Esports Infrastructure, by the Numbers

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of digital channels Harbor is a foundational technology loved by millions of Gamers and integrated into the communities of the largest mobile PC and web 3 gaming products on the market to learn more about this Flagship product simply head to harbor. or check out the details in the show notes and with that let's dive into the episode hello everyone I am your host Devon Becker and today I'm delighted to be joined by maritz marer the CEO and founder of grid a platform specializing in in-game data Ritz has been around in orts since 2012 and today we're going to dig deeper into Esports infrastructure and business as a whole as well as in-game data so could you just go over your background uh the origin of grid and and what grid does today sure hi uh pleasure to be uh on your show on this podcast um yeah uh I'm in Esports for over a decade uh always been a been a player been a been a viewer and uh really around the emergence of twitch and it becoming big

um I got very excited with a few friends at the time I set up a business uh that was called GG wins we turned out uh a few years later to be the first regulated orts bookmaker for Esports I ran it for a few years and and learned a lot during that time and mainly that my main field of Interest was uh around um the data and the analytics and predictive modeling for for for video games using the data and uh ended up exiting this business to genius Sports we might know is a large um player in in the sports Data Business and uh spent roughly three years um there and established them as a leader for the provision of odds and risk management for Esports uh spend a lot of time tackling Integrity threats uh in Esports during my tenure there uh including uh a lot of challenges that arose around skin gambling and Counter Strike and in Dota 2 um did the First Data rights um deals and in orts really emulating uh the model around data being an asset and a

rolder being present in a sporting environment um and while I had a great time there I I knew that my my heart was speeding for Esports and uh I learned a lot about the challenges that the data can overcome in our sport both from a you know commercial and ecosystem perspective but also technologically uh and and ended up leaving and in 201 um 18 um co-founded grid uh as a data platform specialized for Esports designed to create the type of infrastructure you need to handle everything from extraction processing and distribution of data and um in the last five years and coming up six actually we extensively worked first with a lot of tournament organizers and then lat up with game developers or game Publishers in unlocking on unlocking the potential of their data for for Esports and for Competitive Gaming as a whole uh so that means we are the business that

works with these rights holders and is handling the monetization of official data rights to um different um verticals and we also deploy our technology to Source the data from the game server to it in a super scalable fashion and have built a platform around it that is serving hundreds of um Integrations commercial users and Community or professional stakeholders in the ecosystem and uh having been in orts that long uh it's very fulfilling it's very exciting what we're doing uh data is a huge Trend in Esports and in gaming as a whole and um we work with the likes of RI games and Ubisoft and Crafton and uh 80 other tournament organizers that exclusively trust us and work with our infrastructure and we have a we have a large team and they're all quite passionate about Esports and gaming and it's it's always incredibly cool to be able to work with the games you love and watch and play play and to be able to

contribute to that ecosystem interact with different stakeholders and um develop technology that uh it's the ecosystem provides a benefit to to players to fans um and to the guys running it um so that's that's roughly what we're doing and I'm excited for this interview great great awesome well definitely let's let's take get a little more into the details though just real quick because you talked a little bit broadly could you give some actual examples like you mentioned some of the companies of what you specifically were doing for them and especially what you know is publicly viewable right because uh it matters if we can see the actual results of it as a viewer or as a player or as you know in the business itself like what kinds of things have you done that we could actually see especially as a benefit to everyone yeah sure so um data has data and statistics are great to drive the accessibility of games and to drive engagement um from uh a very educated audience so uh if you see

statistics on a broadcast uh if you see cool insights or predictions uh the Chan is this is powered by data coming from a platform or different products integrated there so we work with our partners to unlock experiences make them more data driven to make it easier for people to get into the game follow the actions and also you know cater to to people who might have play the game or interested in it but aren't actively playing anymore are not super up to date with the meta game uh if you do a good job around data and stats you can make the game accessible to this type of the audience too so they understand why something matters why was this a big play how much did this move the needle and then a lot more uh not so much end user facing but you know for professional stakeholders what we launched with RI games two years ago for valerent and recently expanded to League of Legends is running a competitor portal for data so one destination uh on a platform where all the teams um and across um all the the top leagues can

log in get access to their data from professional games uh but also for scrims they're playing in a super ring fenced environment um and this is ultimately helping them to work in a more data driven way um work in a more professionalized manner um and then lastly there's a myriad of services on fanf facing sites on regulated betting operators um on other like audience engagement solutions that are requireed iring data to work and we are fulfilling this needs of of clients and 20 plus different use cases for live um and postmatch data so I mean you talked a lot about about doing it for like professional teams orts things like that um outside of professional Esports and events is this the kind of data the average player would be able to get to see like hey here's how I'm doing um you know not necessarily just in game stuff but out out of game or if they're looking to get coached things like that is this exess that kind of data for

average players or just this is oh this is for the events um for now the the majority of the use cases is still very much esport Centric but um the infrastructure we've built was built with a vision to have a game data infrastructure layer for the entire game so we're scaling towards that and a few games um which I can't disclose yet unfortunately we very much close to getting this done and the vision is that ultimately um this data can be available to anybody in the community also for their own games um we believe or more than believe we know that there's like so many super passionate and talented people in orts and in gaming and we've seen firsthand um if you make more tools available for them and if if you give them access to data they will build cool stuff and it doesn't mean that all of this turns into into a massive commercial product on the line but it's it could be this passion project it could be someone running a league with

