Panel: Esports Evolution: Future Trends in Competitive Games.

[Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] we should get on with our next panel so do we have to talk about the Esports Evolution uh our moderator my colleague Ewan Morris well yeah hello everybody uh this is only the second time I've hosted a panel so excuse me if everything's a bit awkward but it's really the focus really isn't on me Focus isn't on me it's on uh these three fine gentlemen here uh yes Dave said we are missing one person uh Nick unfortunately got held up on his travel so he won't be joining us today but I think that just leaves more space for you guys to talk so I'm going to make sure I have my questions in front of me and I think we can just start off if you

guys can just introduce yourselves starting with You Chris hi my name is Chris I'm the general manager of Dev sister um we do mobile games mostly however we're looking into console and PC as well and we're dabbling into a brawler that comes out next year so we're kind of interested on that side in Esports in general but um I have to out myself I'm basically here as a fanboy and mostly a consumer of Esports nice my name is Famer I'm the head of growth at joaker so we're the largest social gaming app in the Mina region based off Jordan and Esports is one thing that we have been diving into and we have been hosting actually Esports tournaments lately uh in Korean board games like Domino's chess Uno which I can speak about in a bit hey everybody my name is Mika I'm the CEO fans Esports and uh I guess in this panel I'm having a little bit different perspective because it's a competitive Esports company so we have uh players

and teams you know fighting uh against their uh opponents in different games and are currently Counter-Strike is our main focus main product if you will and uh our team is number two in the world in the world ranking so we've been doing pretty well one more spot to go right uh but yeah I mean my background is more from games in Tech uh before I join in about five years ago and I'm happy to obviously be here fantastic well like I said these are three very very different perspectives but I think they're all three very valuable perspectives because we uh we kind of spoke about the subject before kind of going over the questions and everything and there was some really fascinating insights some hope and we're not going to be missing anything so just to kind of start off um a bit of an icebreaker because you say one key Trend that you've noticed in Esports recently each of you

any takers me okay um what I like a lot a trend uh I think the production value of Esports events online and on site is extremely high and getting very high getting much higher um very high production value and very high price money um I think that's a trend that I noticed price money gets hard yeah it's a good one um mobile Esports I think that's an upcoming Trend that we've been seeing growing at such a rapid pace so that would be interesting to see kind of uh how that compures with uh PC and console games yeah for me it's mobile Trend mobile esport games yeah from my side I mean take a little bit more negative spin to it um it's been hard for Esports organizations who have competitive teams for the last year so financially um some people have used the term Esports winter which means that there's

a lot of teams struggling financially burning tons of money losing money and not being able to find a viable business model to you know support their business and uh maybe gonna you know expanding that a little bit like when you operate Esports teams you have players professional Gamers um you need to find business models outside that kind of competitive scene right uh price money is growing that's great there's more more eyeballs to the the same price money actually goes mostly to the to the players themselves right so for example ends we've set up a business which is more like a media business right so we have our our professional players and and streamers content creators which from our perspective is more like a like a media that we try then to monetize together with board Partners like you know Red Bull or Logitech or you know Telecom operators etc etc basically you know it's more like an inventory if you will right it's it's a little bit

extreme to say that but that's that's how we we kind of we kind of defined it in a way that we need to find this business models outside that competitive play if you will like leveraging that kind of visibility and reach towards fans um and then kind of you know try to monetize it's it outside of that uh and Competitive Gaming we we are one of the rare animals in this world of Esports that we are actually bootstrapped but we also profitable most of the teams out there are currently bleeding money or at least they were pleading money a few months ago and many of them have done like very very you know dramatic decisions in terms of downscaling well we've been actually growing nicely so I guess we're in a happy place but uh but it's not it's still a little bit kind of challenging in in this kind of industry if you would take the perspective from Esports teams how they uh can kind of fund their business growth yeah fantastic I just kind of want to bring out one of the key points that I all three of you mentioned or at least I

believe all three of you mentioned which was about prize money growing constantly because interestingly enough if any of you are familiar with the gamers 8 tournament that they hold uh in Saudi Arabia that's uh game is eight because it's eight weeks it's not anything to do with the number of games or the number of competitors but um one of the things that I noticed interestingly enough to connect this back to mobile is that the second highest prize ball was actually for pubg mobile beat out only by DOTA which is uh if I remember correctly Chris 15 million yes correct I was actually going to come back to you because you mentioned you are a uh you're a DOTA guy I'm a daughter guy yes but to kind of connect back to that we've seen a bigger focus on mobile Esports and on games on mobile that kind of Follow That kind of trend you know Shooters like fortnite Pub G and even other games like Clash of Clans kind of uh in the uh dream hack series those are kind of popping up what do you think makes it an appealing platform for Esports uh I'm taking this again um I think so first of all the ubiquity

