What is Juked, anyway?
If you’ve been following me for a while, you know the tried and true esports “announcement of an announcement” strategy is my go-to when I want to drive interest or hype up something that I care about deeply.
Well, it probably goes without saying, but I care deeply about the launch of Juked.
So announcement of announcement I did, and annoyed you probably were. But after several weeks of vague tweets it’s finally time to let the cat out of the bag. So let me give you the downlow, via prose, on our vision for Juked.
A pain point we’ve all felt
Esports viewership has grown exponentially every year since 2008, and I want nothing more than to see our industry continue to flourish for decades to come. However, there has also been a consistent thorn in our sides, a ongoing pain-point, a friction so coarse that it might as well be sand paper on our tender, baby-like bottoms.
And it is that it is SO DAMN HARD to follow what is going on across the industry on a day to day, week to week basis. There is no single source of truth. In 2019, there are literally dozens of high quality leagues, tournaments, and events that happen every single week, but sparse ways to answer the following questions:
What are the top events worth watching? What’s at stake, and why should you care? Who are the competing players/teams? How do you tune in to the broadcast? When does the competition start? Where do you find the brackets, standings, or schedule? How do you find the VODs? Literally, am I watching the goddamn semi-finals or the group stages, and what match is coming up next?
Sure, there are solutions on a game by game, community by community basis, but they’re not that consistent, and you’re required to “know” before you know. Plus, who wants to crawl across 20 websites just to follow what’s going on across the scene.
We believe these problems are a serious hindrance to the growth of esports — there’s really no good entry points for newcomers. But there’s also no good way to cross pollinate viewers from one esports to another. You may not watch Street Fighter every day, but dammit you need to know that Evo is happening and how to watch. Even if you’re hardcore, and already know exactly what you like to watch and generally where to find it, we believe that Juked still removes multiple layers of friction, making esports more enjoyable and accessible.
One destination, every esport
Juked’s mission is to reinvent how people discover and watch the esports events they love.
We’re creating one destination where you can go to discover and watch the top events (live, upcoming, and VOD) from 25+ esports titles. While you’re watching, Juked gives you seamless, same-page access to all the context you need to understand the broadcast. Power users can curate Juked by their favorite games and teams, but know that our goal is explicitly to expose you to content that you may not have discovered otherwise. More features are in the pipeline (think: new ways to engage with esports content and support for talkshows/podcasts), but I’ll have to keep you in suspense on that part for now.
Bluntly, the amount of high quality esports entertainment produced every single week is just too much for anyone to follow. But we want esports fans of all kinds to know that, if they want so good ole’ entertainment in the form of digital athletics, they need look no further. We get esports fans directly into the content they care about quickly and painlessly in a way that doesn’t exist elsewhere. Every time you land on Juked, you’ll know that you’ll be accessing the biggest live events, able plan your weekend viewing, or able to catch the VODs for matches you may have missed.
Our goal is ultimately to support every single esport that fans love to watch, including League of Legends, CS:GO, Dota 2, Overwatch, Call of Duty, Fortnite, Smash Bros Ultimate/Melee, Rocket League, Raibow 6, StarCraft 2, StarCraft Remastered, NBA2K, Street Fighter V, Tekken 7, Hearthstone, World of Warcraft, Quake Champions, FIFA, Madden, Mortal Kombat 11, PUBG, MTG:A, Halo, DBFZ, Gears of War, and more. Edit: maybe TF2? NHL? Clash of Clans? etc.
Best part is: we’re launching soon.
How soon? I can’t say exactly. What I will say is that we’ve already built an incredibly useful tool for staying on top all the biggest events in esports, and that we want to get it in your hands ASAP. Closed Beta will be launching this Summer.
What’s next
In the end, this may have been just another tease because unfortunately we don’t have any more details to share at this time. From the bottom of our hearts, we do appreciate your patience and your support as we bring Juked to life. We’ve been so honored and humbled by the positive feedback and support we’ve gotten from our friends and family, but we know this is equally due to your generosity and the fact that this is something that hardcore esports fans and esports newbies alike know needs to to exist, and we’re doing our best to get it in your hands ASAP.
In the mean time, the best possible thing you can do to support us is to follow and subscribe to us on social.
- If you haven’t already please make sure to sign up for our beta by dropping your email on Juked.gg. Alpha/closed user testing will begin as early as next week, and we’ll be selecting from our earliest beta subscribers.
- We also just launched our public community Discord server today, so please, do join us there as well.
- Follow us across social media on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Twitch, YouTube, and of course here on Medium. We may or may not be deploying a TikTok strategy when the time comes :)
I’ll cut this note here and end with my sincere gratitude for being able to work on such a great project, with my awesome cofounder Chris. We’re giving it our all, but your support is what will be make us successful long term. If you’re reading this, I owe ya a beer.
Feel free to reach out any time if you’d like to chat: ben@juked.gg
Ben “FishStix” Goldhaber, Co-Founder & CEO