their buddies and they want some stats on it uh making all this available and empowering uh the players ultimately this is part of a vision and um we in our team there's a lot of careers I can point that that started exactly doing something like that not having access to data though so we're trying to create a reality where this is possible now so the next wave of innovation has access to data in a in a well supported environment um and in alignment with the rights holders because game developers care about their players and their Community massively and we're also doing this in a time where you know the Creator economy and ugc are huge Trends so solving the data challenges for all of the participants in that as well is uh what grid wish tries to solve and so I mean you're talking about solving all these problems for these game developers but with game developers having access to uh you know a lot of data analysts and you just tons of data to work with as well as like even you know data scientists and analytics tools

why do they need or want to use like an outside Service as opposed to just rolling the stuff up themselves like what what benefit does that provide like this is this is a great question um like if I take you back five years you know when we were way tinier and um you know we worked mainly with Esports there and and with tournament organizers um I looked at game developers as these billion dollar software houses I thought well they must as you say all the staff they must have data and apis completely figured out it's perfect and we just get to tap into that so I think in 2019 we first started to work with Crafton for pubg um and um and then other game developers smaller ones at a time and we figured out um the infrastructure layer to Source the data from the game and also more importantly which is what we do in the platform to map it to a game title agnostic uh format which has a lot

of benefits for the downstream users this didn't exist yet so building out the infrastructure for the game um we use our SDK but ultimately there's there's a lot of ways you can get to the data it's important that you do it in a way it doesn't induce any latency you want to capture the full granularity it has to be uh very easy to manage uh this is the the challenge that became larger and there's not so many games who have completely serviced uh well buil API because at the end of the day game developers focus on creating the best games in the world they have a massive opportunity cost on on putting their staff behind uh solving that challenge and even if they would they wouldn't build it in a way that has like I think the largest benefits for Downstream users across multiple different game titles uh because Esports and gaming is a very you know fragmented diverse space many different jores games playing across different platforms um heavy Regional cultural differences to it uh so navigating this and coming up with a

solution to make sense out of of all of it um is complex um and uh we the reality we're trying to create is that there's some kind of uh uniformity around uh data formats and and how it can be accessed which makes it way easier for people to build with it to develop cool stuff and to to use the data in a scalable way and I mean I think the the benefits end users are pretty obvious right like it's getting access to all that data that they would have e rights because it's you know private in in the game or in database things like that what what though does it do to benefit the game developer themselves like why would they be excited to actually expose this data you know I obviously like when it comes to Esports broadcast that makes sense to be like oh it's a benefit to them to to broadcast that but in just in general opening up data like is it sounds like a scary thing like what's the main benefit to game developers it it does sound like a scary thing and uh like 10 years ago

uh it is something that was like hermetically sealed and still the reality of some developers but um in the light of the trends I mentioned earlier we live a bit in a time where gaming empowering the community is is what many people try to do games as a platform is a New Concept you look at things like ufn and how the future of games is being built and is a lot more Community Driven again um if you think along these lines uh making more available to community isn't scary actually it results in a larger benefit game developers are thinking about time share as well you know how many hours a day can someone actually play the game are there other ways how they can interact with my IP how they can um yeah how they can engage with the worlds that they've created and if you have more people who want to Center their career in it um it's not only interesting for talent acquisition it's it's also in general just uh driving more engagement so giving them

more tools to do that is is beneficial for the game it drives more long-term engagements and the relationship to the game you're working with and it's a level of exposure that you can't achieve otherwise through other marketing means or or try to get people to well um just play and watch more and obviously like Esports organizations for example are going to benefit a lot from this because then that's a lot of data that they get also you know things that they can share both internally and externally with Partners things like that but do you think I mean there's there's a huge variety of Esports organizations out there do you think this sort of having all this data benefits more so organizations that are say better well funded things like that that can afford to leverage this data better like even data mining it just just doing a lot more having that data on the on the side of let's say like ESP Sports organizations like on the tournament organization side we've kind of proven that you know data and of distribution of official data is another commercial

channel to tap into especially in the times like I don't like the word but people call it Esports winter uh it is great to have a reliable scalable Revenue channel to um to rely on and this is something we've proven already with you know this large network of Partners and and tens of millions in in revenue generated for Esports ultimately um when with your question pointing I think a bit more at teams um the div Vision to making this data um accessible to a larger audience and creating a bit of a a base level of access to data and stats and analytics is designed to create a Level Playing Field um the teams that are better funded and already invested in analytics and maybe even have their own staff for it or working with third parties to do it they inherently benefit from it too but the starting point for anybody wanting to engage with it is now granted this was the vision with r games behind launching uh the portals for both their

games and it's great teams are using it a lot they're working with the data and the idea is that there is not a huge difference when it comes to the analytics angle that a team can play between one that is super well funded has been work on this for years and teams that are getting started so like in order to achieve that also we heavily investing into making it more accessible you know even if they don't have an engineer who can create integ or API um you know working for products uh that visualize the data better uh and then having uh natural language uh input uh to to query data are all ways to break down barriers for people to start to engage with it and use it for their benefit um so creating a Level Playing Field ultimately is to Vision well as a company that has I mean essentially Trend built around something that seemed to be lacking uh in terms of Esports in general what are some other like unfilled gaps in Esports infrastructure