meaning you always have the device with you um which makes it easy for you to consume obviously Esports you're right here they're right here you have you carry them around um and you can consume it on there but what's pretty sexy in that mix as well I think is because you can also play on it right so the the entry barrier so to say to competitive Esports for you on a mobile phone is pretty low you download the game um and and you can actually be part of it even more so than on a PC setup that you know if you play competitive quota or Counter-Strike it has to be a pretty decent setup right and so ubiquity and and and and the entry barrier is quite low for for mobile yeah I think I agree with Chris on this it's accessibility you know everyone has a smartphone nowadays and uh most smartphone holders do play games on there so it can you know playing a game that is within the Esports uh uh world like pubg uh I mean anyone can join can have an Esports tournament

with us I mean we see we saw what happened uh with Joe Walker and in June so we hosted kind of the first Esports tournament in Iraq uh for dominoes and we opened up only for Iraqi users and we had around 150 000 people joined and play in the event and those were their initial phases and then can the top 32 qualified to play offline uh for a chance to win a brand new car so that was very interesting and awesome that we saw I think accessibility is the biggest ones it makes it very big yeah I agree I mean it's it's mobile it's all about the access right you know there's there's so like you know huge amount of people having first of all you know affording a mobile phone right uh having access to it right um I think you know if I'm putting uh like our team is international so Counter-Strike team number two in the world is like they they're across Europe the players are from different countries because that's how you build the winning roster nowadays right but if we would be

to look in the mobile game uh building a competitive team we couldn't do that in Finland I mean if we look into Europe we probably go to um turkey might be interesting you know there's quite a lot of mobile Gamers there's also like professional Gamers you know there starts to be the quality I mean finally yeah we have some great people and great players but you don't have the quantity to kind of you know eventually build up roster because everybody has a PC everybody who's kind of taking seriously as an esport they have a PC at all right uh great you know like a fiber connection you know etc etc so it's kind of like like you have you need to look into certain markets and obviously you know southeast Asia as a middle east or those are booming and I don't see anything stopping the mobile gaming right it's only gonna grow uh but it can take a while before we see the uh gonna you know you know a lot of people playing mobile games competitively in for example in northern Europe or Scandinavia a small side and about Gamers age right the prize pools like I

mean second best team in the world in Counter-Strike obviously we had to lose the final so we became second we only lost to the best team in the world right but the prize pool actually they match with the industry so Counter-Strike price was only a million bucks but that's that's the the million bucks is paid by the majors as well and the order 50 million is based on what DOTA was giving out on di last year so that's how they kind of build up the price pool they could I mean I was obviously challenging a little bit like hey you know if you play 50 million for DOTA maybe Counter-Strike should be like 10. yeah didn't fly but you know that's how they kind of build up the the the gun and price uh money mechanism at the camera side see what I mean I don't so I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna give you a break Chris for this next question you sat you sat closest to the person who's talking unfortunately so I'm always going to default to you but going back to you make it you mentioned obviously the fact that there's a lot of growing markets that are adopting mobile primarily for their for their Esports you know we see

that in places like southeast Asia with games like Arena free fire or a riot who took the reins on um ah wild Rift if I remember correctly that was a game that was previously managed by another company in terms of the Esports in that area if I'm remembering correctly and right recently took the reins once more because the Esports scene just wasn't really working for people and there was a lot of excitement there because people are invested in that esport and it just wasn't being managed right but I'm going to be a little bit provocative now and I'm going to ask do you think Mobile's gonna come to be a big competitor against PC directly is it going to be like a case of like one is going to be on top one's going to be kind of pushed down I I think there's always going to be a place for for a PC competitive side of games again you look into the counter strikes and valerians and and and and and stuff like that I mean it's there's going to be a play I mean Contour so I can spend there for like what 20 pounds years right so it's not going to go away in anytime soon but I think

