Gaming
Turning down dosh? We ask what’s in it for game developers when they share eSports free of charge.
Blizzard revently announced details of its virtual ticket for BlizzCon. For a fee it lets you access interviews, panels, cosplay contests, in-game items and more from the comfort of your desk or sofa. But not the eSports side of the event. That's completely free of charge, and you can access the HD stream via the BlizzCon website, as well as being able to watch the StarCraft 2 finals on the WCS site.
But in a world where big name traditional sports can charge a fortune for broadcasting rights, and fans will often shell out for subscriptions to dedicated channels, why would Blizzard not monetise one of the biggest eSports on the planet? Isn't that turning down good money to chase after bad?
That question might sound like we're demanding to hand over our cash – we're really not! It's simply that eSports has traditionally struggled for profitability, so where there's a well-established fan base and a massive, aspirational event what's the case for offering access free of charge?
The key point here is the status and ownership of the game in question. With the Premier League or the NFL there's a proprietary structure or organisation, but the corporation operating the events doesn't own the game itself. In the world of professional gaming, when Blizzard host StarCraft events, Valve hosts The International, or Riot hosts Worlds the games themselves are a commercial property owned by the people operating the event.
They're entertaining, intense tournaments with high production values, set up to showcase and reward the most skilled game players in the world. They also function as hype for said game. eSports competitions are fantastic at showing the emotive and human side of gaming. If you already have existing knowledge of the game, you can follow a team or player's story. If not you can simply come to the broadcast knowing absolutely nothing and still understand the moment of utter joy for the victor.
Even if you haven't played the game in question you can look at these broadcasts and see that people think they're worthy of thousands of hours of time. They can come with rewards other than personal entertainment too – a passionate community, fans, prize money, personal achievement.
Massive events like BlizzCon are set up to celebrate the best of a game and its community, and to show outsiders and those hovering on the edge that it might be worth them investing in the game themselves. It's not so easy to pick up an American Football helmet and go out and play, but anyone with a PC can download a popular eSport game for next to nothing, or nothing at all.
In other words, the best thing those companies can do with these events is to make them as accessible as possible, which means keeping them free-of-charge where they can. Third parties might charge subscription fees to make their work financially viable but for the game developers their payoff is getting new fans for the game – new people who genuinely enjoy spending their time and money playing. They wouldn't be the people willing to buy tickets and watch the games in person but they might check out an embedded stream on a gaming site, or settle down on the sofa to see what's made the front page of Twitch on their console.
That's the value of accessibility, and why companies like Valve are pursuing cool ideas like the newcomer casting stream. As Kevin 'Purge' Godec said when we interviewed him, "The International is a hype event to get people to play Dota anyway, so why not have a way to make it easier for new players to learn the game?" Additionally, broadening this audience also means broadening the number of people you could direct on-stream advertising towards, or expose to team and event sponsorship logos.
Monetisation is an ongoing issue in eSports, and you can expect to see companies experiment with different ways to make it a profitable undertaking for a long time to come. Until then, however, the best solution for developer-run tournaments seems to be leaving them free of charge.
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