Superstar Session: Navigating the Current Esports Environment PG Connects Digital #2

I'd like to welcome a enthusiast CEO Eric Piznarski hi Eric how you doing hi Gress hear me OK I'm gum - well look at that haircut you've got proper haircut I've just coming out there oh it's Twitter air dry my hair it for a run at lunch time mental idea and now I'm not I've got this kind of massive hair you look like you've if you guess that is that as that home cut or is that like a it's a it's definitely a home cut yeah it's a home cut looks good yeah you know there's a lot there's a lot you could do do it yourself I could show you how I can do a sort of a virtual can we just suck off the tour video we'll do a virtual address a virtual cell that's

cool um so yes we could chat for you well from chat as you can imagine I'm a you one are you ready to set to launch in I am ready although I can listen to you speak about eSports because quite interested to hear your thoughts and personally I'm just I'm a first night observer I actually just my guilty secret I am so I've been a bit more time with my son at home um seriously so I've kind of been I've not I I was aware of full night on a plate before what to be honest you know being in the street sometimes hard to find time spare these games so I'd be aware for 9 doubled it when I started playing fortnight with my son so now I think I think it's yeah I can kind of see I'm not putting in the hours required so it's a massive I I think I can I can see how compelling the stuff is like I can see that give it you know if it had the years I reckon I could be up there and challenging for him that sounds like a challenge yeah that's it that's a company's company challenge

I'll be something else but four nights won't mind my boys knowing I can beat him so that's good um anyway yeah I think I'll let you kick off look ask some questions afterwards so I'm gonna receive from the stage um I'm hearing the background of any problems and let you crack on there it I'm going to share my screen with a couple of slides here skim your moments let's try that huh there we go everyone can see that I hope so yeah thanks Chris I really appreciate the the intro kind of stole a little bit of my thunder there on on a little bit of enthusiast gaming is but thanks for that background I'll get into that in a moment but I did want to thank you Chris I wanted to thank Jaz and the whole Pocket Gamer team I want to thank the attendees and registrants and and the sponsors you know obviously the world changed

drastically perhaps perhaps forever a few months back and you know as most people who will be listening now know that Pocket Gamer and Pocket Gamer connects is is an event that really the essence of it is networking and getting together talking about the industry connecting to get connecting with other people on a global stage and obviously we can't do that right now we can't do that in person and the team has transitioned this event into something digital I really commend the team for being able to do that and being able to sort of bridge the gap here for us in a digital world until we can again meet in person so I really commend the team thanks everyone for for your efforts and and obviously the technology helps and I hope my technology works and we'll we'll kick right in so enthused gaming as Chris mentioned is is the parent company of Steel and and Pocket Gamer but who

are we just a very very brief background on enthusiast gaming started as as a media company about five six years ago on the public on the publisher side writing content news reviews articles blogs chats originally started on the Nintendo scene and then branched out into into other areas really what we are now is a collection of gaming communities or the world's largest platform of different gaming communities whether it be platform whether it be mobile whether it be console eSports communities as well and we've built we built a platform of multiple multiple sites over 100 sites right now that we operate or partner with and so that's our that's our media business but we also have an events business Pocket Gamer as well that Chris mentioned but another event that is more on the b2c side called each of Alexis enthusiasts gaming live Expo that's an

event that runs in in Toronto right now I should have mention at the beginning I'm in Toronto one of the one of the countries represented Canada on on this particular event so so from across the pond I I say hello and and then the third the third pillar that we have is eSports obviously which we've come to talk about today so let's talk a little bit about eSports our our eSports organization Ossining that is correct ninja got his start as part of luminosity gaming a ninja one of the most recognized streamers and gamers in the world today if you don't know who he is many of your kids will know who a ninja is for sure but that's that's not what we're here to talk about we're going to talk about the industry at large and we're here to talk about how to navigate through the environment right now as the world is changing not only the world at large but the eSports world is changing and it has been changing quite significantly over the last few years

and that's what I wanted to talk about and how we feel like we can be leaders in that space and how we are leaders in that space right now so let's let's put a little bit of context into into what eSports is so for any of any beginners or novices that might be tuning in let's really sort of capture what what is he sports and why are we here to talk about it and why are we so enthusiastic about it well that's there we go so the eSports industry is it's still small relative to the overall gaming industry the video games industry by most estimates put it at about 140 150 billion dollars right now in terms of consumer spend and advertising dollars eSports much much smaller 20 20 somewhere a billion recently I saw Goldman Sachs had it somewhere closer to 1.6 billion that the point is is it's growing much