I'm seeing it more from the casual follower perspective that maybe mobile gets more kind of attention if you will um but at the same time keeping in mind that the the amount of amount of people just following Esports is growing as well right as players so I don't think there's gonna be kind of any cannibalism if you will right um mobile obviously there's there's gun a lot more Innovation happening what comes to new games and you know you know stuff like that so so the there's there's kind of maybe there's a higher upside if you will but I don't see PC gaming just you know going it's hard for me to say that in five years you know people for example in northern Europe would kind of prefer mobile uh Esports titles over PCS you know that's probably against traction but PC will be there at least for quite some time that's my that's how I see it fair enough um if you guys did have anything to add on to that

I think I I agree one percent and in fact you know having uh mobile mobile Esports uh in correlation with PC and console you have a broader range of audience way more people competing within the Esports industry and I think it's actually good and especially at the rate that is growing I mean there is always a room for all types of players to join but as you mentioned you know PC gamers are always PC Gamers you know they're uh pretty intense and way more competitive than your casual mobile Gamers so I don't think they'll be in the cannibalization between both because there's huge room for all yeah I mean this together they're not very much Mutual exclusive so you could easily do both I also see mobile maybe as an entry to Esports right and then I move on to PC and then consume or play both in parallel um then PC will always have a spot also

to correct me if I'm wrong I think mobile is mainly single player you know by yourself also it's pretty awkward to watch when they like you know or an Esports tournament so it's much cooler like in a big team there you know chatting with each other and yeah so it's a different kind of a Vibe and style but yeah again I think they're not mutually exclusive but it's also like just one more thing so like we did a research we don't know fan base well maybe two years ago um about their behavior when they're following our games like twitch is obviously the place where they go to check the games and and and and many of them then use a second screen to be in touch with their friends like you imagine going to a a football game right with your friends you know you you watch the game and you have a chit chat with your friends maybe you have a drink but it's it's all about this coming Community or a group of friends so a lot of Esports fans do that online right whether that's Discord whether that's uh even slack you know WhatsApp uh but people basically you know have a have a

larger screen no big screen basically for following the mats and then they have a second screen whether that's mobile or or even like a PC and with the second Monitor and then they have they're kind of connect like connection with their friends talking about the game and all that stuff so so we did that study I don't I forgot the percentage but there's actually a pretty high percentage of people who are actually not watching the game alone if you will right you know they are virtual with their friends and that's probably by the way an area where there would be room for Innovation as well to kind of you know build up this uh this experiment right yeah I mean I think I've been kind of firmly putting my plays in regards to that with um what I mentioned about you know mobile and PC competing because as you said it's a massive Market it's only growing as well so really there's not much space to compete you know who you see players are going to be PC players mobile players are going to be mobile players in a lot of cases they are both just a question of your preferred platform so I mean when I'm talking about when I'm thinking about Esports I mean talking about

Esports I think of the history of it of coming from kind of Grassroots stuff you know like your Lan parties like on unreal or probably the one that I always think of is the Evo tournament you know fighting games and everything if you want to talk about like communities that's a major one but we've also seen a lot of games that have been built to be Esports ready and have had like official support and in some cases that hasn't always worked their benefit or maybe just hasn't helped to push them to that kind of like longevity you know the the example I think of um the most is probably OverWatch um you know blizzards in terms of Esports obviously Starcraft and everything that's been a major thing but you know they've also had Heroes of the Storm which they pulled support from a couple of years after launch if I remember correctly um and OverWatch they've recently had some issues with you know some of the teams basically complaining very loudly about the cost of franchising and falling viewership numbers and this is in spite of maybe because of um official support I mean do you think that there needs to be more official

support in that case or do you think it needs to kind of be a case of where they look for organic growth and look for the local scenes and look for the people who really want to get into that and then build up from there I I can go with that so I think I think crash roots that's always needed right you know to build the true kind of Engagement and and even the Loyalty if you will within the The Gamers right but at the end of the day if you think about like what are these competitive themes from The Game's publisher perspective right you know and this is a marketing tool for valve to Market Counter-Strike right building this kind of uh you know um superstars who people look up to and they want to kind of you know imitate in the game hey this guy did a cool move you know I want to try it as well these are influencers right and that's why you know we're kind of you know we're trying to use them as influencers towards other

