A Billion Dollar Game: The Rise of the Esports and Gaming Sector

Joe> Esports has experienced meteoric growth in this market across lockdown, for obvious reasons. People were looking at ways to be entertained as well as be engaged with each other socially when they couldn’t meet face to face. Playing games, and specifically multiplayer games, led up to competitive game playing. The UK and Europe are lagging behind some regions in APAC and North America in terms of esports, but we’re catching up fast. The market is highly disintermediated because esports isn't one thing; esports is a competitive pinnacle of people playing games semi-professionally. There are now rich rewards offered for those who excel at what they do in their chosen game. Professional careers are not just for pro players, but also for casters, commentators, pundits, content creators, Twitch streamers. The list goes on. 

Esports and gaming is becoming even more powerful, pushing into the mainstream. You see that all over the place, from boxing matches to pop up clothing brands. Its reach extends well beyond the core gaming community. You don’t see that any more than with the sim racing market, which has a very close association with professional motorsport because it's an opportunity for those fans to competitively drive a simulated F1 car at home. So for that reason, the sim racing market skews a lot older than the age median in esports. Most pro players have to retire in their early 20s because their reaction time starts to deteriorate from the age of 21. So, the esports pro player community is very young, which mirrors a lot of the audience who choose to follow those pro players. But sim racing skews much older. The age median is about 26. There are quite a lot of older players as well. One reason for that is to be competitive in sim racing, you have to buy a rig and have it set down which can cost anything from £1500 to £5000. It's a big investment. So esports is a niche, and sim racing esports is a niche within a niche. 

It's extremely important for the big performance car brands to find their place in that world because it's how they can talk to tomorrow's consumer. It's another way for them to promote their cars to a global audience authentically. It's now used as part of the marketing mix by those large OEMs. One of the things that we do is we create a showcase with esports at Ferrari, other motor racing events like Le Mans, and other on and off track celebrations of motorsports. We worked for two car launches, some car shows – all those mainstream events will have a presence.

Joe> Over the past few years, Blacklist have worked for some of the biggest esports organisations in the world and currently run a global auto brand's sim racing esports program. Blacklist has also provided comprehensive services for two prominent gaming clients, Paradox Interactive and Fatshark. This includes the creation of a variety of cinematic and gameplay trailers to promote Paradox Interactive's game titles. These trailers are used to build hype and generate interest leading up to a game's release or major update. 

We have also designed key art, ensuring that it is visually compelling and accurately reflects the game's theme and genre. We have created various stream assets, such as overlays, logos, and intro videos to help promote Paradox Interactive's games on Twitch, YouTube and other platforms, and captured in-game footage as well as worked to create compelling visual content that showcases the game's features and mechanics. 

Joe> The reason we have permission to speak to the gaming audience is because within Blacklist, the go-to market for gaming has its own ring-fenced organisation. We have a lot of people who are passionate about games. Game players love people who've worked in the games industry and the games marketing industry. Some people from big publishers like EA work here. We have a rich vein of talent.

Lots of touch points within game creation as well as game marketing means that we can talk authentically to our clients. The really important thing is we understand what they're doing and how they work. We can tailor our best practice to work with their game development pipelines so that we're not constantly asking them for information or assets. They trust us to take assets at various points within the development schedule, and then create the marketing, promotional materials, content or community outreach that they're asking us to do. We're trusted by our clients to work in parallel, but in full cooperation with our clients as they get to the final stages of developing, testing, and releasing.

Joe> Overall, we have a strong blend of industry knowledge, creativity, collaboration, and results-focused execution. This knowledge allows us to create effective campaigns that resonate with gamers and drive engagement. We originate innovative ideas that can differentiate client’s product promotions from those of competitors and we are always willing to work closely with the game development team, understanding the game's mechanics and goals to create campaigns that are both aligned and integrated.

 

Holistically, a good video game industry agency should be skilled in executing campaigns across various channels, including social media, digital advertising, influencer marketing, and PR. The agency should have a genuine love and understanding of gaming culture, enabling them to create authentic campaigns that connect with the gaming community. Finally, the gaming industry is constantly changing, and a good agency should be able to adapt quickly to new trends, platforms, and emerging technologies.

Joe> Time and budget. We're under constant time pressure because we have to conform to a publisher's release schedule. There are hard dates in their marketing calendar. Some of the work we're asked to do could be open ended if we didn't have strict project management regimes and controls in place. 

Similarly, the cost could spiral out of control if we didn't manage the project properly and up manage our clients. Anything to do with 3D animation is incredibly expensive and time consuming. There are great new AI tools that will help that pipeline. They're just starting to come online now and they haven't really made a difference yet, but they will. When it comes to competitive programmes, the same is true. They tend to be underfunded if they're owned programmes. That means if Ferrari owns it, or Porsche or McLaren – there's some nuance there that's interesting. So most esports tournaments are either run by games publishers, or independent organisations, but in sim racing, because they're tied to particular car manufacturers, those entities take an interest. Also, those programmes are cash positive because they take some of their motorsport sponsors forward into esports. This means the programmes are not just funded, but a revenue opportunity for these companies which is very rare in esports. Esports is normally seen as a marketing endeavour. And it certainly is that, but it's also a profit centre. 

The other added risk in esports tournaments is you have a live broadcast product and the complexity of running a tournament. We develop proprietary technology with our tour operator partner, a company called EPIC.LAN that creates a frictionless experience for anyone who wants to enter the tournament. They can see their standing very easily. It defines their standing in competition in leader boards and seats, and their entry into the progressive round if they're fast enough to get through. But we have the added risk of it being a live broadcast at specific final events, regional finals or the grand final. And Murphy's Law, something will always go wrong. We have to anticipate the worst. We have a huge tech stack, and a gallery that sits behind the cameras. It's no different to broadcasting another live sporting event in the real world like a boxing match, a tennis game, or a real race. Same people, same technology. So for that reason, it's very expensive, much more expensive than most people realise. We have to build a broadcast studio from scratch and maintain it throughout the year, even though we're only using it at certain points within the calendar. Very different types of scenarios but the commonality is always going to be timing and cost.

Joe> I absolutely hate the word metaverse, but the integration of gaming IPs into a persistent world; that's what the metaverse was always going to be. That was always going to happen. Everything else will be bolted onto that. That experience will be transformational in that you will have an avatar and you'll be able to play that avatar through different game worlds that are separate franchises or integrated with dynamic rule systems. It will become totally immersive, which is both very exciting, but also defines some difficult questions for society when people are spending a lot more time within a digital realm where they can shop, interact with social media, and listen to music. 

The whole Web3 integration into that persistent world is also super exciting. It's arguably going to be a fairer world where rewards and the fame operator go through more of a meritocracy than they do right now. So lots to look forward to but lots to be careful about. Just the advance of AI is both exciting and also potentially troublesome for society. We have the same responsibility when it comes to the integration of what's next for the games industry.