Esports is in crisis. Teams are closing, prize money for games like DOTA 2 is decreasing, and in League of Legends they are coming up with new tricks to entertain viewers. One of the biggest MMOs on Steam, the military MMO War Thunder (Steam, PS4, PS5, Xbox) now wants to take off with esports.
This is the announcement of War Thunder: The military MMO announced that they are planning a “Champion Series” consisting of 4 tournaments in 2025.
The events will last 8 days each and will take place in a “Double-Elimination” format. There will be tournaments where players drive tanks, where they fight in planes against each other, and tournaments where they do both.
The grand finale is set to take place over 3 weeks in November and December, bringing together all formats.
War Thunder has always been the military MMO known for its realistic air battles:
War Thunder attracts with cosmetic items and €15,000
What is there to win? The developers present their concept for the new way esports should run on a website (via warthunder).
The prizes are mostly cosmetic items; at the finals, there will be a prize pool of €15,000 and the chance to create your own skin, like League of Legends does.
The entire league is also set to be shown on Twitch, even with channels in German. Twitch Drops will also be contributed. Twitch Drops have proven to be a good way to engage players with a game while making it attractive for streamers to stream War Thunder.
Especially in Germany, Twitch streamers would surely appreciate more viewers: The game is ranked 1,101 in viewership. The biggest streamer in Germany for War Thunder is “MarkushatdieGangsgestohlen” with an average of 150 viewers.
War Thunder has been a dominant MMO on Steam for years
How big is War Thunder on Steam? War Thunder is one of the enduring titles on Steam. The game recently peaked at 106,391 players. They have maintained this relatively high level for years, consistently having peak player counts over 60,000 each month since July 2022.
Currently, War Thunder is the largest MMO on the PC platform, behind Rust and ahead of Delta Force and DayZ.
What’s behind it: It’s nice to see that in the “esports winter” a game is also investing in esports.
But it is clear that with a prize pool of €15,000, they will not establish a professional scene like other games have. War Thunder seems to be primarily concerned with stronger viewer participation with Twitch Drops: YouTuber buys their own team in Valorant for €470,000 in the middle of esports winter – Watch how they go under
