In 2024, South Korean Tekken 7 and 8 player "Ulsan" (Lim Soo-hoon) earned around ******* U.S. dollars in prize money from eSports tournaments. This made him the most successful eSports player in South Korea based on prize money earnings that year. He was followed by League of Legends (LoL) players "Faker" (Lee Sang Hyeok) and "Keria" (Ryu Min Seok). With two exceptions, LoL and StarCraft II players dominated the top earner's list that year. The eSports industry in South Korea eSports is becoming an ever more lucrative market worldwide. The revenue of the global eSports market is expected to exceed *** billion U.S. dollars by 2025. The South Korean eSports market’s sales revenue amounted to around ***** million dollars in 2023. Korean teams have participated in over ***** tournaments, with League of Legends (LoL), StarCraft II, and Overwatch being their most successful games. South Korea is home to dozens of professional eSports teams with full-time gamers specializing in various games. Some of these teams are backed or owned by large sponsors or corporations such as SK, CJ, and Hanwha. How eSports players in South Korea earn money While tournaments and streaming are the main content consumed by fans, professional eSports gamers’ income mostly comes from being paid a salary by their teams rather than prize money or streaming income. Players who are not signed to teams or signed to smaller teams rely more on competitions, streaming income, and sponsorships. In 2024, YouTube was the most popular streaming platform for eSports content. The international giant allows fans to buy paid memberships and donate money to streamers. This works alongside the monetization system more widely available across the platform through which content creators can earn money from advertisements and sponsorship deals.

The League of Legends World Championships takes places every year among the best eSports players worldwide. During a November 2023 survey, almost one third of eSports fans in South Korea stated that they had followed the League of Legends Worlds in the past 12 months.

According to a survey conducted in South Korea in 2024, the largest share of professional e-sports gamers played League of Legends (LoL), with ** out of a total of *** players. Similarly popular games included Valorant and PUBG. South Korea: fertile ground for e-sports E-sports are immensely popular in South Korea, and the country represents an important location for the global e-sports industry. Its market ranks among the biggest in the industry, outpacing larger countries like Japan or France. Local gamers profited from significant governmental support for the industry and the country’s emphasis on strong internet infrastructure. The so-called “PC bang” constitutes an integral part of Korean gaming culture. There, gamers can play multiplayer games for relatively low hourly fees on high-end computers. As many gamers enjoy going there with friends, these facilities contribute to a strong presence of multiplayer games in South Korea. E-sports empire The conditions in South Korea supported the rise of an internationally strong e-sports scene in the country. League of Legends has proven to be especially successful, with most World Championships in the game having been won by Korean teams. Accordingly, South Korean fans made up the single largest share of the tournament’s followers in 2023. Developed by a South Korean company, PUBG is another popular e-sports game, whose top earners have traditionally been Korean. The game, like the industry more generally, has been pivoting towards mobile versions, and has also become a huge success in China.

Around the globe, eSports is rapidly gaining popularity with millions of fans and billions of dollars up for grabs. The competitive, organized video gaming had attracted *** million users in China in 2024. The country has become one of the largest eSports powerhouses in the world, with rising numbers of female viewers and players in eSports leagues.

Climbing to the top of the ladder The first time Chinese gamers appeared in a global video gaming competition was the World Cyber Games in 2001. The United States and South Korea were leading the tournament chart in terms of total prize money, whereas China ranked tenth among ** participating countries that year. After two rapid growth stages of China’s eSports industry between 2013 and 2016 and in 2021, the number of professional players and the amount of prize winnings reached a record high. In 2023, Chinese players occupied ** of the top 50 player spots, surpassing the United States in the global eSports arena. Rising participation of women in competitive gaming While eSports gaming is male-dominated to a great extent, female fans accounted for about a quarter in China. Several consumer surveys have found that females are more willing to fly to attend an overseas eSports event and spend more on related merchandise. On the other side, the landmark victory of Chinese female player Li Xiaomeng has not only encouraged more Chinese women to go pro, but has also attracted a lot of young, female viewers. As the leading female Chinese eSports gamer, Li was the first woman to win a Hearthstone Grandmasters championship and a BlizzCon tournament in November 2019. In the long term, the eSports industry needs to address the gender gap as more and more female consumers want to see women represented in eSports tournaments.

The statistic presents information on the number of players of selected eSports games worldwide as of August 2017. According to the data, League of Legends was a leader based on number of eSports players. In the presented period the game had a player base of 100 million, while World of Tanks ranked fifth with 12.3 million players in the measured period. eSports players – additional information eSports is profitable, not only for the industry as a whole, but also for individual players. As of March 2017, the highest earnings were those of an American professional gamer, Saahil Arora, better known among his peers as "UNiVeRsE". He started his adventure with eSports as part of a team Evil Geniuses in 2012 playing DOTA 2, but truly kicked-off his career as an offlaner in team Dignitas during the International 3 in 2013. Later in the year he agreed to a contract buyout settlement which allowed him to rejoin Evil Geniuses. Throughout his recorded gaming career, UNiVeRsE has earned 2.72 million U.S. dollars. Among female players, the profits are significantly smaller. To date, the highest earning woman in eSports, Sasha Hostyn from Canada, who goes by "Scarlett" in the gaming industry, has made 171 thousand U.S. dollars in the course of her eSports career. Hostyn began her professional eSports journey with StarCraft II in 2012 and her skills were awarded with nicknames such as "the queen of StarCraft II". In 2015 Scarlett started a transition to DOTA 2 but eventually in late 2016 returned to StarCraft as a member of Team Expert. Based on social media presence and engagement, it is evident that eSports players are among the celebrities of the online world. For example, in January 2016, Lee Sang-hyeok, a player from South Korea, was the leading player, by number of fans on Facebook, with 806 thousand people following his profile. This figure falls roughly somewhere between the Facebook fan base of Colorado Avalanche and San Jose Sharks NHL teams.

Dota 2 is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game released by Valve in 2013. The world's top Dota 2 players compete in an annual eSports competition known as The International. The International 13, Dota's 2024 championship which took place in Copenhagen, Denmark, had a total prize pool of just under 2.6 million U.S. dollars. Dota 2 heroes When playing Dota 2, two opposing teams of five players each take control of a character, referred to as a hero in game, to demolish a structure within the enemy team’s base. As of 2025, Pudge was the most popular hero in Dota 2 based on the number of matches played with the character. Focusing on the win rate of the playable characters, however, showed that Abaddon was the most successful Dota 2 hero in the 12 months preceding January 2025. Meanwhile, the hero known as Medusa had the highest KDA – which refers to the number of kills and assists per death – out of all the Dota 2 heroes in the same time period. Popular video game genres While multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games do entice many gamers, it is not the most popular type of video game genre worldwide. According to the Statista Global Consumer Survey, action games, including, but not limited to, platformers and fighting games, were the most popular video game genre for players in the United States. Elsewhere, roleplaying games were the most popular computer games in South Korea as of 2023. While the former studies were focused on casual gamers in their respective countries, a survey focusing on eSports fans in China found that MOBA games were the most popular genre for Chinese eSports fans.