or technology that still need to really be taken care of or or just would help popularize or better monetize even Esports yeah I mean in general if I if I take comparison to sport um it took years of uh technological advances on computer vision tracking technology to get super granular data from the pitch any orts if you think about it a sport digital by Nature uh we shouldn't have to do that it is there there is a perfect data source somewhere this is something that excited us that's part of the vision so looking at that the use cases for data like when we started we thought it was still massively underutilized and I think we're on a good Trend to kind of catching up but ultimately I see Esports should be able to overtake sport um and in what you can and the ways in which you can leverage data to improve experiences and also make uh monetization more more robust and also more exciting or engaging at

the end of the day um so I think there's certainly still gaps to fill uh our mission as as a platform is just trying to get more games into this official data ecosystem um where you know there there's hundreds of businesses working with the data there's other cool people just building with that and uh once you kind of uh once you enter that you can see that an ecosystem can grow for your game uh with people innovating in areas like broadcast Innovation coaching Talent scouting and anything else that matters for your community and that is inherent value um and and from there over time uh exciting new projects will will arise and we're we're the platform we often excited with what people come up with ultimately uh which is very cool uh it's it's not that I can point to something where yeah this is a gap that has to be closed I think the most exciting things will come from just people coming up with good ideas and uh

there are many good ideas and there's a lot of talented and passion with people in these Sports as I said before cool hopefully uh hopefully you can continue to share some of those good ideas so other people can build them if you guys can right just keep building up that technology but I do appreciate that like it's a the business model in a way is is helping potentially enable other businesses uh build up around this data obviously you know like Partnerships and things like that matter but uh you you mentioned traditional Sports and that's something that's like a a typical point of comparison and obviously kind of the basis around what the idea of Esports generally is but there's obviously a lot of differences between the two and I think some of those maybe contribute a little bit to some struggles with how to figure out how to both run and and make money around Esports what do you think are some of the important differences between those two things and and what you know maybe could be improved from the two I think the a core difference is like no one owns uh baset basetball in the way that League of Legends is owned

by riot games so there's like a super rolder present in all of this so aligning with their vision for the competitive scene I think is vital if you want to succeed in orts and then also there's only a few companies who have transitioned from seeing Esports as a little marketing gig or let's say um prolonged marketing arm for their game to actually running it like a business and setting it up uh with a prop professional ecosystem behind it and these are the ones that are succeeding also now where it's not a um it might just still like and the in the net balance still be an expense um but it has a robust structure um uh there's Integrity behind it and there's reliability and then you create something that makes it possible for people to get into it and have a future there so these Investments by by large game developers are obviously vital and over the past last few years we have seen you know the emergence of

franchising um different models for how to run that and some of it you could argue was experimental and not everything succeeded of course uh so I think we're undergoing a bit of a correct at the moment but the models that will survive after that and there's probably a lot of consolidation coming as well um they will be a lot more future proofed um than the ones that emerged a few years ago so I'm I'm generally very optimistic about where we are um and think that there was a bit of a hype time and now it's a bit of a focus on sustainability and sustainable growth for Esports and this forces people to be more Innovative um reiterate their business models and and come up with ways to make it work for the long run and that's all in all that's that's good and that's healthy well and we of business models uh taking something like you you mentioned trying different ideas that were you know franchising some of these other organiz ganization stuff they were trying to borrow from Sports I think a big example

of that was say the OverWatch league right which tried to very directly borrow a lot of elements from traditional Sports and that doesn't seem to have worked out do you think that's something that had to do with the format or the expense or whatever or was maybe just the game itself and not necessarily related to a lot of the structural issues around it I mean the the structure let's say the the structure how it was set up I mean maybe it could have worked I think the amount of investment into it very early on um created a certain expectation and a bar that the game had to meet and maybe that was set unrealistically or way too high and that then creates a very tough context for the game and the ecosystem to perform against you know there's other examples if you look at Rainbow 6 um where you could argue that without like such a massive investment push through simply you know the the community liking it it grew slower but it grew with a way more solid foundation um so I don't think you

can force Esports um and the model there was definitely very very bullish and then you know the game itself also having issues and all of that coinciding is is is probably what led to to a bit of its demise but at the same time you know um they're bringing it back let's see what they do with it and um I I don't think it's it's over for the game at all um but uh the the they had was I don't think working for the game at the time and there's always a lot of factors that contribute to it um in general if you think about Esports all the largest titles were often even created at first by the community or Community mod so if if you build something that that people like or you kind of follow uh where where the hype is I think um these are the competitive titles that have been doing well since then um so there is is a recipe for Success there I think and