brands as well but having said that you know we Market basically games like Counter-Strike so I think it's only Justified if we do a job well that there's an incentive from the games publisher now digging a little bit different kind of or taking a step back I think you know when we do decisions in which games do we operate relationship or partnership with game publisher is extremely important right um I mentioned about financial struggles for majority of the teams in the industry right now as I mean that's partially based on the fact that a lot of these game Publishers have cut down their uh their support a little bit right we did the difficult decision uh at the end of last year we dropped uh our Bob G roster pubg PC roster we were partners for pubg uh for like three or four years right and there were certain Financial incentives included which basically they ask us to commit not only commit to the game but committing to certain

marketing activities creating content for them you know uh uh you know promoting the game all that stuff right uh which is basically a transaction right then you try to build I mean with the help of their help we're trying to build the best team in the world I think best time we were probably ninth in the world kind of championships uh but we had to cut it down because of the cost base didn't anymore make sense when pubg decided that they're gonna kind of decrease the amount of support taking a game like like instead of having maybe uh similar expectations as what we would need to deliver but not necessarily having the financial incentive anymore so we were like okay right it's very it's going to be very difficult for us to kind of build it us even as a break even product if you will right so this official support is is is extremely important for a lot of the a lot of the competitive teams out there to basically justify the costs for building the infrastructure and you know practicing rooms and game houses and having all the support staff

around the players and that that's the difference what we need if you want to build the best teams in the world rather than having you know a good team yeah I mean if I could just hold off and go a little bit off script for just a second just to get you to go over that point again so you're basically saying that previously with pubg you had a partnership where they had a financial incentive for you and for that you were on the hook for a lot of like what were you know like streaming collaborations you know like promoting of the game and everything yeah do you think that which yeah I mean that must be very intimidating for a lot of smaller smaller smaller groups it's it's got to be like because it's a big commitment it is it is and and and and and and and obviously it's a transactions so if we would have not delivered what we were committing to then we would not get financial benefits out of it like it's fair play right like you need to deliver XYZ if you fail X you know you're gonna get less incentive so obviously that kind of drives you the

certain activities right which I think in a good way like best dance with pubg we have a very good relationships in terms of what are those deliverables what makes sense for our community you know uh what are we gonna do on this report you know what kind of activities you know we even did some sort of like uh merchandise uh partnership with pubg as one of the rare teams in the world right so our in this kind of churches were on sale or like promoted on on on Bob G in a game right um but exactly like you know then the smaller that's that's a different when you kind of look into like which ones are the tier one Opera like organizations in Esports and which are the rest and I know it's tough for those tier two and tier three because that's where they want to go and it's extremely tough um but then it's just also the fact that uh these tier one organizations are very easily stepping away uh moving on to another game title uh if they don't get any any support sometimes support doesn't need to be all Financial it can

be other things it's just kind of you know guaranteed visibility in their tournaments you know being able to play because that adds value to your partners now we can tell Red Bull that hey you know we're gonna play you know in this in this tournament next year so that's that's automatically basically gonna you know guarantee them certain level of visibility so there are a lot of different kind of variables on on it but Financial incentive is very very uh important for Esports teams yeah I I completely agree with that I mean we've seen that happen uh with us where we do have some teams that we do support and sometimes when they don't meet the end deliverables um unfortunately things don't go the best way but continued support from the developers uh financially and on other things I think it's very very important at the same time having a balance with these crash route initiatives because when the developers do support it the this way you've built out a properly

structured ecosystem for that specific game and at the same time uh from from a gamer's side right they can turn this in from a hobby to a full profession when they have full out support but we have to make sure that there's a good partnership and uh realistic deliverables uh that the these teams can need to get that support uh not kind of over exceed so you have that continuous ongoing support and so women for everyone yeah so it sounds like really if somebody wants to go from being an Esports enthusiast it's a shame we don't have Nick here because that would have been a really great little pun to have but um you know somebody wants to go from being an Esports Enthusiast to being an Esports athlete for lack of a better term then you need the same kind of deal that you would have with you know like a professional footballer or like a professional football team where you have visibility and you're in the tournament so that then when a sponsor comes to you you don't just say oh well we're really great at pubg and they're like well what's the benefit for us you can say oh we're going to be in this

massive tournament with X number of people watching they'll be like yes we're going to give you money and I mean Chris do you have anything to add on to that yeah I mean professionally I don't have so many touching points with that but I totally agree to your point that this should follow more like the the classical football route right so the cups are nice you know and these uh these big price pots but you have to have something like a leak structure like a whole economy like they play League games you know and then something needs to pay the date the day-to-day you know the monthly expenses they have and so on so on so the big cups are nice but something has to lead up to that and in a football ecosystem you have the club football then you have champions league and then you have all the other cups going on and I think this is eventually where where it should go where also like TV distribution rides are involved and sponsors individual players sponsors and so on I think it's getting there I do believe League does something similar like that um already with the league um but yeah it's it's still in in the Cradle I think it's kind of it's kind of

