‘The definition of esports has changed and it's time brands come to speed with that’

The pandemic lockdown resulted in a sudden jump in esports viewership, and the huge interest initiated conversations in the advertising community. But now that live sports are back in action, what can we expect for esports in 2023? To answer some of these questions, and more, a panel discussion explored the topic ‘What to expect in esports in 2023?’ at e4m-GroupM Let’s Play: Sports marketing summit held on Wednesday.

The discussion was chaired by Piyush Kumar, Founder & CEO, Rooter. The panel had Nimish Raut, Global Head Esports, Partnerships & Special Projects, Nodwin Gaming; Richa Singh, Co-Founder & CEO, FanClash; Animesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO, 8Bit Creatives; Sonali Malaviya, Chief strategy & Transformation officer, EssenceMediacom, South Asia; Rohit N Jagasia, Founder & CEO, Revenant Esport and Sagar Nair, Co-Founder & CEO, Qlan.

Kumar opened the discussion asking Raut to set the context for the audience in terms of what esports means and how it has evolved. Raut explained, “esports in layman's language is any competitive video game where there is a competitive angle and where there is a clear winner basis certain skills sets or strategies. Overall, it’s the future because the next generation turns into the next set of consumers - they are going to compete directly for mind space and heart space with these bots.”

Adding to that, Malaviya opined that the general perception towards esports is that it is a recreational platform where people just spend some free time. She added, “Esports today is a legit gaming platform where people have built careers and there are celebrity esports players. Sponsorship, branding, owning and supporting esports - all that and more is the future of this industry. The definition of esports has changed and it's time that brands come to speed with that. The number of audience and engagement it commands and the profile of that audience is not something that can be ignored.”

Further to this, Singh believes that everything that was ever built on sports will be built on esports. “This belief comes from where the idea for FanClash came from. Just the way there are teams, jerseys, tournaments and merchandising for football and there is IPL and Dream11 for cricket - all of it will be built on esports and they will all be multi-billion dollar businesses. What football or cricket has been for 20 years, esports will be in the future. So in my opinion, it is Day 1 of sports of the next generation of consumers.”

Nair decoded who are the audiences consuming esports today and said that anyone who has access to a smartphone and data is an audience of esports today. He added “There are certain levels - some do it casually and some are pros and that is the journey that they are trying to figure out and manoeuvre through, and there are ample opportunities. A similar level of infrastructure, like for a Ranji Trophy or any local level games, exists in esports where there are tiers and people are working hard from the grassroots level to make it a career option.”

Interestingly, in esports, players retire by the age of 23-24. Kumar asked panelists about the underlying reasons for this early retirement.

“There is no benchmark - some celebrity players are also 36. With mobile players, generally, there is a perception in the mobile gaming category that they retire by 24 and start coaching by 26. There is an entire range of demographics involved - kids as young as 7 are pros,” shared Jagasiya.

Adding on to what more needs to be done from the branding perspective, Jagasiya also shared, “The esports ecosystem needs one moment where India does something big on the global level and then brands will start associating with it. A few brands have been ahead of their time and have done it in the past and are still doing it - we work with a lot of endemic and non-endemic brands.”

Agarwal, who has worked with over 500 brands in the esports segment, sharing his experiences. “The interest has been huge. There are some key pointers - one is that the TG is a demographic of the age 15-30 which is a difficult segment to reach. Also, not in every genre do you see players talk to their audience live on a daily basis. Apart from that, the virality and the numbers that we have seen in the last three years are insane. There are brands that have been coming in regularly to work with esports but the experience needs to be immersive, but it should not come in between the gaming experience for the audience.”