I'm as I said before I'm very excited about kind of in the in the Creator economy and games coming outside of other games some people will have cool ideas for a game play that is just so much fun that people can't get enough of it and then you have the next forl moment happening uh out of that and maybe even a newor being spawned so um this this is something that excites me about Esports that the potential for this to happen is always there uh and far as the business it's Act is creating a huge challenge but we're trying to be at a point where we're kind of ready for that yet for for that moment to happen and that our infrastructure scales with it in a way that we can support these games a lot earlier in their development cycle or even while they become a big thing and uh develop a competitive scene I mean you know you have a couple examples that I think are perfect for this question which is around whether or not you can just make something an orts game right like it it seemed like clearly spending lots of money was one

way that that activation blizard was trying to push OverWatch not that they didn't design it to have some orts but it seemed like originally was designed with a casual audience in mind and then kind of switched over to being well let's make this an eorts title right whereas you mentioned Rainbow Six which was I mean was intended to be an ort from the get-go right they had tournaments the beta you know they they tried to really push it that and they also spent you know I me they spent maybe a little more reasonably at the beginning and it definitely struggled at first they just kept going with it but they were very insistent that it could be esport and it wasn't like a community thing that drove that it was definitely Ubisoft driving that from the top down do you think that's a viable thing or it's just that's a you know a long shot at best for most companies uh unless they they really feel like they've got something special or it's built off of a a concept or a community mod that that already has shown some success in the market and Rainbow 6 is is a great example I've just returned from sa Paulo from m I and uh being there like shout

out to Brazilian fans in Esports is uh pretty uh it's it's amazing actually uh the the energy that was there and um this this was a pretty historic SI they broke a bunch of Records on the viewership side that were amazing story lines at the tournament I think even someone proposed on stage you had twin brothers playing against each other in the Grand Final it was perfect and during the event also they released updates for the new Esports plans and the game game and it's so cool to see um that Esports is a place where the community directly interacts with the game developer and how they're going to change the ecosystem um and uh change the game and I think they're capitalizing really well on that yes they had to push it and there's a massive investment of of Ubisoft behind making that work and getting it off the ground uh but I think uh they they didn't force it in a way uh like that happened with these the franchise leag there uh for for OverWatch I think that was a bit different um ultimately

I uh yeah I think they they've just done a good job and listen to the community over years and then they built a very strong core that really wanted it and then it really picked up uh growth-wise well having worked specifically with with Rainbow Six for example and uh it sounds like you were probably involved in in the event down there um I know they've been a company that tends to try and push some dat out for the game you know more more so maybe the events but also still in the updates and things like that uh have you guys been a part of helping sort of bring some of the data of the game out and like what has the impact that you've seen from that or at least the reception yeah we we work as as official data partner for Rainbow Six Esports with Ubisoft and started um last year the Atlanta major I think was the first tournament we covered so we've um set up data infrastructure to handle the distribution and power a lot of other services for that game so for

Esports and now as a fully serviceable API um and we're making this available to to our Network and and the community and we're working with them to uh Target a lot more use cases down the line um also you know supporting the competitive scene in similar ways like we're we're doing it in other game titles already um and so yeah you're right they they have invested in a data stack and they have great teams behind it managing it for their own purpose I think have just announced at the event that they want to use data to also detect cheating automatically better uh so this is uh to to your example earlier this is a company that understands the value of it has invested behind making it work and they're working with us to expand the use cases and make everything more scalable uh and and and servicing um larger um areas of the ecosystem with a with a data product and this is you know where our value proposition helps them um and there also to work with and and again the the event was so amazing uh

was was a really good experience uh you mentioned that the data around cheating and things like that being used for detecting sort of thing obviously probably not so much at a at a big land event like that which you know other ways of looking at that but when it comes to looking at uh data that's more broad like in terms of just average players playing or average you know cheaters cheating uh in those situations now they they originally did have uh data driven statistical driven stuff for Banning players at the beginning and that ran into its own set of problems especially with Pro players being banned for just being too darn good at the game stuff like that right and uh now they've now they've come back again saying they're going that direction again after having switched to battle eye for example as their main focusing and focusing on the client side as they switch back to data uh and as a data company shelf do you think some of this is to do with things like machine learning AI sorts of things making it so that data now can be maybe a bit more meaningful or just used for a couple different purposes and do you think there are some other purposes for using

the data besides just orts or cheating or typical coaching like what are some some broader ideas for data usage especially with machine learning or AI developing and and possibly enhancing that yeah so the the emergence or emergence is the wrong word I think the increased accessibility of tools um and the whole AI Trend we're seeing is making it a lot easier to to do something with data and also to um to validate an idea around doing something quicker uh so I think getting to an MVP around something you want to build with data has never been as easier and has never been less costly than it is now which is awesome because it empowers more people and um it gives more reasons to look at data so cheating detection is obviously one another thing if you think about like large scale um data projects is around game balancing um it's it's vital to

understand how your metag game is shifting after you introduce a patch or significant changes in your game or release a new map or a new operator in Rainbow 6's case or the type of agent or hero in other games um this is where having having the data available first of all and then also having the ability to look at it and understand how it changes things is great one to verify what you try to achieve your changes and then two to assess the impact uh to your game play and then how um how it's evolving over time uh I think this is super important because if you then work with the feedback you get from your player base and you can see if what they're complaining about is maybe like I don't know uh not based on a large sample size or actually not true in the data or you can find that pattern very much and looking at the numbers um then you can work in a way more informed way and that's EX exactly what we're aiming to make available for for the game

