Living in a bubble?

The world of gaming and the ESport industry

Thoughts on the growing commercialization of the e-sports industry and the use of content creators.

Opinion column

Yoav Agent

28/12/2021

Tuesday, 28 December 2021, 16:35 Updated: 16:37

• Share on Facebook

• Share on WhatsApp

• Share on Twitter

• Share on Email

• Share on general

• Comments

  Comments

Before we begin, it is important for me to note that this is not an opinion column with a middle or end beginning.

This is mostly a collection of thoughts on the state of the industry at the moment.

AML: There is a lot of value in e-sports, and in its combination with content creators, but it is still not clear where this is a trap and where there is real value, certainly when the trends make Apple about every 3-4 years.

Without entering the industry of technologies, platforms and supporting tools (this is a microcosm of its own), in every new field of human activity, entrepreneurs will emerge.

Even before the first shekel, everyone wants to be there first, to reap the billion shekels.

Some are working on a real product, with a vision, potential and defined goals.

Another part "works" on a product, sometimes a decade or two, the main thing being to be close and close to the breakthrough that will really make the field profitable.

More on Walla!

A market table or a celebration box?

If you like to eat - this is the solution

Walla!

Food with burgers

Both work configurations may fail and may succeed. But with them there is another and more malicious kind ... charlatans who exploit the general lack of understanding in the field to impersonate "understanders", go around in all the right circles to take advantage of the public's lack of understanding, sell fantasies and disappear with the money into an even more obscure field.

To the outside observer it is difficult to understand where the truth is, and you the business opportunities are. So I try to make it a little orderly, at least to separate forces between two areas of practice that seem to be linked to each other in a problematic tangle.

In terms of image, the industry is a sponge that is thrown at every new technology that comes out. Do not believe me? First example: If ten years ago (yes, a decade ago) they started marketing virtual reality glasses to the home consumer. Are there competitions in VR games? Yes. Is it something more than my niche? No. It may change later, but in the meantime ten years have passed since the great promise.

Crypto?

Ibid. Among the hundreds of buzzwords that live on their own within the buzz dimension of crypto (sounds like a Marvel sequel), holdings among them are Esports and gaming / gameification.

A change that is not perceived as technological, but the rise of the Battle Royale genre that is actually made possible by improvements in server technologies.

This is a huge cultural change, but has not been perceived as a mainstream e-sport due to countless operational difficulties and failures as an entertainment concept, so it can be concluded that these technologies have not fundamentally changed the field.

And yet, e-sports has been branded for 20 years under the category of "new industry".

What has changed?

The world around and the consumer preferences of gamers.

If we take football as an example, it is a game that belongs to the public domain, no one owns the concept of football.

But competitive games are the private intellectual property of the companies that develop / distribute them.

For a game to be a successful electronic sport, it must first have a critical mass of casual players.

Only a few percent of any player audience in general will almost obsessively want to get better and win at a level that allows for the growth of a competitive community. That is, changes in consumer habits directly affect how the e-sports industry looks and what products it offers.

The first real turnaround came with Fortnight and a huge wave of Battle Royale games. I wrote about it before, although it is not an electronic sports game, but the Battle Royale games have spawned a new generation of gamers with completely different preferences than what has been accepted for decades.

And the big earners? In fact, the content creators - the new celebs that grew out of the phenomenon. The creators of Battle Royale content and the "challenges they participate in" have become so mainstream that it's hard to classify content as "sports" rather than reality.

While "hardcore" e-sports (in quotes that still have a high number of viewers in some cases also from the NBA) can be compared to the viewing experience and fans to the NBA, NFL and the like, the experience of watching Battle Royale competitions is often likened to WWE or Dancing with the Stars. Yes - there is a competitive element to it, but it only exists to create tension between the competitors, who are the real stars.

In e-sports, in contrast to regular sports sometimes, the fans are first and foremost there from a sympathy for the game, and will enjoy watching all the competition games, not just their team games.

One might admire players who are a lift in their time - S1mple for example or Faker, but this is not necessarily in place of the entertainment value of watching a competitive game at the highest level.

Battle Royale games have changed the face of the industry

Battle Royale Games (Photo: Walla !, Gaming Channel)

Fortnite celebrity Pro-Am

DJ Marshmello and Streamer Ninja star in a Fortnight event (Photo: Official Website, Marshmello)

In the world of content creators, content is an excuse to interact in real time with the persona. It does not matter almost what they are playing, the spectators there for the personality. And when content creators compete, it's not an attempt to be the best, but the most entertaining. The world of content creators, which has a lot of launch points with the world of e-sports, is a whole industry in itself, with different growth engines, different metrics and different players.

Nowadays, we have reached a point where the general term of "gaming" is so prevalent that it seems that both industries are doing everything possible to mix concepts and customers. Is it any wonder that FAZE, the e-sports organization ("competitive team"), was forced to reach an agreement with one of its leading content producers, who claimed that it was in fact simply a talent agency (thus violating the employment regulations of "e-sports players").

Does their billion-dollar IPO reflect its success as a competitive group?

No.

It reflects its tremendous success in building a brand around the content creators who sign it alongside the competitive players.

This presents an interesting situation - the e-sports industry wants the wide appeal that content creators have in the field of gaming, especially for young demographics.

The content creators, for their part, want the appeal of sports gaming, for the variety of images of the sport.

The team, the stadiums that are bombarded with fans with paint on their faces and flags because it is sexy and brings sponsorships.

Faze Clan

An electronic sports organization or a talent agency? (Photo: Official website, Faze)

Will the future brighten up for the serious competitions? Is the future "challenges" and Twitch Rivals-style dancing with stars? (Hardcore gamer teams up with a celeb / content creator in a competitive showcase game). Is anyone currently working on shaking up the formula of 5-on-5 group games, at the interface of a mouse keyboard and screen? And is there really a bubble abroad?

In an attempt to raise the quality of production more and more (by companies like Riot, Blast, ESL) we reach Eurovision production levels several times a year in each game. Can the marketing ecosystem at the moment even support such huge expenses? Or is it Operations in Pasadena, everyone is trying to find the magic formula to stabilize it.

would not it be more correct to pass again the model of subscription service fee? 2022 in the doorway and expected us a lot of surprises.

• The gaming channel

• Reviews

Tags

• Gaming

• ESPORT