2020 Australian Esports and Gaming Tips for Brands Looking to Learn or Enter (With Links and Information!)

It's been over two years since I transitioned from a lifelong fan of gaming, to being given the chance to lead the business development conversations, creation of assets, campaigns and concepts with partners for our professional esports team (Legacy Esports) and our high school esports league (META High School Esports).

I have spent countless hours learning from people in Australia and globally, at events, meeting brands, educating people interested in gaming, compiling stats and data, translating gaming and esports for others and creating partnership opportunities for brands and agencies. This journey has included Legacy partnerships Samsung, Optus, Mogul, Razer and META partnerships with Intel and Acer, Optus and Torrens University, supporting both endemic and non-endemic partners to enter gaming and esports in Australia and New Zealand.

2020 will be exciting for gaming in Australia because I believe there are now people in the right positions in key brands and agencies who will be looking to make a move, both as multi-year partners and one year test and learn case studies. With this in mind, I want to provide some high level information about opportunities and things to consider for 2020 and to begin and continue conversations and empower brands.

Gaming...? Esports...? Where Do I Start?

If you are very new to the space, the numbers seem too good to be true, so I suggest reading freely accessible documents to get an independent view of Australia, including the 2020 Digital Australia Report and IAB Australia Digital Report as starters.

Very quickly summarised, this data matters because gaming is a major hobby of millions of Australian's under 35, who are constantly increasing the time they spend gaming and involved in esports, at the expense of TV, radio and other traditional advertising forms, giving rise to the term of 'cord-cutters' (see image below for a global example). So much so, that in January 2019, the CEO of Netflix was quoted as saying he is more worried about gaming and Fortnite as a competitor for Netflix than HBO.

This is important for your brand, as stats and data show gamers (and people within the age group) have high levels of disposable income, are extremely 'sticky' as customers and need to be engaged authentically through their hobbies. The Digital Australia report referenced above shows that the average male gamer in Australia spends 89 minutes per day playing games, while females spend 71 minutes per day!

To try and split gaming and esports simplistically (and with a traditional sports reference), think of gaming as casual/hobby play with friends, similar to how you might play school or club football, netball or soccer, while esports is the top 0.1% of players, professionals paid to play as their job, followed and watched by fans (mostly on Twitch or YouTube), effectively the gaming equivalent of the AFL, Super Netball or the A-League.

Australian Leagues and Tournaments

Globally, esports has some insane prize money, including over $34 million in prize money for the 2019 DOTA 2 International and record breaking concurrent viewership of over 200 million people at once for the 2018 League of Legends World Championship.

Eye popping numbers, literally! However these are global and we need to align our local expectations to understand the landscape we operate in and to drive engagement, which in Australia would currently be the League of Legends and Overwatch seasons, which run similar calendars to mainstream sports (with splits in the middle to allow for global torunaments). Fortnite is a global phenomenon in its own right (considering Epic did not launch Fortnite until July 2017) and runs its own season structures that draw some of the best teams and players into a constantly changing map with seemingly countless ways to entertain new players and amaze viewers on Twitch.

If you looking to enter major partnerships with significant investment to drive large scale awareness of your brand/product launch (as you may for a traditional sporting league investment in Australia), these would be my suggested games to consider (and if you want an introduction to the right person in any of these titles, please let me know)!

Teams in Australia and What Separates Them

Teams are the conduit between the game (and publisher who created it) and fans/community, the key aspect that drives relationships, creates memorable moments, rivalries, competitions, drives product consideration and fills product carts and shopping trolleys. Esports teams provide year round integration, branding, product launch opportunities, fan engagement, content and the beginning of an authentic relationship for brands entering the space.

Here are some things to consider as an Australian engagement starting point;

1) What games do the teams play in?

In Australia the stats and data suggests that teams that drive results for their partners play across a range of titles and should have a League of Legends Oceanic Pro League (OPL) License, combined with an Overwatch Contenders position and Fortnite players.

Other games that drive great engagement and are worthy of consideration include Counter Strike Global Offensive (CSGO) and Rainbow Six (R6), though new entrant brands are often (in my experience) from first person shooter titles. Many brands find this a step too far for their internal sign offs and processes, even though many of these companies are fine with fighting in traditional sport (such as UFC and Ice Hockey), buying TVC's during Game of Thrones or product placement in The Bourne or James Bond movies. This is a conversation for another time and article!

2) How can the team grow and build your brand?

One of the challenges in Australia is that there are only several large esports teams (feedback from brands and agencies directly, don't shoot the messenger!) who are organised to deliver commercial outcomes for partners and have the reach and structure to execute brand objectives. Many newly formed teams that have been purchased require more time to create a highly engaged following and understanding of how to execute partnerships at this point.

For anyone entering the space, I suggest working through key agencies (please let me know if you want agency recommendations, as many agencies are also very green!), or starting with the first two questions "what is the Australian specific engagement and data that can be provided" and "what are the case studies of how you have been able to leverage this to drive results for partners?"

3) Understanding team value and delivering on expectations

One of the most useful things in my role across AFL and gaming is access to data and commercial information of the comparable value of assets in relation to the wider entertainment and sports partnership markets. This is an area where I believe many Australian esports teams need to develop and price partnerships accordingly, with the goal of flawlessly executing every partnership, delivering high quality assets and engagement and building relationships to re-sign current partners and help new brands enter.

Twitch, YouTube and Content Creators

If you are new to the space, you might not know what Twitch and YouTube are. Twitch (bought by Amazon for $970m) is basically live TV for gamers, where people follow their favourite personalities and streamers, engaging with them through chat, watching their games and subscribing/donating to them. Twitch also is the major platform where most esports championships are viewed from in Australia, broadcasted by the publisher (organisation who owns each game, e.g. Epic Games owns Fortnite) and is regular viewing for gaming fans and now buying traditional sport broadcast licenses.

YouTube is where highlights and content are saved after and drives high frequency of replayability (think of it as rewatching your favourite Ashes highlights online at the click of a button), fans will often return to and revisit favourite content and highlights from the streamers and personalities they follow and engage in.

There are some awesome content creators in Australia, some of who are professional esports teams and play for teams, while there are others who frequently engage with fans and compete in tournaments and have built loyal audiences on their platforms which they monitise with brands.

Where to From Here?

If your brand or product is focused at marketing to people under 35 years old, I suggest you begin to research the gaming/esports and look at some test and learn opportunities with portions of your budget previously reserved for traditional marketing spend.

If you have any questions, want more information, introductions or are looking to partner with Legacy or META, please contact me on 0439 411 576 or at bmanuel@afc.com.au