The Game Awards 2016: Who Deserves To Win Each Category

16. Best Esports Game - Overwatch

Nominations:

Counter Strike Global Offensive (CS:GO)

DOTA 2

League of Legends

Overwatch

Street Fighter V

Usually this would've been DOTA or League of Legends, but for 2016, eSports received its first game that came with real mass appeal.

Overwatch not only played perfectly, but has an art design, characters and overall presentation that helped really put the sport on the map. I'll bet it's no coincidence that Blizzard's FPS wowed mainstream audiences with expertly animated shorts, right before Nintendo's Switch reveal actively showed eSports as a key selling point of the system itself.

DOTA and LoL have a ton more to them mechanically, but in terms of really bringing the necessary fan-side of things to the table - a key part of any sport - that was Overwatch through and through.