The current state of esports and the future of the industry

[Music] [Music] first of all guys but thank you you're welcome I think for joining me and of course it's February from Pocket Gamer for having me here let me speak to you guys in 1992 we my friends started adding Mario Kart 2 to our Saturday mornings alongside of playing or watching cartoons like transformers now we sat side by side and we started playing a competitive game competitive gaming for me then became a thing I'm sure that each of you out there has a similar story or a similar experience of that

first time you felt that joy of adding competition to the way that you play a game beyond just ranking high score which of course you know there's also fun but that feeling of going head-to-head against somebody victor loser really said something that was the distant past standing here now we're talking about a pretty broad topic which is the future of eSports it's such an incredibly dynamic and fast-paced business industry that essentially the future of eSports is being written by millions around the world even as we congregate here today now it's not written by me obviously and ESL plays a large role in it but it's it's not written by them it's it's actually the the millions that have adopted this pastime this passion this form of entertainment this social interaction is social experience into their lives in saying

that of course I should address a little bit that ESL does play a massive role in this you know we cover a almost 60% of the global eSports audience engage approximately 175 million gamers and create over 27 billion minutes of content that gets watched nearly eSports and its growth and its size can be a really tough topic for people to fathom and and understand and the idea that we've gone in a relatively short time from the garages the hotel lobbies the CRT monitors to now filling stadiums and and crowning global superstars you know that's one so Harry if you can cue up a quick video here

[Music] the biggest eSport events [Music] bang stall [Applause] all we want to lose then the big stage this is where we grow as players I think I want this [Music] all of you here in the arena

it's to be honest we just met here yo census brings people together it's amazing it's absolutely mind-blowing this is it you would imagine is impossible so enough brainwashing there eSports essentially is to video gaming in the same way what sports could be to

activity it's a collection term it's something that we group a bunch of elements together that means a lot but it actually tells quite little specifically what why is that well I mean marketeers brands media press the industry they're looking for this collection term to simply translate into an understanding making this large complex concept be a slightly more digestible chunk I and the people at ESL do this daily in our journey to bring the awareness of that to a much wider audience back in 2009 if someone had said eSports you know probably Starcraft quake counter-strike the handful of those titles those were the ones that sat under that umbrella flash forward to 2014 Call of Duty dota League Street

Fighter many more joined into that group into that collection term competitive gaming is something that the publisher and the developer of a game choose to adopt they decide to put those features into their game that allow the players to be part of it ranking matchmaking letting players meet in a specific lobby and ultimately the tools to take that play and let the rest of the world there's the community spectate that and watch them as they play in competition only from that point does the community really get a chance to say we're going to adopt this and it'll grow and potentially that title with interest and spectators becomes part of the eSports group that we spoke about so let's make an example here if we look at racing or the term Motorsports that is essentially

Formula One NASCAR World Rally Championship many others similar to somebody saying I like tennis probably covers Wimbledon the US Open Davis Cup their collections if we take it a little bit deeper if I was to say now I hope I don't offend anybody the DOTA is hockey and field hockey is League of Legends we see massive similarities both see two teams trying to put something round in a net or trying to dominate a lane but both ecosystems as huge as they are as passionate the fans are with all the nuances all the different players the different sponsors the different broadcasters all of those are unique to those sports yet they're so similar and they sit on that same umbrella however we know that in ice hockey if an

enforcer throws off his gloves and goes toe to toe against something that's a moment for fans to cheer and scream about whereas that same squaring off would be completely not tolerated in field hockey both through in the Olympics great similarities now we move forward and look at how those sports or many sports like that how that broadcast has evolved with those sports and those nuances most of them used to be one viewpoint up high somewhere in the bleachers showing the entire arena and then of course over a certain amount of time they try out different things in hockey they tried putting a superimposed glowing element on the puck so you could follow it easier around the the ice football introduced sideline cams where you could see coaches talking communicating calling those important moments in the clinch last minutes of a game baseball entered into a strike zone to show the viewers at home so they could see where

exactly the ball needs to travel and they could easily start making calls that made the game so much more appealing to watch they're doing that of course to make it the viewing easier not necessarily just for the hardcore but also for the masses all these developments these tweaks some of them failing obviously in the case of the puck and some of them succeeding and making things better where we stand now in eSports is is very similar it's becoming so mature that broadcasters sponsors streamers and players are constantly fine-tuning the consumption of eSports specific to title and of course specific to making the game the thing that they're passionate about become more accessible each step takes us further as it has done in conventional sports growing the players giving them more opportunity to express themselves whether it's a close-up on camera a post match interview each one of these steps seems

obvious but of course each step only becomes normal when it becomes something that's financially durable and there's an appetite for it and it becomes part of eSports and the presentation of eSports motor racing or Formula One decided to broadcast the qualification days on Saturdays and then in that doubling the time of exposure the time that they are in people's minds eyes all the elements that come with that's going to make sponsors happy viewers happy drivers happy everybody wins in that in a similar way we see that in eSports now broadcasters are beginning to show the week leading up to a stadium final before we even enter the stadium we'll have a week of the actual qualification the teams would be like our larger that get to be invited there this gives more exposure again to those teams to their sponsors to the sponsors of the event growing the way that that works so that there's actually a real even bigger

meaning for who gets to make its that stadium once we see that critical mass and those stadiums become this kind of this kind of experience it's now looking at how can we make that game specific for example in the Barclays arena in Counter Strike when there's the countdown timer to detonation the stage and the entire arena is flashing red everybody is immediately made aware whether they're walking back to their seats with a drink or whether they're sitting there cheering that something special is happening we're taking that level of game integration and passing it off into the stadium to make it much more enjoyable for everybody that's there when it's a hardcore fan or it's the friend that they dragged along the same way that you can spectate now in VR following along or see the statistics of players in AR as its superimposed on the screen again following along several steps that

happen in other sports and other entertainment factors that are now becoming normal place in eSports but of course that's only the tip of the iceberg on the other side there's original content like what's being created on Hulu that actually shows the players story much more in depth of what's going on in their lives that's it's much more in an area of television that can be akin to reality where the stories of those players and what they're doing is all about them as personalities and the actual play days are only small parts of that show life style becomes the hook there and that again will address a different audience and open up that exposure we I think everybody here prides ourself in working tirelessly to make games the participation thereof and in this case the spectating thereof easy accessible and possible for many people one game at a time because each game each community

and each broadcast is evolving across that big term eSports and all of this ultimately will drive the retention and of course the acquisition around players into the game which is what everybody's looking for so as that term eSports becomes ever so broader with more titles entering into that internet group and being pasted under that umbrella so to to the nuances so when people ask the future of eSports I would say we're already lightyears ahead of the timeline that others have needed if we look at our peers in sports we're doing great things in an incredibly short period of time and that simple nuance that iteration day after day event after event each game each ecosystem from the

Intel Extreme Masters in Sydney that took place just a week ago to now looking at ESL one in Birmingham the United Kingdom which will take place just in a week of coming it goes on some of those iterations will of course stick some of them will pass some of them will be fads some of them we applauded but at the end of the day they will all help in changing the game of eSports thank you [Music] [Music]