Esports Business Review
Dates: Sept 19–25th
YouTube Gaming is now center stage for YouTube
YouTube will be ending the YouTube Gaming app and moving all of the features to the main YouTube app. “Features from YouTube Gaming will be mixed in with new features designed to personalize and enrich the consumer’s experience within the gaming section.” An interesting aspect to this new update is that users can now favorite which games they like and YouTube will curate recommendations for gaming content, including popular videos, live streams, and other games from the same publisher or developer. YouTube has now streamlined the process between being a streamer and content creator by making the process of streaming and uploading all through one platform.
This has a lot of potential because YouTube is a far more recognizable name than Twitch and if they can continue to generate high-quality content through popular personalities, they could become the premier platform for streamers, content creators, and gaming enthusiasts alike. Fun facts: 1) 200 million people watching gaming content on YouTube every day and 2) In the last 12 months, 50B hours of gaming content has been watched on YouTube.
League of Legends — Their Worst Year Since 2014
League of Legends, which was released in 2009, seems to be losing steam. According to SuperData Research, the popular title is down 21% in revenue compared to the same time period last year. This could end up being Riot Games worst year since 2014 in regards to their most popular title. With titles such as Overwatch, Fortnite, PUBG and Call of Duty taking over the majority of headlines, it looks like LoL may be losing a bit of momentum.
DreamTeam Raises $5M in Seed Funding
In a round led by Mangrove Capital Partners out of Luxembourg, DreamTeam has officially secured $5M in funding on top of a previous $10M raised through an ICO — all which has been raised in 2018. This is the second round of financing that Mangrove has deployed into DreamTeam. In the previous round Mangrove partner, David Waroquier, joined the advisory board. DreamTeam is an Esports based recruitment marketplace and is closing in on one million registered users. According to DreamTeam CEO, they hope this round of financing will help “offer millions of gamers a clear-cut way to esports stardom.”
Video Game Discounts: Target better than Amazon
As of August 28th, the Amazon Prime 20% discount on video game pre-orders ended. They changed the ‘discount’ to earning store credit as a potential incentive to continue to pre-order through Amazon. In an unlikely turn of events, Target is looking to take the reins on being the premier outlet to pre-order video games. Unlike Amazon’s previous discount, Target isn’t offering a discount for the game you’re pre-ordering, but instead offering a 30% discount on any available game if you pre-order a new game through them.
This promotion only runs through September 29th, but could theoretically mean Target is doing preliminary tests to determine if this is an effective way to combat the allure of Amazon Prime and improve on Best Buy’s recently cancelled Gamer’s Club Unlocked. In Amazon’s new structure, if you pre-order through them you receive $10 in store credit compared to saving $18 on a seperate full price game when utilizing Target. This was an ideal time for Target to start this program as Q4 is typically the best time to buy new games. Check out the list comprised by Polygon of the most anticipated titles to be released later this year.
Telltale Studio Lays Off Majority of Its Staff
According to Telltale CEO, Pete Hawley, “it’s been an incredibly difficult year for Telltale as we worked to set the company on a new course. Unfortunately, we ran out of time to get there.” This is a sad revelation from the CEO of arguably one of the most well known story-telling game studios. It’s a harsh outcome as the industry realizes that this new generation of gamers doesn’t seem to resonate with narrative-based video games as much anymore. The other potential issue is the process in which their games are released. Instead of releasing a complete game from the beginning, Telltale would released $5 episodes two to three months apart. A small group of 25 employees still remains working full-time to fulfill company obligations, but unless there is a massive turnaround in sales, this looks to be the end of Telltale.
Update Sept 26, 2018: A class action complaint has been filed against Telltale by a former employee claiming that the company was obligated to give a 60 day termination notice.
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