developers working with us with us we've seen a lot of controversy lately too around uh feeding data to Ai and and like for example you know scraping places on the internet for for thing without permission stuff like that obviously if you guys are working on like exposing potentially data that's internal to a game is is there a chance or if you've already even had experience doing this of taking this data and then feeding it to machine Lear learning or am models is that something you guys have done or is that is that a concern for game developers that hey like this data now being available now all of a sudden like that could be used to train things or to data mine a little more automatically in a way that they may or may not permit yeah um so a few examples like we have this big AI Trend around llms but uh AI machine learning has been around before just wasn't as hot yeah so um we we've been using machine learning on the predictive modeling side since day one basically so it's pretty normal

but there we speak about you know delivering predictions and turning data you know into information that can be used for broadcast Innovation that has relevance in betting space and so forth so uh the this is is naturally um uh something you do with the data um feeding data to AI models uh is there's a lot of challenges around it um one you know you want to use official data for especially in light you know of the the scraping and where the data had sourced um the ownership aspect around a data asset is very much um top of mind uh for everybody involved in this um and also if you would take player data anywhere there's gdpr concerns of top of that gdpr is a huge topic for game developers of course so this is not happening now and this is not what we're aiming to do um but there are obviously use cases there I I think this is still like emerging in in what the right model is

going to be and how the value chain uh should be set up properly to facilitate this um I think game developers are naturally cautious around that and and going too fast um but I do think it's a challenge that is very manageable in a very similar way you know the work we're doing on Distributing data to like regulated batting it's mean speaking with Regulators uh informing parties involved establishing a standard and aligning with the goals of of the right soers and the game developers to do it in the right way um these things take time but you can get them right and if you do so um yeah you find alignment along the value chain and something that's done in a way that they maintain control over their IP which is vital um there's a commercial consideration for them in the value chain and ultimately still you're unlocking a lot of benefits for for everybody cool well I guess I guess

we'll wait and see what ends up happening with that because as you said you're trying to enable other business models potentially to exist but at the same time maybe not if they're going the wrong direction or you know dealing with things like gdpr and and breaking potential in any kind of regulations or anything out there especially on the the gambling side of things but Switching gears uh quite a bit here uh I want to look at Platforms in general right U so like a majority of Esports at least what we're seeing you know with a lot of games tends to take place on PC um you know despite console and mobile actually being you know pretty big audiences and and huge player bases depending on you know the uh the demographic or geographic area why do you think uh H having console and mobile really become the Staples that you'd think they' be especially with mobile being a much broader audience and also looking at that from even a data perspective is there anything that data may have to say about that in terms of you know exposing that data because a lot of people go like is does anyone play mobile orts and

it's like well is there a lack of data there you know or infrastructure things like that you just from both angles in terms of why those platforms maybe haven't reached that level I mean first of all for us it doesn't make a difference of a game is played on your phone on a console on a PC um where we're pretty agnostic there uh to answer a question kind of on the ecosystem side like um mobile esport is huge it's massive and I think there's obviously a large Regional bias towards mobile um so you know there in in Southeast Asia there's massive game so very successful um and it just has to do with you know the demographic generally playing more on their mobile devices um one thing that uh like to Shan adct like think about pubg you know pubg mobile is absolutely massive but it turns out from Esports perspective uh yet they watching pubg mobile championships but the mobile player watches PC Esports too um because

it's well I don't want to offend any mobile players but you could argue it's a littleit more refined version of the game that you get there and uh maybe the Gunplay feels feels a lot different too so you always have that going for these games especially the ones that are like the mobile spin-offs um that it still brings a lot of Engagement back to the main title well then yeah I was going to ask about that do you think the the continued push for mobile ports especially on first and third person shooters like Call of Duty obviously there's the Call of Duty that exists now but War Zone's coming out I think by the end of the month you've got valerant Mobile coming out at some point Rainbow Six mobile which I guess just got pushed a bit into later in the year but like this year in general looks like a lot of that stuff happening do you think that will make a difference in this like you said obviously you know probably the pubg PC players aren't watching mobile but Mobile's watching PC yeah does this help shift that a little bit I mean obviously it was kind of a niche thing when it was Call of Duty and there was a bit of Call of Duty leagues but if it's

like every single game getting these ports and then getting a lot of support especially if they monetize well I imagine the company's supporting them quite a bit is that going to shift the landscape or is it just pretty much like well it's a it's an arm of it I I think it can it can result in a bit of a shift and I think it can Elevate mobile Esports like I I remember I was in uh in inch like 5 years ago it was around like visiting worlds back and um we were in a studio an OG Studio watching uh a mobile I think it was Kings of glory and at the time I found you know the I have three guys like sitting on their gaming chairs in front of an empty desk um but the the stadium was packed people loved it but I always thought it looks a bit funny so since then mobile Esports and how it's produced it has come quite a long way um and you know I personally I don't I don't play it but uh you know if if if you

just see the game playay it can still be like this can still capture massive audiences of course and it is exciting so maybe back to the concept of time share like will these mobile versions of the games you just mentioned will they change um what the player base is doing will you also be able to play the game I don't know while you're on the way to work or um uh sitting by the pool and will this change how how you watch orts down the line I don't know yet but um we there's certainly there's certainly a lot of a large move to it and um mobile offers different uh ways of monetization uh so I think it makes sense and overall if it helps the ecosystem to grow for specific game IP and through this kind of cross pollination it unlocks a larger user base I think it's a really good thing for Esports ultimately and that doesn't mean that the mobile version of that

