Marketing Channel eSports
– How to get the attention of young adults?
1
Introduction
2
infographic eSports in Numbers
3
What is eSports?
6
infographic Demographics of eSports
7
What gamer statistics tell about eSports
8
The Live Experience of eSports
10
How to approach eSports fans?
13
Success Story – Intel
14
Success Story – Kingston HyperX
15
Success Story – Coke Zero
16
Who is Who in eSports
18
The Many Faces of eSports
19
Selected Events
19
Brands in eSports
2
This eBook is made for brand managers,
marketing specialists and advertising experts who want to know more about eSports.
As eSports has taken major steps from
a gaming subculture to become more
mainstream, it has evolved into an important marketing channel for consumer brands. In this eBook, we would like
to explain what eSports is, how big it has
become and what a marketing expert or
brand manager needs to know in order to
run a successful campaign.
As it can only give you a brief idea about
the competitive gaming scene, it should
encourage you to do further research and
come up with a strategy on how eSports
could help your own brand or your customers to reach out young adults.
infographic eSports in Numbers
eSports events are consumed worldwide via streaming.
They are amongst the most popular online broadcastings.
League of Legends Season 4
World Championship
Felix Baumgartner’s
jump from the edge of space
Dota 2 tournament —
The International 4
WatchESPN Football World Cup
USA vs. Germany
CBS’ Super Bowl XLVIII
ESL Intel Extreme Masters 2014
Coca Cola ‘Polar Bowl‘ second
screen campaign 2012
Stream of the 2012 Olympics
Peak Concurrent viewers in stream
11,7m
8m
2m
1,7m
1,1m
650k
600k
500k
Live attendance of selected eSports events 2013/2014.
League of Legends Finals, World Cup Stadium, Seoul
40.000
IEM World Championship, Spodek, Katowice
12.000
ESL One, Commerzbank Arena, Frankfurt am Main
12.000
The International 4, Key Arena, Seattle
10.000
Group identification and fandom equal
the emotional experience of regular sports events.
3
What is eSports?
“Electronic sports (also known as sports or competitive gaming) is a term for organized
video game competitions, especially between professionals. The most common video
game genres associated with electronic sports are real-time strategy, fighting, first-person shooter, and multiplayer online battle arena. Tournaments such as The International, The Evolution Championship Series, and The Intel Extreme Masters provide both live
broadcasts of the competition, and cash prizes to competitors.”
- Wikipedia
eSports is Similar to Football
Grand-scale Audience
To get an even better idea, let’s compare eSports
with football. Football is a game most European
men and a lot of women have played themselves
at least once in their lifetime. Only a few of them
have developed skills in this game suitable to
compete on a professional level. Nonetheless,
the majority enjoy watching a professional match
on TV and the worldwide football frenzy unites
the people around the globe at least every four
years.
Although a lot of people have never heard of eSports, the audience of eSports tournaments is
huge. Taking place in North America, Europe and
Asia, these events draw millions of viewers. Over
27 million viewers tuned in to watch The League
of Legends finals in Korea. This makes eSports
attractive to consumer brands targeting young
adults. In the wake of the competitive gaming
scene, endemic brands like Intel discovered the
marketing potential early. Currently, there are
many non-endemic brands from sectors like
foods & beverages, financial services and the automotive industry that have signed big marketing
deals with eSports businesses.
eSports works exactly the same way: a large
number of people, mainly young men, play video
games in a competitive environment. Very few are
good enough to compete in a professional match
watched by millions online. Large-scale international tournaments are held, in which pro-gamers,
organized into teams similar to football clubs,
duel each other playing games such as League of
Legends, Dota2 or StarCraft II.
4
Endless Storytelling
Football is a game that has not changed much
over the last century and it still creates new stories on a daily basis. The same can be said about
Crowd in a nightclub in Krefeld watching an eSports match, Homestory Cup X.
eSports: While games are succeeded by new
titles due to developments and technology, the
basic principles of competitive tournaments have
remained the same. Therefore, a good marketing
strategy can be based on this infinite storytelling.
eSports events are like football matches – highly emotional and observed by communities. This
helps brands reach their audience on an intimate
level. If done right, a marketing campaign in eSports can be more effective in terms of brand
awareness compared to classical advertising.
