The battle of businesses in esport

Beyond the treats, the trophies and the community, esports is about money and business. After the large-scale competitions, after the applause and partying at every party that we witness, the signatures on the contracts and the handshakes.

2017 was a big year for esport in terms of business. Let’s start off the list with the first Counter-Strike game:

JANUARY – In the early days of 2017, the big CS:GO gender war was over. In the battle between WESA of Europe and PEA of North America, WESA was the winner, forcing the other association to leave.

This is a brief journey of PEA in Counter-Strike. Founded in September 2016, Professional eSports Association, PEA, (professional eSports association) is a competitor of World Esports Association, WESA (world eSports association) cooperates with ESL. While both sides are located halfway around the world, the CS:GO background is shared, and WESA has no intention of leaving the North American brands – neither is PEA. The two sides prepare to fight for this ‘delicious cake’ in December 2016.

In an open letter to PEA, expert Scott “SirScoots” Smith representing 25 players in the gaming industry denounced the PEA’s decision to restrict players from participating in ESL Pro League (EPL) competitions in the hope that they will only be able to compete in PEA tournaments. But PEA is a fairly new association, while ESL and WESA are not and they know how to attract players with money. By increasing the amount of EPL prize money to $1 million and giving a percentage of the revenue to non-WESA teams is an easy option for players, something the PEA is offering to do as well. When the players decided to side with WESA, PEA was forced to surrender the battle for CS:GO market share.

Why the Players Chose EPL over the PEAhttps://t.co/se4jtg18nm

— Scott Smith (@SirScoots) January 5, 2017

JANUARY– ESL’s ‘cold war’ with the Counter-Strike community occurred on many different fronts. After WESA handled the PEA, ESL confirmed the rumor that had spread a few weeks before: The ESL Pro League would be streamed exclusively on YouTube.

This is sad news for fans who always believe that esports belongs to Twitch and only Twitch. But if you look deeper, this is probably a better step because it will shake up the streaming market on Twitch.

For those who aren’t happy, there’s nothing we can do but accept that the copyright wars will continue to dominate the majority of esports in 2018. Growth means more investment and as more money comes in. more money, people will continue to fight.

JANUARY – Tech tycoon Alibaba has always wanted to get into the lucrative e-sports business, but in 2017 the company changed a lot. In January, Alisports entered into a 10-year strategic partnership with Changzhou – a city in mainland China with a population of more than 14 million – to host WESG tournaments. And now everything seems fine.

Details of Alisports’ strategy were revealed in July. According to the South China Morning Post, the company lost 60-70% market share in WESG 2016 and was forced to rethink its direction. According to esports director Wang Guan, Alisports plans to expand cooperation with a total of 20 cities in China, in order to reduce some costs and logistics problems.

Is Alisports profitable from an investment in esport? As Wang admits, this seems unlikely.

MARCH – If the copyright war is happening in esport, then what will happen when bringing it to the mobile platform. And when these two forces meet, Twitter will emerge. The social media mogul announced in March that they had teamed up to stream ESL and DreamHack content in 2017 and would launch with ESL Katowice that same month, followed by DreamHack Austin in April.

“Twitter has the power to push esports on mobile – a lot of people will be watching on the platform too, and maybe I’ll decide to give it a try myself,” Skillz CEO Andrew Paradise told Esports Insider about the campaign. this case and he’s not wrong. The growth of mobile users has not been ignored by big companies. The company that succeeds in providing the best service for eSports streaming on mobile will certainly have a business advantage in 2018 and the following years.

Twitter’s partnership with two major esports brands raises many questions about the future of the gaming industry. So how will Twitch and YouTube react? And how and when will Facebook respond? Who else wants to eat a piece of this delicious cake?

MARCH – The operating regulations of WESA and the government are not perfect and are still puzzling to this day, but their decision to add new regulations in March was not one of them. The association opposes companies owning multiple teams at once, with the aim of eliminating potential conflicts of interest during events.

This means that companies like ESforce Holding and RFRSH Entertainment will have to change if they want to appear at WESA tournaments. ESforce still owns Virtus.pro outright and holds a stake in SK Gaming, both members of WESA, and until November of last year also held media rights to Natus Vincere, a other members of WESA. RFRSH involved three teams: Astralis, Heroic, Godsent, and they agreed in June to follow WESA’s regulatory guidelines.

WESA’s move was forced to take place in response to the political issues in esport. Certainly WESA will continue to work, although these regulations only partially solve the problems, but their purpose is also good for the future of esport.

