Concern is growing within the Australian esports community as major events, including DreamHack Melbourne, are cancelled, leaving local players with fewer opportunities to compete professionally. While the industry experienced a surge during the COVID-19 pandemic, the lack of sustained investment threatens to undermine its long-term growth.
DreamHack Melbourne is one of the major events not returning in 2025, meaning local League of Legends tournaments will be held in Taipei with a single Oceania team. Australian esports players are concerned about the future of professional video game competitions after these major event cancellations . While some events won't go ahead this year, an upcoming Counter-Strike tournament in Melbourne in April provides an opportunity to showcase local talent to the world.
Australian esports analysts, players, and ex-players say that opportunities to play professionally in this country are disappearing with the cancellation of local events and leagues, despite a strong grassroots scene. While some major events are going ahead, such as the IEM Melbourne Counter-Strike tournament scheduled for April, popular series like Call of Duty and League of Legends won't have top-tier local competitions held in Australia in 2025. Lincoln 'Fighta' Ferguson (pictured right) is a semi-professional Call of Duty player who says the Australian esports scene is 'dying'. Lincoln 'Fighta' Ferguson is a semi-professional player for the video game Call of Duty, and says that when he was competing about seven years ago, it was easier to support himself, but that isn't the case for new players. He says that more support from developers, governments, or universities is needed for the esports industry in Australia. 'I'd say the best word to describe Australian esports, unfortunately, would be 'dying',' he told triple j hack. 'The biggest problem with esports in general in Australia is that they rely too much on the publisher, and if the publisher isn't giving what a community or scene needs, then it does struggle.' Ferguson also says that while there was a large investment in Australian and international esports during the COVID period, the rate of growth hasn't kept up, which he suggests has meant local events are no longer going ahead. Alex Blaikie from ESL, a company that organizes tournaments for some of the largest events in the country, says the state of esports in Australia is relatively 'stable'. 'I think the big thing for me is right now, Australian esports, it's feeling pretty stable where we've had a little bit of a surge over COVID when, of course, everyone was watching esports, everyone was stuck at home on their PCs, the perfect time for esports to absolutely go through that massive boom that it did,' he told hack. 'In Australia, there's still not a massive amount of professional players working in esports full-time on full-time salaries. It's not Europe or America, but we do have some, and we definitely have a lot of players that do compete at the highest level internationally.' Alex Blaikie from ESL Faceit Group says that while it's challenging times for professional players there is a lot of excitement about the future. Blaikie also adds that it still makes sense for players thinking of taking their esports professional to leave the country to compete in overseas leagues. 'If you want to be the best in the world, then it does make sense to go overseas and play with the best. 'The bulk of talent is in Europe and North America or, you know, depending on the particular esport, Southeast Asia,' he said. Jessica 'ARTeMis' Majrouh, who competes in the tactical shooter game Counter-Strike, has called on game developers to invest some of the money they make from Australian players back into professional esports locally. 'The game developers maybe should be using to invest back into the community, because Australia, as a region, it's connected to all of Asia because we're so small, they don't just invest into specifically Australia,' she says. 'For sure, is dying, but it might take it being in this state for it to start growing, because I do think the injection came at a very early time, but it needed to be a little bit more consistent.' Counter Strike player Jessica 'ARTeMis' Majrouh competing in Chongqing at the esports event World Electronic Sports Games in 2019. Majrouh says she is confident that the skill level and size of the community in Australia mean that, eventually, the local scene will thrive again. 'So if we don't get it right now, eventually we will get it right. It's just about making sure that we have the infrastructure for it, we have good players, we have good systems.' James 'Tally' Shute, an ex-professional player who now commentates matches of League of Legends, a competitive real-time strategy game, says Australia's small player-base and population make Australian esports a harder investment. Even so, he says Australia is producing a disproportionate number of players who can compete at the top level.
Australian Esports Dreamhack Melbourne League Of Legends Counter-Strike Professional Gaming Event Cancellations Industry Growth Investment
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