With high dollar cash prizes, endorsement deals, and a massively growing fan base, esports has had a drastic impact in the world of gaming over the past decade. Most recently at Dream Hack, the world’s largest LAN based video game competition, drew record numbers this year for attendance. Even more staggering was the amount of streaming viewers, over 180,000, watched on as gamers dueled for cash prizes. For most serious gamers nowadays the exposure to esports, like it or hate it, is inevitable.

While this might be suitable for more competitive based games such as fighting or FPS’ers, does this belong in an MMO?

Most of us that are MMO players do so for the unmatched level of immersion the genre gives us. We live in digital worlds with our friends, and live out the adventures of our in game avatars. This might not seem like the setting for professional gaming. However, with the possibility of real money at stake for consumers and large profit margins for the industry, is it just a matter of time before the world of esports consumes a story driven MMO such as SWTOR?

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