A Young Emerging Market
eSports has grown massively over the last two
years and it is here to stay. Amazon invested almost a billion US dollars into Twitch.TV – the largest platform for gaming and eSports content in
2014, and subsequently got a lot attention from
the mainstream media. Competitive gaming will
play a major role in future marketing strategies of
consumer brands.
The scene is still very fragmented and dominated
by a few big players in an almost impenetrable
jungle of start-ups, game titles, teams and event
organizers but with more attention and more
money coming in, it will consolidate very quickly. Brands and businesses which start to set their
claims in this industry now have the chance to
benefit from this atmosphere of pioneering.
You Should Act Fast!
While a handful of early adopters are already
successful in eSports marketing, the majority of
brand managers, marketing and advertising professionals are still unaware of the potential of the
competitive gaming community.
As it takes some time to understand the dynamics
of this market and the language the target group
speaks, consumer brands and agencies need
to act fast to develop expertise on their own in
this field to avoid approaching this audience the
wrong way. Advertising agencies need to extend
their knowledge into this area as campaigns in
eSports work very differently compared to traditional or even social media campaigns.
Given the rising importance of eSports, the number of professional partners capable of implementing a successful marketing strategy will
grow. At the same time, eSports businesses will
need to extend their networks to new partners in
order to sustain the sponsor-driven competitive
scene. This offers big opportunities for brands
and agencies. Act fast and claim your future in
eSports!
5
infographic Demographics of eSports

One Gaming Enthusiast influences an
average of four people’s tech choices
among his friends and family.

 
The average Competitive Gamer is ...
85%
male
16-26
years old
•
•
•
•
•
•
student or early in their career
active, social, communicative
technology-oriented
multiplier, innovator, early-adaptor
very strong buying influencer
the social media generation
Gamers who are playing video games are spending less time:




58%
49%
47%
44%
playing board
games
6
watching
TV
going to the
movies
watching movies
at home
What Statistics Reveal About eSports
There is a vast number of statistics available giving an insight into the demographics of
gaming and particularly the demographics of eSports audience. But while the general
gaming statistics often mix up completely different sectors of the video gaming industry,
the specific ones mostly focus on a single gaming title or a certain event. Additionally, the
user numbers are evolving at a rapid pace, that it is hard to tell what new records have
been set since the last infographic was published. It is very important to understand that,
the eSports audiences are not gamers in general, but a dedicated segment that needs to
be approached with a customized strategy.
eSports is Still Dominated by Men
The Entertainment Software Association (ESA)
publishes a consumer research report for the US
video games industry every year. One big surprise
of the 2014 release was, the fact that the majority of gamers, were adult women. Contrary to
often assumed notions, it was not teenage boys
but women older than 18 years who made up 37
percent of the gaming population in the US, followed by adult males (36%). While these results
refute popular stereotypes, it is important to look
into the details to understand what this means for
eSports.
The dominance of women in gaming is explained
by the vast amount of casual games available on
smartphones and other mobile devices. If you
break down this statistic to eSports titles, the
majority of gamers are male. The numbers published for League of Legends, the most successful competitive game in history so far, point out
that less than 10% of the people playing the game
are female.
The Audience and Active Players Overlap
Another aspect of eSports rendering general gamer statistics unreliable is the composition
of the audience. Millions of people are actually
watching competitive matches between progamers online but not necessarily all of them
play the game themselves and thus do not appear in the classic gamer survey results. On the
other hand, not all active players also watch tournaments online. With regards to availability in
eSports on a broader scale, there is always a mix
between active user data and statistics from the
event audience. It is important to focus on a certain event in order to get more precise results.
