How Apex Legends’ Chaos Cup Underscored the Value of IRL Gaming Events
Last month, gaming advertising agency Biborg was entrusted with organising the UK’s first ever official Apex Legends community-centric, in-person event – the Chaos Cup – in order to mark the launch of ‘Apex Legends’s Season 21: Upheaval’.
Biborg, known for its innovative brand marketing and events, has had a long-standing passion for gaming and is committed to creating memorable experiences in the field. This led to the creation of the Chaos Cup, a centrepiece of which was the Chaos Cup Showdown, an exhilarating Team Deathmatch tournament featuring eight UK content creators - BlackBoye, Caedrel, Melanin Gamers, Nati, Sweet Anita, The Gaming Merchant, ThatPunchkid, and Simply Ashton.
The creators led teams of players from their communities and the participants aimed to compete for glory and a chance to win top-tier gaming hardware, as well as Apex Coins. Open to UK residents aged 18 and over, the Showdown offered qualifying fans the unique opportunity to team up with their favourite creators in the niche and showcase their skills.
Here, chief business officer and partner at Biborg Kais Ali Benali, breaks down the Chaos Cup and talks IRL events in the gaming world.
LBB> To start, let’s talk a bit about why brands should connect with gaming communities?
Kais> Do you mean non-endemic brands who want to enter the gaming market? Or studios/publishers who want to market their games? Either way, the power of communities is essential in the marketing of their product. Connecting with gaming communities is a powerful strategy for brands to build loyalty, gain valuable insights, and ultimately achieve success in an ever-evolving market.
In today’s marketing it’s much more about peer-to-peer recommendation than brand-to-consumer communication. In this respect, it is absolutely essential for brands to build their communities, understand their needs and aspirations so they can become their ambassadors and get more players in.
When Respawn first approached us, there was a need for them to be closer to the Apex community in the UK. Being able to harness the positive sentiment around the game is something that hadn’t really been done before. Up until fairly recently, the new seasons were mainly marketed through global asset releases (a trailer and a few other digital supports). Adopting a more local and targeted approach is a way for Apex to cut through the noise while ensuring that they have ambassadors on the ground to onboard new players.
LBB> What distinguishes Apex Legends' community from others?
Kais> Certainly from what we’ve seen on Season 21, the Apex community is truly diverse. The competitive nature of the game forces them to be highly skilled and to appreciate teamwork. When we came up with the concept of The Chaos Cup, we had no idea that it was going to receive such an overwhelming positive response. From the biggest to the smallest creators, everyone who came to the event was genuinely excited to be here and to spend an afternoon playing Apex with other fans.
LBB> Why did you choose to do an activation in real life rather than a fully online?
Kais> Apex had just done an online tournament for S20 and so we wanted to push it further. While S20 had had some success achieving great online viewership on Twitch, we thought an in-real-life event was going to bring something else to the community: the excitement of getting together to play Apex with other individuals who share the same passion. It’s obviously one thing to play online with other players, but it is quite another to sit next to you two other teammates and play a few matches together. You’re sharing so much more by doing it in real life. It simply is more tangible. More real. More human, after all.
LBB> What does it mean for the gaming community to have an IRL event?
Kais> We had four teams of six players (24 players in total) who sat in the mezzanine of the New Meta Gaming Arena for more than three hours and had so much fun engaging with the Chaos Cup. Very much in line with the theme of Season 21, ‘Disturb the Peace’, our idea was to bring chaos to what people thought was going to be a traditional tournament. When our host, Hannah Marie, called out the first team to swap seats, chaos truly came to life in the mezzanine but also on screen and brought more fun to the matches. Everyone got into the spirit of the Chaos Cup, and it didn't take explaining the rules twice to see some of the teams truly enjoying themselves. Some had the idea of blocking the background of the PC they were playing on before changing, while others had changed all the game settings so that none of the buttons responded to the actions you might expect. Not to mention how chaotic it was when all the teams had to change seats in a fairly cosy space. Seeing such big smiles on everyone’s faces was, for us, the best indicator of success.
LBB> What did this achieve for Respawn/EA Sports?
Kais> It was Respawn’s /EA’s first IRL community event and so the pressure on our shoulders was high. With events, there’s always a million reasons for everything to go wrong and it of course almost always happens at the very last minute though for the Chaos Cup luckily it all went according to plan. It wouldn’t have been achievable without their trust and the genuine kindness of the Apex community. Everyone left that night with one single question: When is the next event happening?