the the the dream to be able to sell out your own stadium and everything while playing your esport of choice well it's it's the one thing I kind of want to come I'm gonna have to put you back on the hook again Chris because again if you are sat nearest to me unfortunately but um one of the next questions that we're going on to is the discussion around collaborations between you know like um companies and Esports organizations now you work for Dev sisters correct and obviously Dev sister is well known for the game Cookie Run and some of you may know that they recently did what I say recently this was a year or two ago now the collaboration with uh BTS the famous K-pop band do we have any BTS fans in the audience very good one person over there another person over there fantastic that wasn't totally awkward okay but you know when we're talking about that the uh collaboration thing um do you think that that's kind of a bit of a passing Trend you know when we're talking about collaborations we're talking about very different things to sponsorships for example do you think collaborations are going to increasingly

become a kind of thing because you know Mika I think you were talking about the idea of having your the players on the teams kind of function as influencers and I think a lot of them do there's a lot of well-known Esports personalities that have built themselves up as influencers but do you think that it's going to increasingly become that they have collaborations in their role as an Esports athlete or is that kind of more of a passing Trend and we're kind of going to see that model shift back to just the regular influences who are purely personality maybe not purely skill or both um so I think it's actually an increasing Trend so imagine in terms of marketing it's pretty much a dream because you have a very clear-cut target audience that plays that particular game and for collabs you can find Brands and sponsors basically that are very much interested in this particular group of people so I think it's a very nice way to Target your audience and to and I think I see that

as a definitely an increasing Trend in the future going forward same for mobile 100 I mean it's it's a it's an awesome way for these sponsors to uh Target to these kind of Gamers uh so as a marketing perspective it's a no-brainer and it's just going to increase and you'll have and all types of sponsors from telecom companies to food delivery companies sponsoring these events so absolutely yeah yeah I mean I I think I'm gonna put it like like I think uh Esports players and contact creators are still underutilized by many Brands I mean it's kind of super easy to see the connection with an endemic friend like like a gaming here manufacturer we work with Logitech for many years so you know we actually had a uh their launch event in our office just a few days ago right where where local media came in to see their new product like obviously when a professional gamer uh is playing with their Mouse makes completion simulate to uh Ronaldo using you know certain brand of uh of of

soccer shoes right when it comes to non-dynamic like when it's like uh you know somebody from financial industry or Airline or like uh whatever you know fmcg brand it's going to be more difficult you need to be a lot more creative right I think what we've done with Red Bull and Red Bull has done that across different sports is that it's basically integrated to our daily operation right you know I mean how they started and how they usually started they just you know print the can by the way the can is to always be open so it's more authentic right you know in the pictures right when you're doing things right and you start creating content that they like you know you are going to expand the contract you bring their uh logo to the Jersey which by the way is always in the same place but the millimeter with all the teams same color and no exceptions right and then obviously you start creating more content right but but it's a way for this kind of known endemic that there's great examples right

but there's a lot of like unknown a lot of these people are interested in and particularly in in Middle East there's so much hype around the Esports right now um but a lot of people just they just want to get in but they don't necessarily know what to uh what to expect and what to kind of what kind of even ask for right the times when people would jump in to just have a logo in a jersey they've gone right like it's it was great to get that visibility on Twitch and those eyeballs the amount can be insane but but the real gonna kind of depth comes from the fact of what do you build around it like how do you leverage that local placement with activations and you know we do physical meet and creates in different events and then obviously we need to deactivate our fan base on digital you know platforms like Peter uh Tick Tock is growing like crazy in Esports like across different fields as well but but like platforms like Discord where super fast basically hang around right that's where we basically go and ask for their opinions like sometimes hey you

know we want to we want to release a New Jersey right A B C D it's a little bit like testing you know like asking their I mean these are the super fast right take care um but as I said you know going back to uh what I said in the beginning like it's it's I think Esports kinda you know athletes are still very underutilized by by a lot of those branch when it comes to kind of collaborations and you know cooperations yeah all very interesting points um the kind of thing that I want to come on to next is kind of what you've touched on there especially with you know places like Mina where stuff is getting uh Esports specifically is getting very very popular um but when we're talking in terms of investors you know there's a lot of discussion about the way they're approaching I think we um we've spoken about this kind of one-on-one some of us is the idea of how investors are kind of approaching Esports you know a lot of them are coming at it there's there's always a discussion of Esports in relationship to traditional Sports you know people are saying oh these Esports athletes are like a footballer but they're not really you know people are

