Esports And Gaming: What’s The Difference?

Esports, or electronic sports have become a multi-faceted industry in the last decade. For those who wonder what's the difference between gaming and esports, there is a lot to explore. Sometimes esports is associated with virtual sports, however there is much more than real-life sports simulations like e-cycling or virtual boat rowing in the sphere of competitive gaming. It is the formal and professional approach that shapes the borders of esports. While you might play just for fun, esports can be a good career choice, once you get to know the offers of today’s esports and gaming scene differences. 

Esports

Esports requires a lot of aspects of gaming to coincide. First of all, there should be a competitive games publisher, who will take care of the regular updates of the game, adding content and balancing controllable characters. Next, there should be interest in the gaming / esports community to test their skills constantly: the interest is maintained through various prized competitions, or maybe someone aims setting his / her own record facing a real opponent either online or offline. Furthermore, this opens up the ability to make bets on esports, just like one would do on the official, traditional sports.

Esports athletes have a disciplined lifestyle. They have training hours, strict nutrition, regular physical workouts and competition days. They need enough sleep to keep up with their daily lives and career in general. 

The same might not be obligatory for casual gamers and people who try to relax in front of their favorite video game. We can conclude from this, that esports is not always fun and games: it can also be a tiresome regime, leading to burnouts. That’s why many professional teams are hiring psychologists, nutritionists and coaches, to make sure everything is in order in their rosters. That is because failures in competitive esports can affect the players more, as competitions give them less margin of error, while in casual gaming you can always try again and avoid losing important points. 

Moreover, gamers do not have any contracts with game publishers or esports orgs, whereas a pro player that presents this or that company, needs to maintain the points agreed upon in his or her contract. Some of the famous esports titles are: League of Legends, Dota 2, Valorant, Overwatch, Call of Duty, Street Fighter etc.

Gaming

Gaming is the very basic form of entertainment through playing video games. Mostly this refers to all sorts of games, so it can be anything from storied RPGs to PvP battles with your friends in shooting games or any other ones. In casual gaming, the main focus is entertainment, while in esports, it is the competition.

There are many streamers who do not play ranked matches in this or that competitive game just due to the way it affects their mental health. Even though, in the past, they might have been esports athletes. Most of the time, they are trying to explore the game they have just found or the fans want him/her to play that particular title, so it becomes more like a “let’s play” series. Retired pro players often choose full-time streaming instead of coaching just to stay away from the fierce competitive scene. 

You can learn a lot both from gamers and pro players: everything just lies in the difference of the hand-picked games. Streamers like to answer the questions of fans regarding the nuances of a competitive and non-competitive game, which means that you can find who to follow on Twitch, if you are going to learn more on your favorite title.

At the same time this means that streamers might not be professional gamers, and the stuff they film on air is basically casual. Moreover, recently we see the audience’s interest in mobile games. That is because mobile games are more affordable for the masses.

Sometimes streaming platforms do not separate those two categories of esports and gaming, letting the viewers decide what’s the difference between gaming and esports. The point is, popular streamers still manage to gain an audience whatever title they take to try out. You might see a CS:GO player go online in Valorant, or a Rocket League player kick off a FIFA friendly. Even swapping genres is trendy, so do not get confused seeing a Tekken pro stream doing sim racings. Finally, creating content in both esports and gaming is equally important, if the aim is to keep the interest of fans on its highest.

Recent popular video games that are not considered as esports are: Elden Ring, GTA Online, Genshin Impact, God of War, The Legend of Zelda etc.

Summing all up, the difference between gaming and esports might not seem huge at first glance, but the trend to put them in separate fields of modern day entertainment is here to stay, as esports interacts with lots of business interests.