Dota and WoW have been popular amongst teens and young people for as long as I can remember, so considering that eSports betting has existed for a long time already, I think the number of involved players we see now is at its peak. Moreover, it seems to me that these games are becoming even less popular these days than it was before. At least that's what I've seen, maybe I'm wrong about this.
The boom of MMORPGs started during the time of early 2000-2010s where every kid visited computer shops and cafeteria to play with friends. Nowadays, with the development of technology, most kids have migrated towards playing with people from their houses (especially this pandemic).
The problem with most MMORPGs today is that, every game has been recycled all throughout. No innovation as to questing (typical "kill 5 slimes") and the experience nowadays with new MMORPGs have been stale. I do hope that in the future, new games would introduce new systems in order to be innovative and stay on track.
True. There isn't more innovation nowadays. All new games follow the same patterns of previous classic successes of the industry. Besides graphical improvements I can't see anything else between old and new games. And depending the game I would say the old ones were a lot more beautiful in shapes and aesthetics than the currently ones.
Anyway esports have more to do with hypes than the quality of the games itself. Doesn't matter how good the games are going to be, in some years this gambling category is going to be much more popular, since the children and youngs of nowadays don't have money to gamble, but after they start working and living by themselves it will be possible for them to become esports enthusiasts.