In the UK, Gfinity has become the hottest platform for gamers looking to
compete in or watch eSports matches. It is adding 30,000 new subscribers
each month and is about to build the UK’s first eSports stadium in west
London, in the hopes that the capital will become a global centre for the
sport.
“We’re going to build an arena that can hold 600 people,” says Neville Upton,
Gfinity’s founder and boss. “We’ll expand that capacity to thousands in 2016.”
The company has just won a deal with Activision to exclusively host the Call
of Duty: Advanced Warfare European Championships – one of the biggest events
in the eSports calendar.
A competitor celebrates victory during the 2013 Call of Duty Championships
Gfinity created quite a stir in the City in December when it raised £3.5m
through an oversubscribed IPO. Since, then, the Aim-listed firm’s market cap
has risen from £13.2m to £15m. However, Upton admits that most people in the
City still have no idea what the company does.
“It’s bizarre,” says Upton. “eSports is this massive movement, a cultural
revolution, but it hasn’t been looked at by the City yet.
“Once we’ve built a platform where gamers love playing and spectators love
watching, the money will come.”
There are no equity analysts publicly commenting on Gfinity at the moment, but
a private note from Gfinity’s nomad Arden Research, which was only sent to
its own database, says: “While the Activison deal helps to cement
Gfinity’s leading position in European eSports, the growth in Twitch users,
viewers and venues is also encouraging news for investors.”
In the sports world, however, Gfinity is already making a name for itself. Its
listing attracted investors such as Saracens Rugby Club owner Nigel Wray,
who now owns 15pc of the start-up, and former England rugby captain Lawrence
Dallaglio, who has a 1pc stake.
Upton first heard about the nascent industry while running the Listening
Company, the customer service business he sold to Serco in 2011 for £55m. “I
had 4,000 employees at that company and most of them were under 25,” he
says. “I’d have a beer with them on Friday and they would tell me about
their plans to play videogame competitions all weekend. About 50pc of them
were into it. This piqued my interest.”
Anyone with access to a smartphone, tablet or computer can play eSports. “It’s
very accessible, you don’t have to get a train and go anywhere or ask your
parents for a lift, you can play from home,” says Upton. “It’s just another
form of entertainment.”
On whether it’s healthy for all these people to spend hours in front of their
screens, he says: “Our research shows it eats into TV time, not sport time.”
Gfinity boss Neville Upton
The industry relies heavily on sponsorship to survive and Gfinity’s model is
no different, although it does charge $20 a year for premium access. “We’re
talking to big brands who want to reach 16 to 30-year-olds, which is our
main demographic,” he says. “We’re also looking to do deals with
broadcasters.”
According to Alexander Davis, from the advertising agency FCB Inferno, eSports
could become as big as the Premier League for sponsors. “eSports has
become an attractive prospect for brands wanting a piece of the action and
already huge brands like Coca-Cola have taken notice and are getting
involved,” he says.
A raft of start-ups have sprung up to cater to the eSports audience. US firm
TheScore launched an Android app last week, which allows users to access
breaking news, video highlights and streams from eSports providers.
At the same time, Billy Woodford, founder of No Copyright Sounds (NCS) has
seen exponential growth in the number of gamers accessing his music library
to add beats to their gaming tutorial videos on YouTube.
“I would say gamers make up 85pc of the NCS following, most commonly from
the Minecraft community,” Woodford says. NCS generates revenue from ads
placed on its YouTube videos and Spotify.
“Our tracks have surpassed millions of views due to famous gamers using
the music in their content,” he adds.
San Francisco start-up Vulcun launched its fantasy League of Legends (LoL)
platform four weeks ago. Co-founder Ali Moiz says that the business is
growing its user base by 20pc to 30pc each week, with users paying up to
$250 to take part.
According to Moiz, 2015 is “the year for eSports”. “Numbers
across the industry are surging, especially in terms of revenues and sponsor
involvement,” he says. “Pro players are now routinely getting
six-figure salaries, with the highest earning more than $1m.”
Jiao “Banana” Wang, reportedly the highest paid star in eSports, has made
$1.2m over 38 matches playing Dota, through sponsorship and prize money.
eSports platforms are offering larger and larger prize pots to attract top
gamers. Vulcun’s Moiz is offering a prize pot of $1m to the winning LoL
team.
With the inflated prize pots come scandals: over the past year, several teams
and players have been disqualified from eSports for match-fixing or using
third-party software to cheat.
Earlier this month, one eSports personality even made the news for threatening
to have a player’s mother evicted from her house. She had signed a
sponsorship contract on behalf of her son, who was threatening to leave an
eSports team.
In recent years, videogames have been criticised for their violent content.
Upton claims that it is actually fantasy games, not bloodthirsty combat,
that is proving most popular in eSports. “Fifa isn’t a violent game,
nor is Heartstone,” he says. These are strategy games, fantasy games.
There’s a lot more violence on TV.
“If I had the choice between my child playing Fifa or watching something
like Eastenders, I’d choose Fifa.”
Gfinity’s last tournament attracted 4,000 spectators
Gfinity currently runs eSports for eight titles but the company employs a team
of gamers to look for new additions to the roster. “They should pay me
to work here,” says Upton. “It’s the best job in the world for
them; they play games all day long.”
The life of a professional gamer is not easy. Mark “MarkyB” Bryceland, who
plays for Call of Duty team Millennium, says: “I usually train for around
five hours on a regular gaming day, on weekends around eight hours a day.
Before events we tend to go hardcore and put in the most amount of time and
that can even be up to 12 hours a day.”
MarkyB and hundreds of other gamers will descend on London’s Covent Garden
later this month to take part in the European qualifying leg of the Call of
Duty Championships. The winners will be flown out to Los Angeles to compete
in the global battle.
“At first my friends and family were apprehensive [about my career
choice],” says MarkyB. “It’s still very unique in Britain to be a
professional gamer. But now, after seeing how much I get paid to travel and
the successes I have had bringing home prize money, they seem to be a little
more supportive.”
According to Upton, top eSports gamers are the new rock stars. Players with
names like Parasite, NadeShot and Crimsix may still unknown to the man on
the street, but they are legends to eSports fans.
“These players get mobbed when they go out,” he says. They get stopped for
autographs and we have to smuggle them in through the back door at events.”
Within 10 years, an eSports gamer will win a sports personality of the year
award, Upton claims. “It will be mainstream,” he says. “There’ll be an
eSports section in the Telegraph and an eSports Match of The Day.”