eSports is Mainstream in Many Countries
An impressive number of 70 million users are
active each month in League of Legends. In addition to the followership of other major competitive titles like DotA2, StarCraft 2, CS:GO and
Hearthstone, over 1 percent of the world population is engaged in competitive video games each
month. Considering that most of them come from
industrialized nations of the northern hemisphere
in America, Europe and Asia, the cultural impact of
eSports games can be considered as mainstream
in those countries.
eSports Audience are Adults
Competitive gaming has been around in its ever
growing scale since the late 1990s when Blizzard’s
StarCraft hit fertile soil – especially on the Korean
market where the government had invested early
into broadband internet and made online gaming
available to everyone. Players and the audience
have grown since then with newly released game
7
titles and from these pioneering days, a whole
economic infrastructure has evolved. Along came
a lot of gamers from the early days now in their
30’s, a few of them are still active in the scene as
gamers themselves or as entrepreneurs, running
successful eSports businesses. This moves the
main part of the age structure of eSports fans to
a segment between finishing school and getting a
graduation from a university.
While not all statistics available about video
gamers fit the eSports fans 100%, it can be said
that the competitive scene is composed of an
attractive audience for consumer brands targeting young male adults. In combination with the
emotions connected to eSports events, the high
potential for storytelling in the competitive scene
and the highly interactive community, it becomes
the premier target group amongst gamers.
The Live Experience of eSports
What is an eSports live event? How does it work? How does it look like? How does it feel?
This article reaches out to those who have no idea about what eSports means and never
experienced a live show in competitive gaming.
Let’s go watch a game!
The eSports Arena
This invitation seems pretty normal in classic
sports like football, basketball or rugby. It’s something most of us are able to relate to. It’s exactly
the same in competitive gaming! People gather
to watch a computer game. They don’t do this in
small groups at home but in huge arenas to witness how professionals show off their astonishing
skills. Sound familiar? That’s why it is called eSports!
Like in many other sports, eSports has a certain
setup of an arena. The central element is a stage
where the players are seated. Each place includes
a gaming PC, a monitor, headphones, input devices and sophisticated seating. It’s common
that players bring their own preferred peripheral
equipment like headphones. In order to eliminate
discussions about unfair hardware configurations,
the computers are preset.
Another important aspect of this design are the
big screens, where live edited footage of the
game is displayed. Like in sports arena, a live feed
from the game is casted, additional information
edited in, replays are shown and during breaks
presenters discuss recent game moves.
The sportscasters are situated in their own booth.
They comment the game for the audience, adding much to the excitement of the situation with
their encouraging input.
8
Stage setup at 2014 EU LCS Summer Playoffs, Gamescom
The setup is often completed by an interviewing zone or a special area for the presenters of
the game show. Well known hosts introduce the
game, interview the players and guide the audience through the experience.
The Emotions of an eSports Event
The whole staging of an eSports game is professional in every detail, it is large and perfectly
orchestrated show. Starting with a crowd warmer getting the audience in the mood, there is also
amazing displays of technology, lightshows and
sound. But an eSports event does not work without the fanatic audience that is cheering and applauding, waving flags and banners, wearing their
favorite fan equipment and rooting for their teams.
Whoever has experienced the tension and excitement of a live sports event, i.e. a game of football
before, will know how it feels watching an eSports
game live. The emotions climax whenever a player or team scores. Spectacular situations and the
display of superhuman skills make the crowd go
crazy and people literally chew their fingernails
when their favorites get under pressure.
eSports is More than Gaming
eSports adds another dimension to gaming. Similar to classic sports, the audience gives eSports its
depth. Like in football, it is just one side of the coin
to play a match together at the local football pitch
but the other side is experiencing a professional
game together with family, friends and hundreds
or thousands of other fans.
Since eSports events become bigger and more
professional each year, it’s no surprise why millions around the globe love to spend their spare
time watching pro-gamers go head-to-head in a
competitive computer game. The same happens
in football or soccer almost every day and it is totally normal to us, so why not in eSports?
9
How to Approach eSports Fans?