PR the investors are especially approaching with the assumption that it's going to be like a football team sold out stadium shows you know massive sponsorships and stuff like that and you mentioned Mika there the the idea there's a bit of an Esports winter at the moment do you think that the way that investors have approached in the past with that hope is sustainable do you think that they're kind of stepping back because they've realized it's not what quite what they imagine they always stepping back so I I know quite a lot of our friends you know out there in the big world uh who are uh basically uh downscaling and and not making the Investments they use to um and and that's just because of the fact that they couldn't find a model not business models that would be eventually scaling enough that you build a sustainable business right and and and and part of that is that uh particularly North America many of the investors gaming like shouting and fighting for their chances to invest yet they were expecting also

let's say uh they were expecting to have an exit market like in uh in in a tech companies or games companies by the way right like you have except expect an exit Market you expect like uh huge multipliers right and it's not happening in Esports completely different so when when we talk to investment by the way we don't have investors so we both travel we talk to investors I think family offices are probably uh you know our kind of you know uh they seem more interested in about the longer term sustainability and success not necessarily securing their funds making an exit which is not going to be 20x in three years rather than making you know some nice exit in you know whether that's 10 or 15 years much more time and much more kind of patience but there has been a lot of these kind of investors coming into Esports particularly in States because of like all these streamers you know you have you know streamers or millions of people are watching and and it's simply their eyeballs right but then there has been a

missing formula for like sustainability of like monetization perspective right and that's being gonna it's a typical that people coming shouting like in waves and then you know they realize like it doesn't work like that then it all goes south right and now I know a lot of great teams who are struggling because they can't find an investor although they may have a lot better vision and idea of how they want to monetize later on so it's uh that'd be a kind of I hope we're gonna you know in that like uh like we read the worst place right now as a as an industry in terms of being investable so hopefully it's gonna get better in uh you know so because again like eyeballs of like the audience is growing you know a lot of gamers are growing there's more tiles coming and so that like all the great metrics are there but it's just like I think the expectation we're like insanely high and not justified so then you're gonna take a step back as an investor and you know take a breathe and then tomorrow you kind of rethink hopefully

yeah I mean that's that actually connects again to what I was going to come back to you about Chris because I think we we were discussing kind of like the uh specifically um obviously I've just wrote about game States we can't talk not talk about the elephant in the room which is you know guys like Savvy games group who are putting major money in do you think that with other investors stepping back that these really big businesses are going to kind of monopolize a little bit on the sports thing because you know they're willing to put in a lot of money whereas other people just aren't or can't or won't yeah it's like I can see that Trend I'm not so scared though we're actually pretty glad they're doing it and uh again like to pick up on what you said it's a bit of a long shot right so your your numbers are growing um the Esports is growing as a whole it's just it's just a matter of when it will be profitable right and if you're able and willing to invest early on um I hope that this will also function as a role model and other people will jump on that train again and ultimately they improve the quality of Esports

consumably uh and also for the players um a lot I think and I really hope that that Trend keeps going Monopoly is never really cool um I would say so I hope that other people will see and bigger companies will also see the benefit and the the the perspective it has um I'm pretty sure it'll come and there will be other interested parties it's just a matter of when it is okay and I think it's a matter of also where I mean like as you've probably seen uh the marketplace a huge role like the Middle East to grow at such a rapid pace and we've seen money flowing I mean from the southeast Group which is crazy and we've also seen investments in the Esports world that's such a massive Pace we're currently in talks with the Saudi government the UAE and the Iraqi government and they're all uh you know the crazy numbers of investments in the Esports and just to host these Esports tournaments and I think there's a little grow more um just you know as you said the

