It feels like over the last few years, esports has grown from a niche curiosity to a vaguely mainstream thing that developers are willing to blast tons of resources into promoting- Particularly as it becomes an expectation that if you have a multiplayer game, it must have some sort of official organized esport as well. Supercell's schtick as a developer has been to create games and then push the theoretical limits of how much production quality they can pump into them, so it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that the Clash Royale Crown Championships World Final is the most over-the-top esports event I've been to in my entire life.

As I write this, I'm sitting in the press area in the stands of The Copper Box Arena in London. It's the third largest venue in the city, seating 7,500 people at full capacity. Supercell has reduced the amount of available seats to 1,500 to make room for the most absurdly excessive set imaginable. On opposite sides of the arena are towers that the players stand on, which are modeled exactly after the King's Tower in the game. On these towers is a podium holding a tablet, as well as cameras pointing at the players' faces. Oh, and on the side of these towers is a live display of the elixir bar from the game for each player. Behind these real-world King's Towers are massive blow up stern-looking kings, matching the color of each side. The actual floor of the arena, which is about the size of a basketball court, has been transformed into a massive...