Lack of game permanency is a big part of the problem for esports. Jonathan Wendel, the first example in the article, even mentions declining purses for Quake, P

Lack of game permanency is a big part of the problem for esports. Jonathan Wendel, the first example in the article, even mentions declining purses for Quake, Painkiller and Unreal. Not only did those specific titles fade competitively, but that style of FPS went quiet for a while and is only just starting to come back. While chess, football, basketball, etc. Have rule variances and tweaks, they are stable. The constant title churn will always be working against building the kind of competitive scenes in mainline sports because they are resetting the rules (and therefore skills), changing pools and generally creating a sort of institutional amnesia.