MAY – The biggest change in League of Legends is the commercial system that started with the LPL in May, when the Chinese league announced plans to eliminate relegation and move to a long-term partnership project.

Since everything was happening in China, the community signal was pretty weak back then… until the NA LCS followed suit in June. Within a few months, Riot Games added a new season to the top. investment of mainstream sportsmen, forcing local organizations to ‘give up’ because they could not meet Riot’s requirements. The “NBA LCS” was what people called it at the time, and we have to wait and see how the League changes.

Speaking of commercialization, we should also look at the Overwatch League (OWL) – they are also moving in the same direction as the NA LCS, but the plan was actually announced on video back in November 2016. Like the NA LCS, OWL also pushes local companies to the edge – and forces the parties to create their own brands for the league – with the hope of generating a return on investment someday.

AUGUST – Every summer, millions of people – even those who are not interested in Dota – are ‘looking forward’ to The International prize pool. They are curious if this number will continue to increase.

Valve’s decision to use crowdfunding for events is one of the revolutions of the modern esports industry. Since 2013, The International has continuously broken its own records, year-on-year growth has never been less than 13%, with the last prize number reaching $24.7 million.

It is not yet clear when and how TI’s prize money will be broken up by any other esport organization. Dota 2’s main rival, League of Legends, only raised $2.7 million from the community (out of $4.9 million in prize money) for the 2017 World Championship, while Valve’s other esport CS:GO still Crowfunding has not been applied.

To this day, TI’s total prize pool is still a remarkable achievement for Dota 2 fans, when tournaments are still continuing to “burn wallets” for fans and traditional sports organizers.

NOVEMBER – PUBG is still very hot, but the major tournament organizers have begun to ‘roll up their sleeves’ to participate. ESL hosts a Gamescom $350,000 tournament to spark the PUBG esport. In November, Korean esports broadcaster OGN also announced its intention to report PUBG.

According to DailyEsports, OGN’s plan is not only to report PUBG, but also to build a center that only serves the distinct ‘nature’ of the game. As a Battle Royale game with 100 players on a server at the same time, it is clear that the usual esport arenas will not be suitable for PUBG tournaments. PUBG’s studio will provide enough space for this number of players.

As PUBG player numbers continue, most recently reaching more than 3 million concurrent players, OGN’s investment is completely understandable…especially given what has happened in the past year.

NOVEMBER – With the company that has helped shape eSports in Korea for the past 6 years, OGN had a rough 2017.

Starting in November, when Riot Games Korea announced they would be building their own studio to report LCK games from the heart of Seoul. Dubbed LoL Park, the studio has a capacity of 450 viewers and makes the team here similar to the reporting team in Europe and North America.

While Riot has confirmed they won’t break with OGN and SPOTV, the current steps don’t say that, and these two broadcasters are certainly preparing for the worst: the right to report League of Legends. Korean Voice will probably be exclusive to Riot Games at some point.

And if OGN is still in the game of League, they definitely have to be careful with Overwatch. Report in December by Sports Chosun talks about the return of MBC – one of the Korean giants in esport reporting. MBC, which left esports in 2012, said it would win the OWL and the Korean Contenders award after it was reported that the deal between OGN and Blizzard failed.

With the above problems, OGN needs to plan to ensure they are still “bloody” in the esport industry. From StarCraft, to League of Legends and Overwatch, OGN has helped build some of the most popular tournaments in Korea, so it would be sad if they slowly disappeared.

NOVEMBER – PUBG ended 2017 after Bluehole signed a contract with Tencent – ​​the parent company of the game League of Legends. Tencent won the exclusive rights to publish in China. For Bluehole, it’s a good way to enter the world’s largest gaming market, and for the media mogul, it’s a game that promises to make them profitable.

While Tencent had to change PUBG to comply with the strict management regulations of the Chinese government (the game is currently banned in China for being too violent), the price to pay is too small if we include it. other benefits that the company receives: such as the mobile version. Tencent currently dominates the mobile game market with its Honor of Kings and Arena of Valor games, and they are planning to expand into the Western market. With the Battle Royale game coming to phones and tablets, it not only increases Tencent’s domestic market share, but can also connect the portal to overseas communities.

Overall, 2017 was a meaningful year for esport with businesses starting to join hands to gradually shape this industry in the near future. CS:GO still has some issues to fix and we can’t ignore it. OWL and NA LCS will be a direct competition from the traditional bosses. PUBG continues to encroach on esport thanks to a booming market with the help of the world’s top major esport companies. The price of narration will be higher and higher.

2018 was full of interesting stuff. Can you imagine what 2019 will bring?

Source: cybersport