Ranking of eSports players in Norway 2020, by earnings

Chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen, also known by his online alias DrNykterstein, was the highest earning eSports player from Norway in 2020. The World Chess Champion earned over 510 thousand U.S. dollars in 2020 through his online exploits on chess eSports websites such as chess.com and chess24.

Leading eSports players worldwide

Top of the list of highest earning eSports players worldwide by overall earnings is Johan Sundstein of Norway, also known as N0tail. The gamer earned most of his winnings playing Dota 2 eSports tournaments throughout 2018 and 2019. Dota 2 (Defense of the Ancients 2) is an online battle arena game first published by Valve in 2013. The annual cumulative tournament prize pool for Dota 2 events worldwide reaches into the millions of U.S. dollars every year. The biggest event of the year for this game is The International, which pits the best Dota 2 teams against each other to win a mammoth prize pool. The International 9, Dota 2's 2019 championship, which took place in Shanghai, had a prize pool of 34.33 million U.S. dollars, up from 25.53 million a year earlier.

eSports viewership

eSports is not just about participation and in recent years it has become a spectator sport for millions of gaming fans around the world. The number of eSports viewers in Europe grew from 79 million in 2018 to 92 million in 2020, and the picture around the world is similar. In fact, the eSports audience size worldwide is expected to increase from under 400 million in 2018 to 646 million by 2023. Of these estimated viewers in 2023, some 295 million eSports fans are expected to be frequent viewers and enthusiasts, while 351 million are forecast to be occasional viewers.