Adam Fitch: Analyzing the esports winners at The Game Awards 2020 Colin Young-Wolff\/Riot GamesThe Game Awards is an annual awards show, celebration, and launchpad for the entirety of the gaming industry \u2014 an entertainment sector that is larger than the common person may realise. With celebrities in attendance, new games being announced, and everything in between, it\u2019s fair to say that the night is a big deal. Now, esports is a niche of gaming. As a result, naturally, it\u2019s smaller. In fact, in most cases, esports is simply just a marketing activity for many games developers. Valve don\u2019t have any meaningful input with CS:GO beyond the two annual Majors, for example, whereas Riot Games have gone all-in on esports as a means of promoting League of Legends and ensuring it stays in the conversation year-round. At this year\u2019s iteration of The Game Awards, esports decently represented in terms of the categories it was involved in; five of almost-30 awards that were handed out on November 10 \u2014 albeit virtually \u2014 were focused on competitive gaming. So, as we tend to do in esports, it\u2019s time to reflect on how we\u2019re being represented and received by those outside of our ever-growing industry. Were the right winners chosen? Let\u2019s take a look. Also, if you want to see the entire list of categories and subsequent winners from this year\u2019s awards, you can find them here. Best Esports Game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (Infinity Ward\/Raven\/Activision) – Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (Valve) – Fortnite (Epic Games) – League of Legends (Riot Games) \u2013 WINNER – Valorant (Riot Games) – It\u2019s hard to argue against League of Legends in this category, truthfully. Not only is it the biggest esport in terms of viewership, but it also has the most comprehensive global structure and a player count that\u2019s always impressive. Almost everything is in place for the MOBA to thrive. Specifically in 2020, I feel there was a somewhat unfair advantage in Riot\u2019s corner. With events and travel restricted on a global basis for much of the year, only one of the major tentpole events was carried out in-person: the League of Legends World Championship. Not only is the event an absolute behemoth in any normal circumstance, it stood out from the crowd more than ever due to the circumstances. However, this is down to Riot\u2019s determination and immense planning to make it happen so they can\u2019t be discredited on that front. They took a chance and it paid off tenfold. Valorant is too new, having only just had its first set of major events in First Strike, Modern Warfare wasn\u2019t one of the good Call of Duty instalments by any means, CS:GO is facing plenty of obstacles and has been for a little while, and Fortnite hasn\u2019t done anything particularly noteworthy in 2020. This is a deserved win for League of Legends esports. Best Esports Athlete Ian \u2018Crimsix\u2019 Porter \/ Call of Duty – Heo \u2018Showmaker\u2019 Su \/ League of Legends \u2013 WINNER – Kim \u2018Canyon\u2019 Geon-bu \/ League of Legends – Anthony \u2018Shotzzy\u2019 Cuevas-Castro \/ Call of Duty – Matthieu \u2018ZywOo\u2019 Herbaut \/ CS:GO – Brush off your controllers & stretch those fingers, the Best Esports Player is Showmaker!! \ud83c\udfc6 #TheGameAwards pic.twitter.com\/b7etVtWBMh \u2014 The Game Awards (@thegameawards) December 11, 2020 I\u2019m not going to pretend as if I\u2019m entirely neutral here, I\u2019m an FPS man at heart. Nonetheless, it\u2019s undeniable that both Showmaker and Canyon had a great 2020 \u2014 finishing the calendar year off nicely with a win at LoL Worlds as teammates in DAMWON Gaming. However, as rife with MVP picks at tournaments, we tend to (often-wrongly) believe that a player who won the tournament has to be up for the honour. I don\u2019t think that should always the case. They both placed fifth in the LCK Spring regular season and fourth in the Spring playoffs before going on to LCK Summer and Worlds. That has to be taken into account, by my money. Neither Shotzzy or Crimsix of the Dallas Empire went on a dominant run throughout the entirety of the inaugural Call of Duty League season, to be fair, and ZywOo continued to prove himself as a contender for the title of \u2018Best player in CS:GO\u2019 despite having a string of underwhelming event results himself with Team Vitality. I think this is a hard category to call, you\u2019d have to compare the impact of the players to truly judge them against each other, and we only see what happens in-game. I would choose Crimsix, the player with the most event wins in Call of Duty history, because he proved on multiple occasions that he isn\u2019t slowing down \u2014 all whilst mentoring two less-experienced players. After being a large part of dynasties with both Complexity Gaming and OpTic Gaming, he\u2019s on the way to affirming that he has what it takes to forge a third. Best Esports Team DAMWON Gaming \/ League of Legends – Dallas Empire \/ Call of Duty – San Francisco Shock \/ Overwatch League – G2 Esports \/ League of Legends \u2013 WINNER – Team Secret \/ Dota 2 – Dallas Empire don\u2019t deserve the award, G2 Esports dominated in Europe but fell short internationally, San Francisco Shock won when it mattered but didn\u2019t dominate as much as they could have, and DAMWON Gaming started off rough but got going as 2020 progressed. Team Secret went on an unreal run in Dota 2, claiming eight consecutive trophies over the course of four months, and they\u2019re my pick because of just how convincing they were for such a large portion of the calendar. I know G2 are lovable and full to the brim of personality whether they win or lose, but it\u2019s not all about that. Nonetheless, they provide European League of Legends fans with hope, this likely worked in their favour and I understand it. We’ve got a whole lotta Esports wins here on #TheGameAwards! Congratulations to everyone! \ud83c\udf89 pic.twitter.com\/rbtiIoNdR7 \u2014 The Game Awards (@thegameawards) December 11, 2020 Best Esports Event BLAST Premier: Spring 2020 European Finals (CS:GO) – Call of Duty League Championship 2020 – IEM Katowice 2020 (CS:GO) – League of Legends World Championship 2020 \u2013 WINNER – Overwatch League Grand Finals 2020 – As I mentioned earlier, Riot Games\u2019 risk paid off with the bubble for Worlds. They even managed to have a crowd for the grand finals and this is an aspect of live events that cannot be understated. BLAST have done a great job introducing new features while teams were playing online this year, but I simply don\u2019t see how any of the events can compare to the grand finale of League of Legends esports\u2019 2020 season. It\u2019s always a spectacle, but it really got a boost from being one of the rare offline events since restrictions were placed. Best Esports Host Eefje \u2018Sjokz\u2019 Depoortere \u2013 WINNER – Alex \u2018Machine\u2019 Richardson – Alex \u2018Goldenboy\u2019 Mendez – James \u2018Dash\u2019 Patterson – Jorien \u2018Sheever\u2019 van der Heijden – Last but not least by any means is Best Esports Host. This role is pivotable in any broadcast \u2014 somewhat managing the flow of the event, building up storylines to make matches even better, and setting up their analyst colleagues. All five of the finalists here are great and most of them should have been in with a shout to receive the trophy, but I think The Game Awards made the right choice. Being able to competently host events in four different languages, always managing to put on a good show, and even proving herself once again in CS:GO at the top of the year, Sjokz is the full package when it comes to hosting. Machine, Goldenboy, Dash, and Sheever have all done commendable work throughout 2020, that\u2019s for sure, but I cannot argue with this particular choice by any means.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Adam Fitch: Analyzing the esports winners at The Game Awards 2020 Colin Young-Wolff\/Riot GamesThe Game Awards is an annual awards show, celebration, and launchpad for the entirety of the gaming industry \u2014 an entertainment sector that is larger than the common person may realise. With celebrities in attendance, new games being announced, and everything in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35459\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}