game as a segment has to be a success on its own but overall I think it it might bring a larger audience and more accessibility to the game titles um because many of them you see have quite a regional focus by now and uh so I think it's it's it's really good but I have a clear answer or prediction on what is going to resulted does make me wonder you know the you talk about the the when the mobile would watch the PC U a lot of these games both on mobile and PC will often try and integrate Esports more into the game client so it's like promoting what's going on with Esports sometimes even integrating a bit more with like a brawl star for example tries to add a lot of elements to make it so that you can sort of feel like you're participating in orts in some way by like voting on teams or whatever if they were then promoting uh you know hey I'm on the PC game but then like in the game client it's promoting hey there's a mobile tournament going on that you watch and vice versa does does make me wonder if that could actually make a difference with it just because uh ease of uh acknowledging that the other one

exists but going back to something you mentioned earlier around uh sort of ownership of these different Esports and whether we're calling them Esports or like individual games within a broader Esports category uh looking at traditional Sports you know they've lasted many generations many decades you know some are newer than others but in general once the sport establishes itself it doesn't usually go away it may way wax away in popularity but doesn't really leave and some of that's do you know these being essentially folk games right no one really owns the sort of basic rules of the game but there are still companies that own sort of their specific implementation of the game whether that be through an organization or just a lot of trademark and brand Awareness stuff um obviously in the game side of the video game side of things you know we're looking at this is a specific video game Run by a specific company uh but then like you have the idea of genres maybe even being something that's sort of a category but looking at like longevity of these games the idea of these lasting multiple

generations and things like that are even becoming essentially like folk games you can be playing with your friends you know we see so stuff like csgo and DOTA have lasted a while right but Starcraft 2 for example has kind of died off to an extent do you think these games naturally have a limited lifespan of some sort that's maybe you know within a single generation uh and like really depend on constantly changing the game and keeping it refreshed and really micromanaging it from a company standpoint as opposed to you know CSO and DOTA which maybe are a little bit more hands off and maybe even treated more like they're Community oriented or do you think it's maybe even sometimes a genre thing like Starcraft 2 is an example of an RTS genre game that you know RTS isn't really that big anymore whereas like DOTA is kind of the seem like the evolution of that where mooba has become much more popular as a spectator sport do you think that could be a factor or is just you know these games come and go okay there's there's a few things I think uh first like Starcraft it started with Starcraft for me yeah uh and Korea arguably the birthplace of Esports

um it's the culture that they created around uh Starcraft specifically was just fascinating this is what really excited me at the time and uh the emerence of Starcraft as an Esports was just awesome um I'm a big fan of RTS games in general I'm a big believer in stormgate you might have seen a successful Kickstarter and I think there is some fresh wind in the and there there's also other other games coming up so we are we're hoping um that these new games will make what is an amazing uh genre for Esports and for competitive play it's like RTS games are so fascinating from a balancing perspective too um and and and strategically like once you get into it it's it's awesome to watch um the thing is to get into it these are also pretty hard and you you know you play One V one it's all on you in a MOA you know if you

lose it could just be your team uh but uh in in in RTS games you you really test it so there's a these are all kind of the little bit the barriers to mry so what I hope is that you know these emergence of of games that have the potential to revolutionize the shorer they make a lot more accessible and this will also revive RTS as an eort Sher um which I'm not saying uh it's I'm just saying it's very stagnant there is a hardcore user base that followed the last 20 years and they will for the next 10 years and then their kids will too uh it's just how how this works DOTA is arguably a bit similar um in in in the Die Hard audience there so um I'm thinking ajre can um innovate to to become more more watchable you know when ble Royale kind of started out um it it took a lot of great great companies to do a lot of work to make the viewing experience good enough to watch cuz it's

so hard there's always something going on there's the potential to miss a lot of actions um that players and teams take um on on on such a large map with so many actors and so many fights at the same time uh you know in a round based FPS this is just generally a lot easier to to get right and to to convey the excitement and also that the game itself is just uh simpler um you know new jores like if you think about an a turn-based strategy or a to Battlers is something that also emerged B Ro also just emerged kind of out of nowhere and and and this huge now so I'm looking forward to seeing new genres being spawned uh I think the Cycles in gaming and Esports are just shorter than in sports and and I think that's okay and also this was one of the challenges I faced when I was a genius Sports you know um data infrastructure in Sports is built in a very static way there's like roughly your your 15 sports that matter maybe

they'll add pickle ball to the list uh or or paddle for the in Europe for the sports that that matter if it becomes unpopular but um at the end of the day they also don't change the rules every month uh in a massive way there's not going to be like in in football or soccer for you like uh they're not going to introduce a third goal and uh and another team playing and uh 15 player uh out of nowhere that this this stuff doesn't happen so you can build stuff in a lot more static and a lot more vertical way you would never create a visualization or predictive model for baseball with the hopes to reuse it for basketball later you know but when we started especially this is how we were thinking about the games um build stuff in a super game title agnostic way to make sense of it um and what where I'm going with this is I think uh we want to layer Foundation that when when that new JRE comes it will be super easy to kind of jump on it to create fan facing

