eSport defined at GDC 2016
March 2016 – GDC San Francisco had a number of sessions focusing on eSports and issues regarding the business model. The panel of publishers and eSports stars discussed points that were important to understand the current rise of the media. The consensus of the panel was that “Storytelling” was the key to engagement and retention of the viewers. Just like athletics based professional sports, connection with and comradery with the community – in this case gamers, is the core of eSports market.
Like professional athletics based sports, it is the characters, personalities and idiosyncrasies of the superstar players, how they communicate and interact with gamers and viewers that is key, not so much the game. The game is the binder for commonality of understanding and acknowledgement of level of performance of the players. Just like the athletics based sports, the high level of game play for professionals is different. There are many differences based around pace of the games, duration of play, etc. The biggest difference is not the score of the games, but the expectation and prediction of the outcome. At the professional level, skill of accomplishment and loss of concentration to commit an error are equally impactful on the outcome.
At companies like Yahoo, the eSports activities are covered under the Yahoo Sports division. This group covers traditional amateur and professional sports coverage with statistics, background articles, event coverage and highlights. The eSports are treated the same way. One difference is that traditional sports are just adopting and embracing the immediate feedback loop from the fan and view base. In eSports, this has been a basic pillar of the construction of the enterprise, and multiple social media paths are an integral part of the eSports system.
As the coverage and promotion model are following that of traditional athletic based sports, superstar players in eSports are also being promoted by advocates, have agents, have sponsorship programs and engage in training methods prior to major competitions. As a commentary on the panel, there was an advocacy of nepotism & legacy inside the game publishing community as one of the paths to recognition and discovery for the highly talented players.
