How Snapdragon mobile technology is opening the door for new esports competitors

venturebeat.com:

Presented by Qualcomm Technologies

Traditionally, esports has been the domain of professional gamers, playing head to head on high-end, liquid-cooled PCs and competing for prize pools near $10 million. These tournaments draw 418 million mobile esports viewers worldwide right now, and by 2025, the number of global viewers will shoot up to over 548 million.

But smartphones have broken down the barriers to access, making the potential audience for esports so much larger, says Kevin Rosenblatt, General Manager, Mobile at ESL Gaming. Right now, 83.37% of the global population owns a smartphone; 2.5 billion of that population are mobile gamers, who now have the chance to compete for life-changing money in the mobile esports arena.

“We set out to change the trajectory of mobile esports by creating a highly diverse and accessible program with a very low barrier to entry,” Rosenblatt says. “We’re aiming to create fandom across a game-agnostic competitive mobile gaming product by creating the right environment for mobile esports to thrive long term.”

With this mission in mind, ESL Gaming partnered with Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. to create the Snapdragon Pro Series — the world’s largest multi-genre mobile epsorts ecosystem, with tournaments in North America, Europe, the Middle-East, China, North Africa and Asia-Pacific, culminating in a live Masters final event. The series features 10 popular mobile game titles and a $2 million prize pool.

ESL’s core mission, Rosenblatt says, is to create a level playing field, or a meritocracy in which every kind of player across the world can test their abilities, regardless of where they live, their socioeconomic status or background — a world where everybody can be somebody.

“That’s the great