much faster than than the overall games industry at large Goldman Sachs estimates it could double within within two years so we're talking about a really vibrant rapidly growing industry and that was before the impacts of of covin so what's been happening over the last few months so as Chris alluded to the the competition and the audience and the transition from live sports into into eSports and online competitions has been incredible over the last two a few months as we've all been at home as we've been tuning into online programming a lot more there's there's a thirst for competitive gaming and people are getting their fix in eSports not only in traditional eSports but some of the I want to say traditional eSports just the games that have been online that people have been watching over the last couple years but we've seen a transition from some of the major traditional sports like like

soccer like basketball as an example where some of those athletes who can't play in on the field or on the pitch are playing online and it's it's been a phenomenal it's been a phenomenal experience to watch them and to watch their fans and to see the media get behind it to see sponsors get behind that transition to online it's been it's been unbelievable you know viewership is is like I said going through the roof over the last couple of months but but even as as the world begins to open up again you know we believe and we're building a business around this that viewership is good is going to continue to to grow there's a lot of new product there's a lot of new technology there's a lot of new influencers that are coming into the system into the ecosystem to be able to support that growth one of the things that's really supporting the growth is is brand partnerships and we're starting to see over the last couple of months some brands some real traditional brands that either have our

seeing of the current void in the professional sports arena or starting to try to diversify some of their audiences so we've just seen a couple examples and there's a couple on the screen in the last few months Nike a large sponsorship with with League of Legends Louie Vuitton also on the fashion side League of Legends sponsoring Adidas shoe sponsorships we're seeing others such as as Pizza Hut restaurant chain one of our franchises and the overwatch League signed a sponsorship deal with with Pizza Hut and the list goes on and on and on and on and that's going to continue in our opinion to be a significant piece of the economic pie when it comes to eSports and as the eSports market continues to mature and and the schedules and the players become more well known I think

that piece is going to continue to grow there's a lot of sponsors that that are still sort of poking around getting more comfortable with it anyone from the advertising your sponsorship side that might be listening would know that you know some some are more conservative have been investing in or partnering with traditional sports for many many years they're very comfortable with that but it's no secret that many of the traditional sports leagues are are aging I once heard a stats a little while back I forgot who who said it but at least here in North America there's a baseball fan dies every day and an eSports fan is born I actually think it was - eSports fans were born every day so you could just see how that audience is turning over and brands are really checking out how to be relevant as those audiences turn over so let me just move to the next one

again we're seeing this converging as I mentioned a couple of examples here of of seeing some traditional sponsors that have moved into into eSports another example here you'll see on this screen is checking my oh I was checking up Q&A I apologize just but I didn't know if it was for me now or for me later I'll continue on um you know we saw a couple of weeks ago an example where an influencer strategy which I'll move into in a moment but leading into that an influencer strategy where there was a concert that Travis Scott very popular performer was put on a fortnight concert so used the utilizing the images of for tonight urge everyone to go check it out online utilizing the imagery from fortnight did a deal together with for now where they put on a music concert with lights and with sounds and it was a phenomenal event people tuned in it was it was a

really kind of I think a watershed moment with with this convergence between entertainment influencers eSports and I think we're gonna see a lot more events like that including one that we've done which which I'll get to in a moment and they're gonna continue to see a lot of a lot more of convergence not just between traditional sports but in the entertainment worlds as well so what's really happening on the social side what's driving what's behind all of this so you know we all know in just common sense that you know as I said before audiences are on the traditional side whether traditional media or whether it's traditional East for a traditional sports we know that audiences are aging in many of the many of the sports so eSports it's really kind of turning over

that that audience mostly young people are spending more time online whether it's whether it's hardcore audiences that are tuning in and following specific teams or whether it's a casual fan that is just checking out once in a while and becoming just sort of more involved and more and more knowledgeable with what's going on on the eSports and video games seen this this trend is definitely definitely shifting and what happens with that from from a media side is the way media companies have traditionally bought is significantly changing you know we've done some deals recently with utilizing influencers and the power of influencers and our research tells us that that influencers are becoming and will continue to be a dominant way to reach a younger audience whether it's millennial audience or a Gen Z audience or Gen Z audience I should say as a Canadian it's