applications so that all the sites that cover Esports you know can cover the game properly have access to statistics to visualizations um and that the stakeholders in the competitive ecosystem are empowered and can work with data it's a big part of uh setting up a professional ecosystem ultimately and this is how we do things on a platform we have very few game specific data points we just look at a bunch of mechanisms that happen in games like kills es items hero or class system um and when we look at a new game we go into this box of Legos and Patch together Syntax for that game title from that um so this was one of the main reasons you know why I had to ultimately leave GS and set up grid because there was a vision around doing this right and the sports way just wouldn't work and this is just so true across uh so many things and also business models um in in in East Sports uh that you have to understand how the games work and how this industry functions and it's just

way more fast-paced and it's ever changing by Nature uh that's also exciting it keeps things fresh all the time it it does sound a bit like you know you're talking about making everything kind of game specific to to each individual game but in general it sounds like maybe there's some some Merit to thinking about a genre the way you would you know baseball versus football in like in a broader sense of like most mobas are same enough that it's almost like different leagues of that where it's like you know League of Legends with league in the name there uh and in different MOBA might just be kind of considered under MOBA almost as if it's different like you know Regional Bas baseball you know organizations or things like that like and we did have stuff where where people tried to make big variations like the XFL obviously that didn't super work out but there that idea of like we don't change too much outside of the genre so like you know for example from a data perspective a was pretty much a mob but like you're I don't think you're going to have to change too much about the type of data you're tracking same with most first

person shooters you're tracking kills deaths assists and maybe objectives and rounds like I don't think and correct me if I'm wrong here but it doesn't sound like the data really actually changes too much within a genre to where it's like oh if it's another thing in the genre we're already ready pretty much to support that because it's pretty much the same and that and maybe that is I mean that is part of what makes a genre a genre is the common elements right do you see for example any more like other genres emerging a lot of these genres kind of came out as sub genres right like mobile kind of came out from rtss uh and things like that I mean first person shooters are still pretty much first- person shooters that I haven't changed that much but do you see anything like that's been emerging ne new genres that might come up and do you have any data that that actually helps assess anything around like popularity or emerging genres or is it really more just like competitive data only um it's it's just a it's the in-game data and you can think about a competitive ecosystem for use of s the game as a whole um it doesn't make a huge difference what changes is what the data

will be used for ultimately but you're right if we add a new FPS a mobile game it's incredibly seamless at this point because all the data points that we need to make sense of it already exist um and that's great and the huge benefit is for the downstream user if someone is using a platform already has buil something of Counter Strike or and they want to do it for valerant now that's incredibly seamless I can literally change enough the game ID in the API and they're probably good and that stuff will work but I mean you mentioned that like you spoke about Rainbow Six before I know it's it's a game close to your heart uh the utility aspect of that game is so vital and it's also super exciting so this is one that prompted us to really go like uh a lot further in in in in figuring this out um uh the maps have the the fre dimensional aspect is a lot heightened compared to other FPS titles so thinking about visualizations how to make sense of the map uh is is different

so there's always new challenges that arise um but this is ultimately what we signed up for what we want to solve so I'm not actually complaining about the challenges coming from that um do we have data to predict what is a new J I don't know like uh no not really the I wouldn't say I I would say basically uh we focus on kind of creating Frameworks that uh can adapt to changes and new things emerging in the most efficient and scalable way possible um it's it's hard for us to go into the data and figure out whether a Jor can be successful or not or a new game type emerging um we just hope that they they remain to a large extent compatible to what we have already so it's easier for us to get something off the ground when the game becomes popular which you know in Esports can happen overnight many game developers hope that right that's definitely the the dream definitely sounds like though even for the

successful ones a lot of times it wasn't as overnight as we like to think it is more we became aware of it overnight but it been worked on for quite some time uh but something you mentioned earlier as well uh that that I think is is a big justification behind data and infrastructure especially real-time infrastructure for data in a competitive scene is the sort of relationship between uh Sports and orts and betting or fantasy right which is kind of fantasy being almost kind of considered sort of the evolution of bedding in a way that it's more complex in terms of data usage because it's not just who won the game it's like how how many points did this individual player make or how many times did he die is starting to really like get it more granular and and do a lot more with the data what do you think overall about the sort of relationship between traditional Sports and orts with uh betting and fantasy outside of you know just obviously some some of the more unsavory aspects of it especially when it comes to driving data driving technology in these things because it pushes a a a monetary reason

for people outside of the game developer to care about it um yeah so I mean I know you're in the yes so just like a few months after I set up the business uh pper repeal happened uh in the US which really ushered in kind of a new age and uh well massively changed the view on wagering in the context of sport so yeah fantasy is more complex but also all these super intricate things you can also do on a live betting perspective this is the current reality in in like more um established betting strongholds like in in that you see in Europe already you can bet on almost anything uh Esports lends itself incredibly well to betting because there's a lot going on in these games there's a lot of kind of quick fire marchet types you can derive from it um what I like about the use cases once it's super exciting and it's happening on most games anyways and this

is also uh a whole the the trends there they in sometimes actually kind of almost run a bit independent of a game's popularity they came just games that are just great for wagering and exciting to watch and people um you know like that element uh to change your experience and and how to interact as a viewer but uh what I want to say is you know this is one of the use cases we got right very early um know having done this in the past we knew what bookmakers need to do it right we knew how to uh adapt regulatory code that existed for sports to Esports to avoid Integrity threats uh again the role where data is actually Paramount um for the you know monitoring and and investigation around um around that protect the spot ultimately but if if you get the betting use case right with a data solution um there there is