profitability sustainability long term is going to be key but also knowing where to go is also another important thing fantastic I almost don't wanna I almost don't want to stop you guys but we are slowly coming in on our time and I did want to have some time for questions if people wanted to do that if we are taking questions yeah fantastic we've got already got one taker over there fantastic um going back to the discussion about the mobile esport like the earlier ones um so what if the hypothetical serenario that there's a true cross-platform live game where players can play through console controllers PC and mobile at the same time in this hypothetical scenario what would Esports spectatorship would look like in the future I think you've stumped them already that's that's that's the good one

um I I I I think from my perspective I I think I would see that positively I think I think kind of that would that would open up a whole lot of new avenues you know from the business perspective obviously um trying to put myself into the shoes of some of some of the uh professional players they might see more concerns right uh you know I'm playing with my piece in like Finland you know like am I in trade of somebody from uh I don't know uh Vietnam you know taking my space playing with mobile because you know being much more you know uh also like you know less costly as as a player right you know but I think I I see that as positive and I I know they're like obviously our players who are playing uh double the world they play many other games as anybody who's playing games you know you always have various different games on your mobile or in your console

and PC right they spend a lot of time on playing casual games right and I see them sometimes playing games where they're you know after their practice they they might start something with their PC and then they move on to Mobile when they uh you know take a shuttle to the hotel or whatever so there's already that happening right but but really to push that to a really competitive scene I think that's going to be still uh quite uh you know far down the road to be honest well to to add to that I think that would be amazing that would be great but just me thinking about it for for a brief moment I for some reason always think about Shooters and then imaginably competitively Esports so me on my mobile and then some people on on the PC and console there will be at the end some sort of discussion if it was a level Playfield if somebody has an advantage right or better reaction time even though we we crossed that technical hurdle so I'm pretty sure if it's for prize money there'll be arguments like

oh yeah well he's playing on a mouse or something like that right so I see that coming but in general that would be amazing yeah I I think we all we we do already see that kind of debate with especially you brought up Shooters you know uh controller versus mouse that's still a major debate about which is which is better which has the advantage I think a lot of people would probably say mouse and Tyler did you want to anything on no I think the guys got it with 5G World being rolled out globally uh I think that in terms of latency that would solve a huge uh solve any issues in terms of playing Mobile versus PC but in terms of controls I think some would have said the Mouse has a big Advantage compared to your finger fingers moving but again that's just my two cents okay um yeah we are running running a little low in time can we do one more one more question anybody any any takers fantastic oh hello so my question is also somewhat about the mobile Esports but I think

about days back when we have like net cafes and they of course like went extinct at one point but now we are seeing like game rooms Rising like all over the world and I think there are quite a few in Finland also and children nowadays they are basically born with like more work phones on their hands though the new generations are more like mobile Gamers so are we going to see some kind of like change in that even like those are gaming with PCS with like Esports in like bigger teams or something that they are like more common to have a game room somewhere like public game rooms or something like that do you think that it's going to be like more sustainable thing to build up a gaming room i i i i i i i I'd love if that happens I think like we we we're trying to Garnet maybe take a little bit more role in

terms of the whole society as well particularly in our own Market meaning that uh he kind of try to work a little bit more with like uh educational you know like schools Etc but I think one of the areas is that we are also trying to see what we can do to get kids out of their bedroom playing games and whether that's the PC or mobile is kind of the same same challenge because on the other hand if you look at the competitive side like the best players we have our typical the player who's had like a team sport background is a lot better typically to start off than somebody was playing alone in his bedroom mechanical skills might be the same but mechanical skills like what 20 to 30 percent of the of the of the of the of the performance because it's all about Community it's about communication all of that stuff right so and and then it comes to the need as well right um I recently went to team vitality's office one of our friends in in in France and Paris they have this office where they have a game room as well or

coffee game coffee whatever one of the needs that the local market has is that and I didn't know that but a lot of the apartments obviously are very small in Paris right so kids go after school to vitality's office to play PC games because they don't have space for for proper desktops in their own bedrooms right so that's kind of based on the need that hey you know somebody figured out and a lot of these kids have like a monthly passes they go and then obviously it's about Community they hang around with friends Etc so I think that's important that you know but how to lure people who love mobile games to a location like you need to offer something more because they don't basically need to go there that's a that's an important question but uh but we'd love to do something around that area if we can yeah I'm just do we have a few seconds for them to add on their thoughts yep fantastic sorry so I think I don't have anything to add to that to be honest there was a beautiful yeah neither do I Iran oh thank God yes

because the timer is the timer is going off so thank you very much everybody for attending and can we get a round of applause for our free amazing panelists thank you