becoming a much much more relevant way how do we get advertisers and brands comfortable with the influencer strategy you know influencers are that that scene is still quite new and brands ultimately want to feel comfortable with putting their name beside some of those influencers so it's gonna take some time we're looking at some so much maturation that needs to happen but but again we're already starting to see some of those brands test out and and some dollars with with some influencers so how do we incorporate influencers and what's our approach so a little bit more about us so luminosity gaming is is our eSports organization so we have a platform of about 50 different influencers that are creating unique content whether it's whether it's streaming a game of fortnight that they're playing and chatting with their fans while doing that could be on Twitch could be on YouTube could be a piece of custom more

more lifestyle content but they're engaging with their with their audiences gaming related content and building relationships with with their audiences we have seven professional eSports teams and competing in in different leagues including teams that we manage and the overwatch League and partly owned in the overwatch League and in the Call of Duty League but also in some smaller smaller leagues as well and and why are we doing this because they're reaching a base of so 60 million social media fans total and we're using not to leverage them to to bring brands closer to to that audience so we've seen some examples for us with a couple of brand deals we've done recently where again as I said before that they're looking at ways to to get younger in terms of the

audience's that they're able to reach and utilizing eSports organizations and utilizing our media platform as I mentioned before with with a hundred different websites is a way to have a an end-to-end approach of meeting those of reaching those those younger fans and I want to bring you to one example that we that we just did a couple of a couple of weeks ago so this is some of our influencer strategy as well the time is short so it seems like I'm rushing a little bit and I apologize for that we have developed an influencer strategy by bringing in entertainment folks like tory lanez who's a well-known Grammy Grammy nominated artist Richard Sherman for those who follow NFL one of the you know greatest NFL quarterbacks of all time he was in the Super Bowl last year and he is a Superbowl champion himself a couple of years ago he is a luminosity

brand ambassador and just a couple of weeks ago we we launched our first convergence event between entertainment and gaming where where we took one of our gaming influencers named mr. fresh Asian who streams LAN for tonight content and actually won last year the twitch streamer of the Year award but we found out that he also likes the DJ and not only does he like to DJ but he's a fantastic DJ and we partnered him with DJ zu a grammy-nominated EDM DJ who was launching a new single and we did an event on Twitch last month and we had through over three million views total views on a three-hour program number one on switch for for the three hour duration the point of why I'm mentioning this and why this is relevant is because we had sponsor participation G fuel was a sponsor on that event the energy drink and it was a novel approach a novel example

something that they had never seen before something that we had never done and it was really extending the reach of this particular gamers brand and reach people that knew him for gaming now extending him into into music and entertainment and it was something that again the brand's really loved we're looking at doing a few more of these events in in the near future fantastic opportunity again to start converging which I guess isn't really the theme of the chat here the convergence between sports entertainment and gaming because it's really providing an experience to to uh to a new audience that that brands can connect with hello that was an abrupt end that was good well you likes keeping my

toes I like it it's good yeah I knew the time was running out so you know I wanted to try and get through most of the prepared remarks because I think the QA is really where we're we're the most value perhaps lies there we've got a good 10 minutes with fine we've got questions coming in we've got loads so I'm quickly I was gonna I was gonna ask and I also want a retro from Styles to be a DJ on the side so the opportunity does come available ah if one of the fall of the everyone the axe drops out let me know put on some Phil Collins that'd be great anyway moving on um a Kids Alive Phil Collins I've consulted one question people always ask her I just want to get your take on this because we've been in the mobile games business for but we've been we've been in this place for a long time we've seen the industry grow into in second a bit of ahem announcements half the value of the new global or games business it's like so 70 billion

speakers okay but the whole globe the globe of games industry so basically worth 150 times 60 billion dollars this year on its way to 200 billion I remember the ridiculously huge eSports has all engagement sports and it has all of the you know the great monetizing potential of games and yet people know we're looking at figures of a 1 billion dollar so why do you think that is why I mean I'm 1 billion don't get me wrong I'm happy the billion but is why is it not already worth you know 50 60 billion or kind of is it but it's just not calculated that way so it's a good question it's a good question I would I would say the way I would answer that is first of all I think the measurement needs to change and why that is is because when when we're measuring the eSports industry it's typically measuring sponsorships and prize money but it's not actually measuring the

