For 5 years now, Ubisoft has pushed the competitive scene for Rainbow Six Siege to the next level at each possible step. With over 55 million online registered players in 2020, over 2.45 million hours watched in 2019 together with an average concurrent viewership of 61,000 – has competitive Rainbow Six Siege reached the point of being considered a Tier 1 Esport? What even is a Tier 1 Esport? Is the New North American League the confirmation we need?
Read on as we attempt to answer these questions while we contemplate the state of the community in Rainbow Six Siege.
What is a Tier 1 Esport?
Unlike traditional sports, which do not follow an all-encompassing tier system of any kind, the fact that certain esports fall under similar genres such as ‘MOBA’ or ‘Tactical Shooter’, allows for this stratification to take place. Difficulties are encountered when it comes to discerning the difference between Tier 1 or 2 or 3 esports: common characteristics involve the number of tournaments, hours watched, viewership, active players and winnings amongst others.
Questions then arise as to which aspect of an esport should be prioritized – for example, should Fortnite’s massive prize pools carry more value compared to the incredible number of CS:GO events held in a year? Due to this variability, certain sources will offer certain lists which will differ to others.
One esport which is undoubtedly a Tier-1 esport from every and any source is Dota 2, consisting of the following features:
- Incredibly high and consistent viewership
- Record-breaking prize pools
- A stable and fair framework for competition – the Dota Pro Circuit
- Multiple opportunities for amateurs to make it to the top
- Reliably active player-base spread internationally
- Continuous updates and changes to keep things interesting
Those are some agreeable key features of a Tier 1 esport. Now, we can look solely at Rainbow Six Siege and how it stacks up against these features in 2020.
Is Rainbow Six Siege a Tier 1 Esport?
According to the source I’m about to use: yes. R6S is in fact a Tier 1 Esport as stated by a Q1 2020 analysis carried out by EsportsObserver which is viewable here: https://esportsobserver.com/q12020-pc-games-impact-index/.
This quarterly index utilizes a so-called ‘Impact Index ‘ which pools up many of the aforementioned factors together with a respective weighting to allow for a balanced measurement of ‘impact’ which correlates to the quality of the esports scene. The following are the gathered results for PC games:
In all the years in which EsportsObserver has conducted this analysis, this is the first time in which Rainbow Six Siege has earned ‘Tier 1’ status and has offered itself as a driver for this discussion.
The report does include the rebound from the yearly success of the Six Invitational which was held earlier this year, as that event saw over 5.37 million hours watched on Twitch, almost doubling that of last year.
This is exactly what Rainbow Six Siege has experienced – growth. It’s only by viewing this growth from a low-tier status to an arguably first-tier scene that we can further understand the esport. Hence, we’ll have to turn back time and look back at the history of Rainbow Six Siege to ensure that the esports scene isn’t built around a ‘one-event-wonder’ parameter such as Fortnite.
The Journey to the Present Day
It’s December of 2015 and Ubisoft just released R6S and received a highly positive reception as many players returned from the earlier iterations of the Siege series, though Ubisoft hardly appears prepared to support a full-fledged esports scene and wouldn’t until 2017. So for the first year and a half, the scene was defined by GBs and smaller invitationals.
Seemingly, the world wasn’t ready for Rainbow Six Siege: this new innovative shooter which borrows the precision and strategy from CS:GO while adding flavour through the Overwatch-type operators with their own abilities, allowing for more diversity individually and as a team.
After phasing out the competition on Xbox One and focusing on PC, the 2016/17 season finally grabbed Ubisoft’s attention and things escalated to the first-ever Six Invitational. It was at this point, that the Rainbow Six Siege Pro League was born. With no sequels promised and 10 years of support thanks to an alleged promise of 100 operators, everyone suddenly realized the potential.
Since then, the Pro League has grown and grown yearly by adding more teams and more prize to its ultimate end a week ago in the form of the Rainbow Six Esports North American League. As the community expects more leagues for more regions, R6S esports has come an incredibly long way, bearing the aforementioned numbers in mind.
The new North American League will officially offer a stable framework for the esport, Challenger Leagues for up-and-coming stars and larger prize pools. Pile all this together with the consistent updates and tweaks to the main game, apart from its longevity: regional growth is the only considerably missing aspect that should come together in time.
Bearing all this mind, I believe that Rainbow Six Siege is, in fact, a Tier 1 Esport following the announcement of the North American League.
However, feel free to contradict in the comments section below – will viewership follow-up the investment? Will competition from other titles get the better of R6S? All legitimate questions to be answered in time.
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