue in 2018 (with a growth of 13%) — with an audience reach of 850 million unique viewers in 2018. This is due, in part, to the success of Epic Games’ Fortnite – which generated $2.4 billion on its own — the most annual revenue of any game in history.
The growing popularity of online gaming is not just about the quality of the games themselves — although it has played an important role in bringing the industry to the masses. The ability to play live and compete against others has encouraged more and more people to get into gaming. The ability to play your favourite game with friends, family and even strangers around the world has not only increased awareness of games themselves but transformed the nature of gaming itself; no longer are video and computer games a solitary activity. In fact, with the rise of gaming competitions, they’ve become a live event.
Here are some of the top online games if you want to compete against others:
Call of Duty
A first-person shooter game, the Call of Duty franchise has gone from strength-to-strength since the release of its first game in 2003. Published by Activision, the first four games of the series were set in World War II.
With the development of new games, came new plotlines. The Modern Warfare story arc included three games, as well as a remastered version of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare; these were the first games in the franchise to not be set in World War II. Other story arcs include Call of Duty: Black Ops, Call of Duty Ghosts and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. The sixteenth entry in the series, a reboot of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is set to be released on October 25th 2019.
The popularity of the Call of Duty franchise is due in part, to both the quality of storylines and animations as well as the first-person shooter nature of the game. Being able to play in tense military situations with people around the globe has made Call of Duty a massive success; as of 2018 more than 54.7 million people were actively playing Call of Duty: Black Ops III. The serial nature of the franchise (there are now fifteen games in the series) means that fans are continually being offered better gaming experiences — ones that they’ll want to share with friends, both in real life and online.
Online Poker
One of the most competitive games has to be poker. Every year, thousands of people including novices and professionals participate, or tune into huge events — there’s just something so exciting about it. For those who love competition, online poker games are a great option. With so many different types of poker games, like Texas Hold’Em, Ohama Hi, Razz and Seven Card Stud, there are a variety of different styles of play as well as different degrees of competition — for all experience levels.
One of the things that differentiates online poker games from ones in land-based casinos is the ability to multi-table: playing more than one table at a time to increase your chances of winning. This is a great option for players who already have some experience playing poker online — and can really amplify the excitement of game play.
Fortnite
Developed and published by Epic Games and set in an apocalyptic world, Fortnite has become one of the most popular free-to-play games in the world. As of March 2019, the game had enticed more than 250 million players; between May – June 2018, total Fortnite playing time reached 2.7 billion hours.
Fortnite has three game modes — Fortnite: Save the World, Fortnite Battle Royale and Fortnite Creative. The first mode (released as a paid-for early access version in July 2017) sees four players working together to battle different challenges, including fighting off zombies and building fortifications. Fornite’s Battle Royale launched in September of that year as a play-vs-player, free to play game, where 100 online players fight to be the last person standing.
Gameplay itself is extremely competitive. Whether you play as a team, or a singular player against ninety-nine others, getting to be the champion of a battle royale is certainly a success. The game itself even has some celebrity fans, including Canadian singer Drake, footballer Antoine Griezmann as well as Chance the Rapper.
FIFA
There’s a reason FIFA is one of the most famous video games in the world. EA Sport’s football simulator franchise has been in production since the release of FIFA ‘94, which was launched in the lead up to Christmas 1993. With more than 26 games in the series, and more than 260 million copies sold across the globe, FIFA has become one of the best-selling video game franchises.
This is due to a large extent to football fans. With exclusive licenses from leagues like FIFA, the English Premier League, the German Bundesliga and the EFL Championship, FIFA can recreate some of the world’s top football stars in their games — giving fans the opportunity to virtually experience playing as them. The highly competitive nature of real-life football – both on the pitch and in the stands – has translated to the video game version of it. The EA SPORTS FIFA 18 Global Series, for example, saw more than 20 million players competing in events, with players across 60 countries around the globe.
It’s the widespread popularity of the game – with both football and sports fans – that makes FIFA so competitive – and fun – to play. The annual release of new games means its content is always kept up to date — with graphics, animation and gameplay improving each year.