sales of the games itself because if the sales of those eSports games were in that word in that the numbers would be much higher yeah I did a little thing for a talk at a conference in Korea where I added in the revenues generated by games that were eSports titles whether all that money was through sports or not yeah and that was it's not 15 20 billion was a lot more money you know I mean depends how broad eSports goes but yeah yeah yeah yeah right right so the measurement needs to I think needs to change so that's that's the answer to that question in front and from a branding perspective you know again like I try to make the point and we see this all the time with with large brands that typically have been in the same spending patterns for you know if not years decades where they're very comfortable yeah and and it's hard to move those to move those dollars online online was scary has been money online

you know that and then the avalanche comes and I suspect people see you maybe maybe this has been a catalyst talking which I'm gonna I'll get through them so it's not all about me Chris that's all so with the with the greater the of of eSports g2k bid will there be a surge of new technologies and companies trying to fill the gap Enix between eSports and rotational sports is a question short answer yes good short answer yes you know we're already seeing companies develop in various stages some are commercialized already we see examples of platforms where people can go online even if it's just you know kind of casual competitive gaming people can compete there could be prize money there could be you know whether or could just be substantive you know getting

together with a couple of friends and going to kick around a ball in the park rather than doing that you're spending more time online and and gaming with your friends so I can certainly see I mean we're already seeing some of that you know we're gonna see more platforms where people can watch and follow from a fantasy perspective or perhaps from a betting perspective we're already starting to see some of that obviously where the regulations will allow such a thing but yeah we're definitely gonna see more ancillary type of services or rounds around now it's not an itself for feedback it's my first point and growth the value of the industry right so you know the moment your mobile is growing through the industry spending with itself that make sense right I've got a couple other questions here that are kind of trying to merge together so we get for as many as possible the first one is traditional sports now need to happen without an audience is an opportunity to create high between

eSports of traditional sports and the kind of related follow-on to that is how important is a relationship between eSports and traditional TV and sports do disease sports needs to be kind of validated or importantly validated by an NBA or a Premier League when an affair or an Olympics or the ESPN is that was that not really relevant anymore there's two things though is that high blue opportunity and how does existing sports and sports media kind of III think might this might put my personal opinion and not sure if I'm letting out a a secret here her hair anything but to me I think the convergence would lie in if traditional sports can somehow figure out a way to connect their players with their fans in real time I think that really is is something that would propel

traditional sports into into a whole other stratosphere because when you think about eSports right and you're watching a match you're you're seeing them game through the eyes of the player yeah you're seeing what the player sees so imagine if you were able to watch a live sporting event through the eyes of a player and you were able to listen to the commentary that the player is is is is giving or speaking depending on what sport it was you're right there live listening to the player and for some of the slower moving games you might even have a conversation that is happening between the player and an audience in real time yeah in real time and I think if professional sports can figure out a way to do that that I I think would virtually overnight bring in

a whole new audience a whole new audience that doesn't want to passively watch something but actively engage with what they're watching yeah that's really interesting the active engagement as a few stops and I was a chemical gen video of occasional partners with us or interesting coming to state and they've kind of they've built some tech which facilitate and a lot of people are building this Technic asila takes that interaction so you can physically do stuff in the sports game and gift things or comment and that and that's the thing which eSports can do which is harder for traditional sports I mean you wouldn't to put a mic on a pro league player to be honest judging by what you can see from sign language and and can make out from lip-reading I don't think they'd be happy to have that broadcast um ok putting more question um it's quit when outside of sports games and I know you're not king of eSports and all the answers but so you can feel free to say just don't know but outside of sports games like fifa and madden etc are there any types of games that have got more traction others find

new audience during the lockdown I've been shooters or kind of you know the mo bears or anything else news that's come out well yeah just because there's there's more people online so more people are finding finding ways to to entertain in the game space I mean certainly you know the league's that have carried on then about they're operating just just digitally right now the Call of Duty League overwatch League legal legends puggy you know those those those are names that those those are names that have have our leaders in the space they continue to see audience gains that continue to see and you know new sponsors come into the fold you know call of duty and overwatch as an example the FIR for this season a few months ago signed a new broadcast deal with with YouTube so so that's anticipation of