While the eSports-scene gains more and more momentum with huge public events,
millions of viewers online and mainstream media attention, it becomes important to understand this market and how brands can benefit from the massive audience. eSports
depends a lot on sponsoring models. The gamers are an attractive target group for many
companies, but the eSports media landscape is still hard for outsiders to see through. Advertising agencies could be a bridge between brands and eSports, they know the needs
of their customers and can serve as navigators through the jungle of international competitive gaming.
Becoming a sponsor of an eSports event sounds
pretty easy: place your brand in the gaming environment and you can reach a young audience.
But taking a closer look, it becomes clear that
sponsoring in eSports are elaborated campaigns making sure there is a mutual understanding. Can you explain what the chances are
for a brand to get involved in eSports, and what
should be considered to avoid a shitstorm?
We wanted to know how an advertising agency
should approach this gaming scene and asked
Joi von Regenstein, one of the founders of Savage, an agency focused on eSports marketing,
some questions.
“At the time being, it is simply the sheer mass of
casual gamers in Germany which stirs the interest
of corporations: approx. 7 million – and counting!
It’s a particularly valuable target group: it’s affluent
and spend-happy, and compared to other activities in sports marketing, it won’t eat up your entire marketing budget to address these leads in a
focused, non-scattershot way. Most importantly,
you’ve got to make sure your offer is relevant to
this special target group. If that’s the case, you’re
looking at an interesting range of coverage. Just
one more thing that’s really vital: “street-credibility”. If you fail to hit the right tone, you’re almost
sure to trigger a shitstorm.”
“Just think of those terrible TV spots late at night
in which stuffy square brands try to make their
products appeal to a young audience – in a supposedly “hip” language! Naturally, those spots
backfire against the intended effect!”
10
With huge viewer numbers and success of competitive games like League of Legends, which
are played by roughly 1% of the earth population each month, the number of sponsors engaged in this market seems still quite small and
mainly focused on hardware and peripherals.
Do you think that eSports still lacks credibility in
business terms?
“As a marketplace, Germany hasn’t quite discovered the potential of eSports for marketing purposes yet. And while more and more corporations
and media start to realize this, they still lack acceptance among gamers in Germany. As a first
step, they should invest in PR and educational
work. In fact, being a specialized agency, we also
feel obliged to inform. Ideally through a couple of
exciting projects that are yet to come in 2015 – e.g.
for CGC Europe. Other European countries, especially in Scandinavia, keep surprising us with globally active companies that already invest large
sums in eSports. And the US are catching up too.
It seems absurd that Germany while achieving the
highest sales figures in games is ranking only in
the mid-range of all eSports countries.”
Can only tech brands be successful in an eSports environment? Will companies like Coca
Cola be rare exceptions in a market dominated
by computer vendors?
“I don’t think so. The key argument for the involvement of companies lies in the various needs of an
audience that can be reached via eSports. Gamers
also lead a life beyond their particular sport, after
all. Certainly the gaming scene is still very male
dominated but then the latest GamesCom saw
significantly more female visitors. Besides, linking
up gaming with music and movies is an important aspect which must not be ignored. I’m pretty
sure that – by and by – more corporations across
many different industries will get on this promising bandwagon.”
How can a brand use the channel of eSports effectively?
“What matters most is to remain true and honest. To consumers as well as to partners, teams
and players. Storytelling is another factor that
shouldn’t be underestimated. You may remember
the launch of the brand “Roccat” which we had
the pleasure to put on stage. We have deliberately tried to create a cult brand – knowing that credibility is the keyword. It is not without reason that
this brand currently sells the most peripherals in
Germany via Media Markt and Saturn.”
Analyzing the landscape of eSports sponsoring,
who are the major players? How do brands and
eSports businesses connect?
“In fact, companies which are directly connected
with gaming and eSports are still dominant at the
moment, but more and more companies and media take action – there are many bridging points
between the diverse industries. The way in which
you link one company to another is very important, however.”
What can the role of agencies like Savage be in
this economy? How could they change this market and maybe even boost it?
