The Clash Royale League Could Make It The First Global Mobile Esport
The first Clash Royale League kicks off this week, with 44 teams from around the world competing for a $1 million prize pool, including well established esports organisations Cloud9, Fnatic and Counter-Logic Gaming. Game creator Supercell has already held big competitions around Clash Royale, the King’s Cup and the Crown Championship World Finals in London. The Clash Royale League takes Supercell’s mobile card battle game to the next level.
The League starts on August 20, 21 and 24 in North America, Europe and Asia respectively (the Latin America and China divisions began last week)
Supercell have enlisted some of Europe and N. America’s largest competitive organisations to the Clash Royale League. Organisations involved are confident in the league’s success and feel Clash Royale has what it takes in terms of competitiveness and watchability to be compelling at the highest level of esports. They believe the league could help mobile esports finally break out in the West.
Clash Royale is a game that is easy to pick up and understand, but with a lot of strategic depth. Crucially, when watching experienced players, viewers can appreciate and learn from the skills on display.
The league is taking a different approach to viewing style with streams being tailored for watching via phone. Supercell say that the presentation, such as things like camera angles and on-screen graphics, will be optimized for smaller displays. Games will be broadcast in portrait mode so they feel native to the mobile platform.
You can follow the action on the new Esports Royale YouTube channel.
The game has a massive player base of over 100 million, 27 million of which entered the Clash Royale League Challenge which allowed players the chance to be considered by pro organisations for the league. Although only a very small number of participants of the Challenge will join the league itself, it allowed participants to engage with the game in a competitive setting and frame the game as an esport. It is hoped that they will continue to follow the Clash Royale League and that some of them continue to practice for future season, possibly creating an ongoing ecosystem of up and coming talent.
It is the huge potential and existing install base that has the top esports organisations flocking to the mobile platform, despite the still unproven nature of mobile esports. With such a large number of players, it allows for teams to reach a much bigger audience. There is no guarantee of the success of the Clash Royale League. Mobile games such as Arena of Valor are huge in the Asian market, but still have small or inconsistent audiences in the West.
One suggested reason is that in Europe and N. America there is still an elitist mentality in gaming. In the same way the PC gamers used to look down on console players, mobile gamers are seen as somewhat “less serious” than other gamers.
Additionally, mobile games are sometimes seen as inferior versions of their PC or console equivalents. While mobile games are fine to play on the move, their larger format versions are more compelling to watch and interact with as as esports. As a game, Clash Royale gets past this. It is designed purely for mobile, and perfectly suited to the format. It feels “right” on mobile, not like some watered-down version of something else.
With the Clash Royale League, Supercell and other organisations have invested a lot in developing Clash Royale as an esport. Despite their massive Asian following, mobile games like Arena of Valor and VainGlory have show promise, but not achieved their potential in the West. Could Clash Royale be the mobile game that finally cracks the Western market and becomes the world’s first big esport?
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