Evolution of Esports Top of Mind at SVG Australia Summit By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Tuesday, May 8, 2018 - 5:14 pm
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The Australian Esports movement continues to gain momentum thanks to greater exposure, new competitions, and even new Esports arenas that promise to make it easier for fans to continue to engage with a wide array of games. And during a wide-ranging panel discussion at the SVG Australia Summit in Sydney leaders laid clear that Esports is here to stay.
Matthew Boughen, Mads Brown, Dominic Remond, Gfinity, and Scott Wenkart discussed the Esports revolution.
The basic reality now is that traditional sports and traditional broadcasters can't ignore Esports, says Mads Brown, Supanova Pop Culture Industries, Sales Associate, Brand Sponsorships. How do we take two different industries and work together to create better content for viewers?
Matthew Boughen, Riot Games, OPL producer, exemplifies the new reality has his background is in traditional TV production. But now he finds himself taking that expertise and applying it to Esports where he works to put the best team and equipment in place for event coverage
The challenge is getting the quality to 1080p at 59.94 frames per second and we need to make sure suppliers and providers understand that that is our expectation.
Telstra's Anna Lockwood led the discussion on esports.
Boughen says that predominantly Riot Games Australia coverage of League of Legends is found on Twitch.tv, YouTube, and, thanks to a new deal, Twitter.
The ability for our audience to engage on Twitch is so different as a viewer experience [compared to TV] that it is why it is where the audience is as the interviews are done in a certain way and viewers can ask questions,' he adds.
And they are watching. Showdown (previously Spiral Media) is based in Sydney and is the exclusive distributor of Twitch media in Australia and New Zealand, as well as a distributor for South East Asia. Showdown's Managing Director Scott Wenkart says that year over year growth of Twitch.tv viewers has grown 40% year over year to two million unique browsers a month. And the amount of time watching is up 160% to an average of 235 minutes a day.
First time users jump into Twitch.TV wondering how someone can watch someone else play videogames but Wenkart says that once they see that they can chat and engage with the announcers they get it.
Adds Brown: When you watch the first time you're unable to put into words what it is like to watch someone not only create entertainment but to be able to interact with them. People commenting and analyzing the game play is hard to do on other platforms.
The interactive elements are important as the events can last upwards of six hours. Events that long need fresh elements throughout and are also hard to get into a broadcast slot. That is one reason things like Australia's Hyundai A-League's 10 football clubs being represented in an E-Sports football league whose matches were seen on Fox Sports Australia as well as Twitch and via Facebook Live streaming.
FIFA is a natural fit for Fox Sports and they can tap into an active player base as the game has sold about 400,000 units [in Australia], adds Wenkart.
Brown says that the 10 weeks of competition carried on Fox earned both Fox and NEP kudos for bringing their experience to the Esports arena.
They were so receptive to the feedback of the players and they used the talent team as a sounding board, she says. And it was very translatable to people who watch traditional sports as it is essentially a massive crossover opportunity that is ready to be capitalized on. It's a really great case study on how real sports and Esports can get along and not compete.
Dominic Remond, Gfinity Esports Australia, CEO, recently joined the company after spending five years with the Sydney Sixers in both the Big Bash League and the and Women's Big Bash League Twenty20 cricket league. He says that with 1.5 million fanatical Esports fans in Australia Gfinity is in an exciting position to provide context and content as six city-based clubs field teams to plays CS:GO, Rocket League, and Street Fighter V.
We are halfway through transitioning a Hoyts movie theater into a Hoyts Gfinity Esports Arena with 220 seats, a full production with five cameras, and Videocraft and Beyond Action as production partners, says Remond. The plan is for a chain of ESports f
He will also leverage his experience at a real world professional club as he understands how cities-based teams can drive interest and passion.
The market is there, and people have been picked up and paid to play their passion, he says. Brands want to reach millennials and with less than 50% watching terrestrial TV they are digital natives who are connected via social media. So, expectations are high for a quality and challenging audience.
Brown does caution, however, that the Esports community is increasingly aware of being seen as a cash cow and that it is important that those who want to work in Esports be genuine.
It's really important to those in the Esports community that outsiders don't just come in and ruin it, he says. When a lot of people hear that a third party is coming in to run an Esports competition they think it is going to be a disaster because games speak another language. But the past 10 weeks have shown how it can be a success if it is a genuine relationship.
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Evolution of Esports Top of Mind at SVG Australia Summit By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director 