“Without any false modesty, we consider ourselves “early movers” in this segment. You’ll still
find relatively few one-stop agencies in Germany which are specialized in gaming and able to
offer everything from strategic planning to an
adequate tone of voice or the initiation of cups
and events through the media. Full service is our
motto, and it certainly helps when there are two
“elder-sister” agencies which support us with online creation or website and app technologies in
a straightforward manner. In case we need e.g.
highly specialized know-how in terms of PR or
media, we are sufficiently cross-linked to arrange
that too. Another important area for which we’re
11
currently arranging a service offer is the issue of
corporate recruiting. And we firmly believe that an
agency like Savage can help publishers as well as
leagues to grow, or to concentrate on their brand
by e.g. outsourcing certain tasks.”
Regarding the fact that pro-gamers look almost like athletes in classic sports with their
logo-clad shirts and the emotional impact of a
big eSports event in an arena, parallels to regular sports are obvious. Specialized sports marketing agencies use their deep connections to
athletes to create tailor-made campaigns for
leveraging the sponsoring brand. How important is it to be well connected in the eSports
scene? Do you have a roster of pro-gamers you
work with or do you approach them individually,
depending on your client?
“It’s extremely important to stay in direct contact
to gamers and the decision makers of the clans.
No matter if it’s national or international. Both the
relevance and the range of the respective game
often govern the success of an investment, e.g.
in a team. However, a certain individuality is also
important because the focus may vary between
companies. While some specialize on national
markets, others may focus on the international
ones. That depends completely on the respective
marketing objectives and in part on the corporate
structure.”
12
If you check the websites of the big players in
the advertising industry, you don’t find a lot of
information on their involvement in eSports. Do
you think agencies miss an opportunity?
“For the moment, that’s certainly true. It is immensely important to position yourself properly and to become visible as a relevant player in
eSports. But often companies don’t really know
what exactly they want to communicate. It is not
enough to e.g. point out on your website that you
will be present at the next Dreamhack to come.
It’s quite an effort and pretty time-consuming to
critically examine this subject matter. Companies
need to find a suitable personnel first with a specific expertise. Or at least an agency able to support them.”
How important can an agency be in conveying
their clients to eSports organizations? Or do
leagues and publishers manage those connections all by themselves?
“It can be very important indeed. Savage relies on
a truly comprehensive network and a specialist
know-how that enables us to offer potential sponsors a service package that exactly meets their
needs with regard to eSports. Our employees are
in charge of the entire bandwidth of marketing
activities. However, certain publishers are also
active in this field.”
Success Story – Intel
Intel has a long standing history as a sponsor in eSports. Supporting numerous events and
tournament series, it has become one of the most acknowledged brands in the world of
competitive gaming. With the Intel Extreme Masters (IEM), the company is funding the
major league of ESL – the world’s oldest eSports league. Judging by the long lasting history of funding gaming events, the engagement in eSports seems crucial to Intel. We try
an analysis of its success.
Partnering with a League
By choosing ESL as a partner, Intel decided
against working with a games publisher directly.
While popular game titles are constantly changing, the Intel Extreme Masters Series is resilient to
this volatile market by incorporating many different games into their official line-up. For example,
Counter-Strike and Warcraft III were represented
in the beginning of the series in 2007. Now the titles League of Legends and StarCraft II dominate
the latest installment of IEM. This strategy helped
to make IEM a lasting brand in the world of eSports.
Targeting the Influencers
International Awareness
As certain game titles can differ in popularity between regions, the IEM follows a globalized approach by engaging gamers around the globe.
This is a benefit to an internationally operating
brand like Intel. The events can be individually
tailored to the market they are targeting. At the
same time, the different regional tournaments
add up to a global experience that cumulates in
the World Championship at the end of each series. This generates an effect similar to that of major international sports events like the FIFA World
Championships.
Of course the proximity of Intel’s products to PC
gaming is obvious, but the idea behind sponsoring eSports events goes way beyond. It is considered a fact that gamers and especially eSports
enthusiasts are influencing their households and
social environments regarding buying choices
of computer technology. With this in mind, Intel
reaches a target audience of very influential tech
savvy individuals at the eSports events, which in
turn affects the buying behavior of a much larger
group of customers.
