I may have some doubts with some mobile games having an "esports scene" but there are some games that have complicated mechanics, require skill, and are competitive in the slightest sense. MOBAs are already competitive by nature, so a mobile MOBA having a competitive gaming scene would make sense.
Most mobile MOBAs in Asia like Mobile Legends, Arena of Valor, and Honor of Kings have esports competitions in the countries they're mostly played in. WCG 2019 even added Honor of Kings to their list of official games, although exclusive for Chinese players only. But that could be a good start in giving mobile games the recognition they deserve.
Don't mistake casual games on mobile as "Mobile Games Esports." There are games that deserve the "esports treatment" based on their game design and games that just simply don't.
I guess. It really does depend on the game. I know that Clash of Clans and Clash Royale have some tournaments for the game already which can be quite interesting.
Not against what I said, but the only thing that I find bad about mobile MOBAs is that they can be very unbalanced. I hate seeing results like 42-5 (Team 1 kills vs Team 2 kills) in a game that lasted just 10 minutes. It's not fun to see a team dominating another team that has no chance of coming back. It just looks unfair. If game designers know how to balance a game, then watching mobile MOBA esports would be as fun as watching LoL and DOTA 2 (not saying that these games are perfectly balanced, but you get the point).
I voted yes as well, and am agreement with the others here. As long as it is a great competitive and entertaining game then it deserves to have an esports scene. So as far as WCG's choices to pick Clash Royale and Honor of Kings they made the right choices because they are both so very popular and have a lot of money behind them.
WCG had some mobile games before with Asphalt 4 in 2008-2009, Asphalt 5 in 2010, and Asphalt 6 in 2011 (to name a few). What's weird is that a casual game called Wise Star 2 (a space-themed Candy Crush) was in the World Cyber Games and was considered as an esport where you can win medals. If there used to be PacMan tournaments in the past that based the rankings on the high scores, then I guess it's just right for casual games to have esports status as well.
Yes. But they need to choose wisely, most of the gamers will prefer MOBA or Battle Royale genre game because it is one of the games played by a large number of players. That's just me but who knows? WCG is not just an eSports event, it's the esports itself so they will pick a game that loved by people.
