Why are MOBA's a dead genre?
I dont mean in terms of popularity, as League is the biggest esport in the world still. But I mean in terms of new MOBAS, and new players. MOBAS have a high barrier to entry, the established titles have hundreds of characters and its just information overload for at least the first year at this point.
The average age of a league player is 23, almost nobody in high school is playing league of legends anymore at this point, even in Korea. So im not sure where the pro teams are gonna get their talent in 5 years when everyone is playing valorant or counter strike. This has already happened in NA and teams like GEN in korea have complained about a stagnating talent pipeline. The only people playing league now are people who are heavily invested into it already and know the meta, and have been there for the release of many characters so its not so overwhelming.
There are also ZERO new mobas, the closest we have is Smite2 which is just an engine upgrade from Unreal 3 to Unreal 5. So nobody is willing to compete with the established titles, why? Because they KNOW there are ZERO new young moba players. Those people are all playing other games that dont take 40 mins per match, or years of knowledge to play well. And the players who do play MOBAS are going to stick with the one they learnt, becasue it took years to learnt o play even half decently and the prospect of starting over is just inconceivable
Therefore my prediction is that the current wave of famouis player (viper TheShy blah blah blah) eventually retire and nobody of nearly as important standing will replace them, cutting the viewership (which we already saw decline when some korean stars like theShy took competetive breaks from the game) and eventually making the esport scene die. I personally think the clock is ticking, and lol wont make it past 2040.