The success of Intel Extreme Masters is a great
example of how brand awareness can be leveraged by a lasting engagement with eSports and
how reaching out to competitive gamers can influence a much wider range of potential buyers.
13
Success Story – Kingston HyperX
Manufacturing hardware for “creative professionals, gamers and pc enthusiasts”, it’s a
no-brainer for Kingston to invest into eSports to leverage their brand HyperX. It‘s not so
much a matter of if but a matter of how. Gamers are very critical of the hardware. Approaching them in a wrong way can actually harm a brand much more than it would benefit from eSports sponsoring. HyperX is a good example of how to do it right. Therefore,
we took a closer look at their sponsoring strategy.
Create Engaging Content
Get Successful Teams Involved
The list of teams sponsored by HyperX reads
like the “who-is-who” of eSports. However, their
strategy is not only about making team members
wear their brand logo on their collars. HyperX
goes beyond by engaging the eSports community with high quality content. With a mix of gaming
information, insights into the professional gaming
scene and funny videos featuring well known professionals, they reach an impressive audience.
The gamers are the celebrities of the eSports
world. By involving gamers of successful teams
into their content and generating content about
them, HyperX goes way beyond using celebrity
testimonials for their products. This strategy generates proximity to the audience and therefore
gets the brand much closer to the potential customer than generic logo sponsoring could ever
do.
Really Know Your Audience
Being sensitive about the target audience, generating authentic content and speaking the language of gamers, HyperX manages to be successful on a sponsoring territory that – while
offering a lot of potential - has lots of pitfalls for
those not careful enough.
HyperX content is not just random facts and generic fun. They know a lot about their audience.
They know the lingo gamers talk, the inside jokes
they like, and in general, what’s really going on inside the teams they sponsor. By using this knowledge, their content is authentic to the audience
and does not feel “odd”. It is more than just knowing some demographic facts about your target
group, it’s about living the same life.
14
Success Story – Coke Zero
Probably the most influencing sponsoring deal in eSports history so far was the announcement of the League of Legends Challenger Series in 2013. Coca Cola in cooperation with
Riot Games started this new tournament series to anchor their brand, Coke Zero, in the
eSports community. We dig into the idea and story of this unique sponsoring concept.
The Story is Important
The story behind The Coca Cola Company’s engagement is simple: the launch of the League
of Legends Challenger Series “to give amateurs
a path to the pros”. In a press release, Matt Wolf,
head of global gaming at Coca Cola, places more
emphasis on this: “Now’s the perfect time to get
involved with the passionate League of Legends
community, and to help support and grow eSports.” With this baseline, Coke Zero is positioned
not only as a sponsor but as a strong supporter of
the eSports idea. This creates credibility and authenticity needed to engage the target audience.
Sustainable Content
Cooperation is the Key
Enabling amateurs to fulfill their dream by becoming professionals is a story that fascinates people
in all sports. By establishing a new tournament
series for amateurs, Coca Cola sets the foundation for sustainable content creation. In weekly
competitions between January and April 2014,
16 teams competed against each other with two
teams becoming pro as the outcome. The games
were broadcasted and generated hundreds of
thousands of views each week. This generated a
lasting brand experience deeply rooted into the
world of eSports. Following on, a second installment of this series was kicked off in May.
While structures in classic sports are already well
cemented, the fast-growing and highly innovative
competitive gaming scene offers a myriad of opportunities for sponsors to get their brands recognized within eSports. By partnering with League
of Legends publisher, Riot Games, Coca Cola was
able to set up a highly customized strategy tailored to what gets the target audience engaged.
At the same time, it helps to cooperate with a
partner that already has credibility in this well
connected gaming culture.
The League of Legends Challenger Series is
a good example of how to establish an easily
recognizable story in eSports to leverage a brand.
It shows the flexibility and possibilities that can be
found in this quickly developing market for companies targeting the very distinct demographics
of competitive gaming.