no nothing else where the scrutiny on the quality accuracy speed and granularity of your data is as high as it is there so if you get that one right you're probably uh well um positioned to support any anything else because if if you screw up your customers literally lose money um so this is good because it sets the bar super high for you after to work um and then it future proofs whatever you buildt um in being very robust and very reliable uh for anything else you want to do with it so uh and then lastly you know betting occurring and then occurring in different ways it's important that it's regulatory betting or betting in regulatory in regulated environments uh especially through skin gambling you know which was probably at its peak around 2016 uh there's still a lot going on but a lot has changed since then um because there's even ways to do this properly but when we think about betting we want

to position it as a benefactor to the sport and not a risk factor and not something that detracts from the community and the experience of the fans um with the game and that's super important and this is a large part of you know what we figure out with the right soers that out on our platform to do it right for their game and and regulate it in the right way so that that comfortable with it awesome well definitely I imagine a thorny subject to even deal with from from your side in terms of dealing with lots of lawyers Regulators different laws in different territories things like that not a uh not a very easy trivial thing to deal with but definitely necessary right because people are going to be doing it regardless and like you said earlier you know getting accurate information and stuff is is better for everyone so it's definitely important there um lastly just what do you what do you kind of see over the next five years for Esports in general like what do you see happening where do you see it going but maybe with more of a a sort of slant on the technology the infrastructure and how

that sort of drives things as opposed to just popularity for example um yeah so we spoke a bit about s earlier you know seeing a bit of a correction in the Esports ecosystem so what I foresee and also not just anticipate but hopeful is um that we think about Esports and L growth more from a sustainability angle um I think you know there were a lot of massively inflated valuations around the the team side and and so forth and uh it it is it is hard to uh make sense of of these valuations um if you compare them to the current reality of uh these organizations at the time and that leads then to a situation where this is kind of bound to implode or if they need more money it's very hard to continue to justify um the investment so with the little correction we're happening I think we're going to see more sustainable and more proven models being

the focus um being a tournament organizer is tough business engaging your audiences after your event is hard so there's a lot of examples there you can see one for example with blast you know creating blast TV thinking more about how can we build a destination for audience how can we set ourselves apart how can we have more um long ranging engagement with our fans and with our community um this is exactly what I think will prevail um and is is better for everybody involved um and then from a tech side and infrastructure data is a huge Trend it's great for us we haveen to specialize in it uh so we see more games uh embracing it and thinking about what they can do with it thinking about the community um so my dream future is really where anybody who wants to build something with it can have the tools that they want at their disposal and they're empowered to do it and they don't have

to think about how do I Source my data do I have to scrape it or what not in the first place they can think about the idea and then this also coincides with this larger I Trend and making developer tools a lot more accessible than ever before uh so I think it's exciting and we're going to see an accelerated um Pace on the Innovation side um and new models coming out uh at at yeah faster than before uh we're here to support it and uh I'm excited for where the ecosystem is going well where where could people go to see sort of the results of some of the stuff you've done obviously like when you're you know just seeing this stuff at an orts broadcast something like that you may not really know uh but like right now if people wanted to go out and see the kinds of data that you are pulling out of games good examples and good uses of it um where would they where would they go to see that I mean generally you can start uh on our website G.G I also want to mention like we'll be at GDC uh

in two weeks uh we'll have a stand there so if you want to see all of that working in real time and how we integrate with games and how we can set up an API the all of this will be available there um and and lastly I would I would say like on a website you can find the grid Open Access initiative so you know besides you know a large footprint of commercial clients we're supporting um pre-revenue startups or small passion projects or Scholastic initiatives for free with access to our data and we've seen incredible Innovation from this running hacker fundes regularly um to empower people building cool things in specific use cases so if you like if you're a player if you're a viewer or you want to get involved um we've created a starting point for that and if you just want to have a look at the data there's a way to to get on it and then sign up and have access to it it and we try to create an environment that's well supported with coding or script examples a little code

playground uh even for anybody it might not be that deep into into that to to have a way to play a ro with it sounds like maybe you should run some hackathons at GDC can people do build some stuff on top of this data if you can right get get that kicked off I for next year for sure definitely cool well I want to say thanks for for coming in M it's definitely great talking to you I think there's a lot happening in this industry so it's going to get a perspective sort of from the data and and infrastructure side of things as I imagine just based off what you said that that's going to be pretty critical going forward because obviously we are a a very technologically driven uh like just business in general when it comes to Esports compared to you know traditional Sports which is you know getting there right uh but but definitely definitely great talking to you and and I definitely look forward to seeing uh you know where you have at GDC and anyone out there hopefully can get a chance to check that out and person or at the website as you said grid. good place to check it out so thanks again for for subing by great conversation and

thanks everyone for tuning in if you enjoyed today's episode whether on YouTube or your favorite podcast app make sure to like subscribe comment or give a five-star review and if you want to reach out or provide feedback shoot us a note at podcast nov. or find us on Twitter and Linkedin plus if you want to learn more about what navic has to offer make sure to check out our website www.nic.edu and advisory Services again that is www.nic.edu [Music]