United State Of Gaming 2020

It’s a brand new decade, and gaming is going interesting places. Esports is booming, and the streaming landscape is being reshaped by exclusive multi-million dollar deals with prolific personalities. On top of that, we’ve got nascent cloud gaming services that could make games more accessible than ever, while games themselves are evolving into a continuous service as sequels take on a whole different meaning. What’s not to get excited about?

- 

Cyberspace Athletes: Beyond Gamers

In the arena, the crowd sits with bated breath as they watch two teams duke it out, finally erupting with a loud roar when the score is settled and the winning team emerges, exhausted from their efforts. Sounds like any other sporting event doesn’t it? Well, this time, the sport in concern wasn’t played on a physical field, but rather in the virtual world.

The first instalment of esports as a medal sport in the South East Asian games just concluded last month, and it saw Southeast Asian gamers take each on in games like Mobile Legends, Starcraft II, Hearthstone, Arena of Valor, Dota 2 and Tekken 7. That’s esports being played on an international stage as part of an international sporting tournament, and it just shows how far esports has come.

Given that global esports revenues have just about doubled about every two years, esports analytics experts Newzoo estimate the global games market to be worth more than uS$1.8 billion by 2022. It’s safe to say this is and will be serious business in the years to come.

But, it’s not all about the games and the gamers. David Tse (Global Esports Director, razer) says that esports is really an ecosystem of publishing partners, professional teams, athletes, casters, and tournament organizers, and each element will evolve over time. He believes that tournament organisers will continue to enhance their production value in offline tournaments, and so ensure higher viewer participation through online platforms.

At the same time, he thinks professional teams will build their teams to go beyond just tournament performance – they will invest in content creation and marketing around their teams, developing the team into a brand that can scale and reach out to broader audience.