15
Who is Who in eSports
The eSports scene is a naturally grown ecosystem deeply rooted in gaming. Beginning
with small, privately organized tournaments and LAN parties, it has evolved into international event series and leagues operated by professional organizers. It is important to
understand the basic structure of this market if you wish to find the right partners to work
with.
Publishers
The first tier of the eSports economy are the game
publishers. They develop and market their game
titles. While the Wall Street Journal claims that the
Blizzard’s StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty cost $100
million in development, it has been shown that
the actual estimated production costs of a popular competitive game can easily reach 8-digit-figures. An evenly high amount is invested into marketing of a title and that’s where eSports comes in.
Making a successful competitive gaming title that
is featured in internationally recognized eSports
events, is an important pillar in the marketing strategy of a publisher. That’s the reason why companies like Riot Games (League of Legends) or Valve
(DotA2) invest in the competitive gaming scene
and organize tournaments with impressively high
prize pools for pro-gamers. For example, the winners of the recent international championship in
DotA2 (short for Defense of the Ancients 2) were
rewarded with almost $11 million in prize money.
At the same time, the huge awareness those
competitions get from the gaming community
open up new revenue streams for the publisher.
It is not disclosed how much money was involved
in the deals between Riot Games and Coca Cola
or American Express, but as League of Legends is
the most played and watched game in the world,
they were certainly substantial.
Independent Organizations
The second tier is made up from the godfathers
of competitive gaming, the independent organizations. They were amongst the first who ran
gaming tournaments, sometimes derived from
private events for a close circle of friends. They
have evolved into huge event businesses running
tournament series all around the globe. Good examples are ESL based in Germany, MLG (Major
League Gaming) from the USA or the legendary
Korean e-Sports Association KeSPA.
Each of these organizations follow a different approach to eSports but a common factor is that
they run gaming leagues comparable to leagues
in football like the English Premiere League or the
German Bundesliga. Teams have to qualify for
those leagues and worldwide tournaments are
held in order to find a champion during a particular game.
Besides the organization of gaming leagues and
events, aforementioned businesses have developed their own media empires. While mainstream
media like major broadcasting channels widely
neglect eSports, the scene has created its own
16
eSports channels reaching millions of viewers every day. ESL.TV or MGL.TV are just the biggest examples of these media powerhouses. In addition
is their enormous reach on social media platforms
like Twitter or Facebook. This attracts sponsors
and media partners and makes them important
players in the eSports economy seldom rivaled
by the publishers themselves.
Teams also often run their own media channels
and distribute messages from sponsors via their
own networks. When the players of a professional
team are not competing in a tournament, they often stream their training sessions and thousands
of gamers watch to learn new tricks. That, also,
generates a wide media reach that becomes one
of the most valuable assets of each team.
Teams
Agencies and Service Providers
The heart and soul of eSports are the teams.
Like football teams, they hire professional players, they train and manage them and handle
customer relations with publishers, leagues and
sponsors. Most teams have been “clans” in former
times, roughly organized groups of friends and
like-minded gamers who played together, developed common strategies and worked together
on tournaments. Some of the biggest teams like
SK-gaming meanwhile have become enterprises
themselves, paying for dozens of players, running
own training-facilities and living quarters called
gaming houses and earning a lot of money from
sponsors and prize pools. They are managed almost like sports clubs and their roster is as international as the one of Bayern München.
Grown from many different roots, a number of
service providers have formed in eSports using
their inside knowledge about the scene and their
experience in event production to convey customers to the right organization, personalities to
the right partner or to manage a whole event.
Teams are attractive to sponsors, because the
players are the celebrities of the eSports scene
and work as testimonials that are very close to the
fan base. Looking at the jersey of a pro-gamer,
one might not be able to recognize much difference to the overalls covered with logos of Formula-1-drivers.
Most of these businesses are basically media
agencies specialized in eSports. They have acquired knowledge in strategic consulting, marketing, advertising or production and offer their
services now to interested customers. Often their
networks are based on connections they have
made during times when their key personnel
have been active gamers themselves. Examples
include production services and media agencies
specialized in eSports.