increasing audiences so we are seeing we are seeing increases you know in those titles you know to be perfectly honest some some of the some of the games that you mentioned the sports games that are also eSports like fee format in there they they they can tend to be sometimes smaller in in their reach you know more of an more of a niche audience sometimes sometimes whereas some of the other titles that especially have leagues are seeing are seeing and larger prize money also are seeing are seeing a larger reach house money is attractive remember I remember doing a talk I did somewhere else cuz I'm not expert by I'm really interested in this space I remember going to someone to kind of slightly amazed audience that the winners of the fortnight well got more money than the winners of Wimbledon that you know now people just like yeah

it's the games though just didn't realize it kind of gone that big obviously epic have got a lot of money and spending it for you with the Bandon anyway I've gotta try squeeze and want to see more questions we start a bit late in its finds it's our show we can go on a bit so as a questionnaire bomb our brands like a DDoS very specific investing real money or just bringing clothing lines to the to the players I don't they've been I don't how much you know about do you know eSports teams there so it mean I can't comment specifically on on that one but what I can what I can't comment is just in our experience with some of the brand deals that we've had and I maybe I'll comment on us also but just in our experience because because of the three pillars of the business that we run on the media side on the events side and entertainment side and an eSports side what we're seeing is we're able to

provide a platform to brands where they can reach a gaming audience in multiple ways whether again through an influencer whether it's a name on a jersey whether it's through custom content or whether it's just you know traditional banner ads on on a media website there are there are dollars there there's also product they're just you know one example with with the G fuel energy drink sponsorship that we've signed in in the past month there's there's media dollars there is merchandise there's product coupon codes so it's all-encompassing my my guess with with with adidas without without knowing that deal specifically is it's probably mostly product but product does come at a cost there there there could be other there could be other you know media components there but my guess is it would be it would be mostly a mostly product in that specific example oh cool I'll give you

final final final question you know I must admit whenever someone mentions energy drink I can almost expect to hold it up in the background as I obviously that's obviously not by the contract that you drink it all times but I don't have an I don't have enough an influencer reach that they want tsch what about the final question obviously we know we're not exclusively but we're primarily a mobile media channel we have a lot of mom mobile people as shown and topics eSports is very broad but in the mobile versus kind of PC console so these schools format debate um where where do you stand there like $0.10 win this morning relatively big company and they gave a talk about pub G experience and eSports tournaments in in Southeast Asia and China and mobile eSports in Asia is huge but mobile eSports in the West is is it's not nothing but it's not quite on the same level you've got you know sometimes we'll have a bench you've got a crash crash or a old crash transfer to supercell but it's not

reached the same levels yet do you think that will change or is that just because I saw people that do eSports are coming trenching the PC and console gaming yeah I I think it I think it will change I think it will change I think we're gonna continue to see more more mobile game releases we're gonna see more mobile game activity certainly as technology continues to improve we'll see that but what I would say is and from our perspective what I can see happening the most is audiences of other mobile games that either are played in a mobile console or or played on a traditional PC it's the audiences that are consuming that content that will get to be more and more and more mobile right think think think of just in the traditional sports example again whereas five or six years ago you couldn't watch a live sporting match on a mobile device and

the technology now in the last years has allowed that so think of the the added reach now from an audience perspective that that broadcast now has that's where I think we're gonna see more of the games where you could just pick up watching a match when you're on the go as opposed to being at home on on your PC so that's right that's where we see more of the games coming from but that being said I mean we're still see more more games being played eSports games being played on mobile devices of course okay I'm squeezing a super quick quick and super good question we have to send you on your merry way and the question that you come from ardell in winter I don't have you have any answer to this maybe it's cuz you're from Canada they thought you know where this but what do you think of eSports in France the moment and it says in terms of the recruitment process I didn't know anything about a French eSports scene particularly all of you do yeah unfortunately that I wouldn't be able to comment or say anything there I

appreciate the question but yeah unfortunately I would be able to comment anything specific americo's North America Canada us that's this that's the focus right we walk we'll get to France don't wear a walk span okay thank you so much Eric that was brilliant really insightful thank you for your thank you for your your sharing your data and for answering questions openly