The Kairos Lowdown: Gaming and esports 10/01/2022 - 16/01/2022
What better way to start a new year than to add the Kairos Lowdown to your weekly routine?Covering new partnerships and even more news stories from across the gaming and esports landscape, read on to find out more about recent announcements from partnerships and finance to mergers and acquisitions.
Top Stories:
EXCEL Esports x JD Sports Fashion
UK-based esports organisation, EXCEL Esports, have announced a brand new partnership with UK-based sports fashion retailer JD Sports, replacing telecommunication company BT as the team’s name sponsor. The financial details of the deal have not been disclosed.
As part of the announcement, JD Sports will feature its branding across EXCEL’s team jerseys as well as securing the exclusive naming rights to EXCEL’s academy roster, which competes in the Northern League of Legends Championship (NLC), with the academy team being renamed JDXL moving forward.
The timing of the announcement has come at an interesting time for the esports organisation. Over the past 12 months EXCEL has gone through a transitional period following a string of personal changes, from the addition of Tim Reichert as the organisation's Esports Director to the departure of EXCEL’s Co-Founder Kieran Holmes-Darby.
However, this is certainly an exciting time for the fashion retailer. JD are no strangers to leveraging influencers in the UK, after successfully launching a number of series through brands under their umbrella such as Footaslyum. The retailer has also been actively exploring gaming and esports partnerships over the last couple of years through partnerships with the likes of HyperX and Samsung for an esports tournament called JDX.
Overall, I’m a big fan of JD Sports partnering with EXCEL as it seems like there will be great synergy between the two brands. For JD Sports it allows them to scale their gaming and esports efforts, which will put the brand front and centre on a global stage, while the deal sees EXCEL secure a major non-endemic brand, further strengthening its commercial portfolio.
Time will tell how both parties collaborate long-term as we wait to see what type of activations the two brands launch in 2022.
Valve corporation canceled first Dota 2 Major of 2022
Gaming developer Valve Corporation have announced they have been forced to cancel their first Dota 2 Major of 2022, which was expected to conclude the Dota Pro Circuit’s Winter Tour.
As part of the announcement, Valve have released a number of changes to the Dota Pro Circuit 21-22 season as a result. DPC points, which are usually garnered at the event, will now be distributed to the second and third Major of the season. Furthermore, Valve have announced that the Winter Tour will now officially conclude once all regional league tournaments have ended.
As expected, Valve cited the raising concerns of the pandemic as the main reasons for the cancellation, commenting on news that “the fast-spreading variants of the virus make hosting LAN tournaments impossible at this time.'' For the time being Majors are still planned for throughout 2022, however no further details were shared in this initial announcement.
It’s definitely unfortunate for all involved that the first Dota 2 Major of 2022 has had to be postponed, however it’s understandable. Nonetheless, Dota 2 is certainly having a hard time tournament-wise like most major esports tournaments, with 2021 not delivering the number of LAN tournaments people have come to expect from Dota 2. However, while the pandemic has continued to affect the esports ecosystem, that hasn’t stopped the wide range of partnerships between brands we’ve seen throughout the year.
If one positive can be taken away from this situation is that we have seen brands collaborating in creative ways which still reach a wide audience. Hopefully it won’t be long until we see the next Major tournament take place in spring, which is still scheduled to go ahead as of Jan 2022.
Twitch plans new improved reporting and appeals process for creators
After a difficult year, which saw a host of exclusive talent leave the Twitch platform to sign exclusive deals with their competitors, as well as a barrage of criticism following a string of incidents relating to hate raids, Twitch has announced plans for a new improved reporting and appeals process for creators.
Twitch has published a retrospective of its 2021 safety efforts as they look to take their learnings from 2021 and implement new changes to address the issues creators have faced going forward into 2022, with Twitch’s VP of Global Trust and Safety Angela Hession commenting that “the company will update their user report and appeals process in due course.”
As part of the report published Twitch confirmed they have plans to upgrade their Suspicious User Detection feature, which is an artificial intelligence tool the company launched at the end of last year, that automatically flags individuals it believes may be “repeat ban dodgers.” This will enable the platform’s content creators to use the information gathered to highlight repeat offenders.
Furthermore, Twitch also plans to update its sexual content policy to clarify various aspects of it and simultaneously intends to share more informative and educational content across its safety center and other areas of the platform.
It certainly is a positive move for the platform, however time will tell how these new introductions will impact the platform given creator trust has been at an all time low, especially after the platform has been plagued by ‘hate raids’.Twitch’s actions on this have included suing CruzzControl and CreatineOverdose, with the hopes the lawsuit against two “highly motivated” abusers who Twitch say have persistently targeted marginalised streamers with “racist, sexist, and homophic language and content”.
Twitch seems to be moving in the right direction to make a positive effort to stop these actions on the platform, with the banning of thousands of accounts since the start of September as well as introducing new chat filters, channel level banning and evasion detection tools.. This news will serve as a warning to everyone who breaches Twitch’s terms of service moving forward and time will tell if these new measures will work and whether this is a sustainable and a scalable solution to address hate raids and stamp them out on the platform in the future.
Partnerships Lowdown
Envy Gaming have acquired the rights to the Esports Stadium Arlington operations
In November 2018, the Esports Stadium Arlington was opened as the largest dedicated esports stadium located in the USA state of Texas, bolstered by a 100,000 square feet venue that can hold up to 2,500 spectators for live LAN events.
Fast forward to 2022, US-based esports organisation Envy Gaming have acquired the rights to the Esports Stadium Arlington operations after previously using the stadium as the organisation’s home base alongside other esports organisations. While the financial details have not been disclosed, Envy Gamings COO confirmed plans for public gaming centers and the retail-based offerings, like boot camps and private room leases, are going to be closed down as they look into other areas of the venue which will boost community interaction and interest.
BIG partners with Philips OneBlade
German-based esports organisation BIG (Berlin International Gaming) have announced their new partnership with men’s grooming brand Philips OneBlade. The financial details have not been disclosed.
As part of the announcement, Philips OneBlade will become BIG’s official supplier for men’s styling gear and will have OneBlade’s branding featured across the esports organisation’s League of Legends jersey throughout 2022.
Finance, Mergers and Acquisitions lowdown
YAHAHA Studios raises $50M after funding round.
Finland-based Yahaha Studios have announced they have raised $50 million in a Series C funding round. The platform provides developers and players the ability to build, publish, host and operate 3D interactive multiplayer games. What is unique about Yahaha Studios is that the platform allows games to create & distribute their own content without the need for any code to be written.
In a statement YAHAHA Studios stated that “the latest influx of capital will be used to further develop the platform, a portion of which includes a metaverse game creation tool, which it plans to launch in early 2022.”
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