Some of them also run their own media outlets;
streaming channels and gaming-related news
websites add up to their media reach. Those outlets were often born out of a need for relevant
channels that have not been available a few years
ago.
17
The Many Faces of eSports
The versatility of eSports can be best demonstrated by simply observing the number of
completely different events that a competitive gaming enthusiast can visit. While many
big tournaments already take place in stadiums to host for thousands of viewers, other
formats inspire creativity and display the diversity in eSports.
A nightclub is not the first venue that comes to
your mind if you talk about video gaming. Maybe most people still think in stereotypes of dark,
lonely basement rooms with dim lighting and socially challenged teenagers.
What happened in Krefeld in November 2014
will prove them wrong. One of the internationally most recognized competitive gaming tournaments, the Homestory Cup, took place in the
Königsburg. From Thursday to Sunday, this nightclub in Krefeld catered to over 4.000 gamers, eager to watch their idols compete in StarCraft II, a
real-time strategy game. About 13 million people
from all over the world watched the live-broadcasting of this event via Twitch.TV.
StarCraft is about a future war in a distant galaxy where, besides humans, two alien races fight
each other for dominance. It is challenging for the
players, because clever thinking has to be combined with quick reaction skills and good timing.
Some describe the game as “chess on steroids”.
The highly anticipated finals took place on Sunday and over 50.000 viewers simultaneously
watched online as the player PartinG slaughtered
the Space Marines of his opponent, Flash. Both
are from Korea, a nation that has dominated eSports for decades.
Besides the opportunity to watch the pro’s compete in the tournament, the event offered a lot
more entertainment. You could, for example,
wage your own wars in Counter-Strike, play a virtual soccer match with FIFA or race small cars on
a Carrera track. Several catering areas and bars
offered grilled sausages, pizza or waffles, and last
but not least, the most typical thing you would expect in a nightclub: alcoholic beverages.
The atmosphere created by the audience by
cheering for their idols who are on the stage
changed quickly from high tension into outbursts
of excitement. The experience was comparable
to sporting events such as football or basketball.
As it got late, the gaming event slowly transformed into a typical Saturday night party. The
gates opened to non-gamers and the remaining
eSports-fans mixed with the club-goers. While
you could overhear some of the newly arriving
guests expressing their astonishment about the
video game theme present in the club, the majority of young people found together quickly.
There is no difference between “gamers” and
“cool kids” anymore. Gaming has become an integral part of youth culture and nothing could prove
this better than an eSports tournament in a club even when uncounted numbers of virtual marines
had to give their lives to make a point.
18
Selected Events
(Different Games, 2014, by prize pool)
The International 2014
DotA2
Anaheim, USA
$10,930,698
World Championship 2014
League of Legends
Seoul, South Korea
$2,130,000
Call of Duty Championship 2014
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Los Angeles, USA
$1,000,000
Wargaming World of Tanks
World of Tanks
Warsaw, Poland
$300,000
BlizzCon 2014 (Hearthstone)
Hearthstone
Anaheim, USA
$250,000
BlizzCon 2014 (WoW)
World of Warcraft
Anaheim, USA
$250,000
DreamHack Winter 2014 (CS:GO)
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Jönköping, Sweden
$250,000
WCS 2014 Global Finals
Starcraft II
Anaheim, USA
$250,000
Brands in eSports
(Selected sponsors)
Alienware
AMD
American Express
ASRock
Asus
AXE
Azubu
BenQ
Bison Group
Cellucor
Cisco Systems
Coke Zero
Cooler Master
Corsair
Creative
Crucial
Epson
Gigabyte
Hauppauge
Hitbox
IIyama
Intel
Kaspersky
Kingston HyperX
Korean Air
Logitech
Monster
MSI
Nvidia
Philips
Pringles
Razer
Redbull
Roccat
Samsung
Sapphire
Sennheiser
Steelseries
Symantec
T-Mobile
Toshiba
Western Digital
XMG
19
The Competitive Gaming Conference
CLAIM YOUR FUTURE IN ESPORTS NOW!
www.cgc-europe.com
/cgceurope
/cgceurope