esports for competitive mobile & indie games | david hiltscher

HOW TO GET STARTED IN ESPORTS FORCOMPETITIVE MOBILE & INDIE GAMES

OUR EVENTSOUR PARTNERS OUR REACH

10+ global stadium events100,000s+ paying attendance

100,000+ visitors per trade show

60 MM monthly viewersESL is the largest

premium content creator125+ million social media impressions per year

12,000 hours of live ESL broadcasts

• World’s largest esports company

• Global footprint with offices in nine countries

• $15 MM in prize money awarded

ABOUT ESL

89M eSports enthusiasts worldwide, by 2017 that will be 145M32M eSports viewers in North America alone, 71.5M Globally• eSports advertising will grow to $300 MM by 2018

• 16 - 34 year olds (Millennial) | 95% male

• Internet is their #1 source of fun & entertainment

THE MARKET

ESPORTS AND ESL

PLAY IS COMPETITIVE

• ESL provides structure to emerging sports (= games)

• Competition scales with audience growth

• Regular broadcasts add engaging entertainment layer

• Star players emerge, creating aspirational incentives

• Retention and engagement mechanism for games

COMPETITIVE GAMES

• Gameplay focus is synchronous PVP

• Online

• Gameplay mechanics with clear skill curve (easy to learn, hard to

master)

• Very often free-to-play

• Attractive to watch

• Player motivation driven by aspiration (achievement, winning, skill

improvement)

DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS

• Game Modes

• XonX

• Win Conditions & Draws

• Symmetry

CORE FEATURES

MATCHMAKING• Matching players from a queue• Skill-based at some point• Some form of incentive system

CUSTOM LOBBIES• Make it possible for people to select all match participants• Allow settings to be made, and have result screens with player names

ANTI-CHEAT• Especially PC games need to be tamper-proof• Store as much telemetric data as possible on the server side

• Scheduled Events

• Play with Devs

• Tournaments

• Matchmaking time slots

STAGE 1 – EARLY ALPHA

RETAIN EARLY ADOPTERSFamily & Friends or very limited Alpha

HOW TO ORGANIZE

• One main channel for communication (reddit?)

• Social channels for support

• Constant communication / feedback loop with players

• Address concerns

• Immediately handle disputes

• Doodles / Strawpoll for scheduling

• DIY tournament systems

BEST PRACTICES

• Start with one day per week, expand on demand

• Combat toxicity early on

• Weekly feedback threads (solicit actively)

• Implement organizational feedback

• Stream if possible (spec mode, or at least dev matches)

• Only small prizes (toxicity / legal issues)

• Core focus: Player liquidity in Matchmaking

• Simple point or rank system helps a lot

• Add skill matching component

• In-game rewards (random drops if possible)

• Tournaments as additional retention system for best players

and content provision

• Influencer tournaments / play dates

STAGE 2 – CLOSED BETA

BUILD TO 24/7 ACTIVITYAlpha to Closed Beta

BEST PRACTICES

• Closely monitor matchmaking KPIs

• Match quality

• Waiting times

• Actively promote emerging streamers, teams & players, the backbone of your future competitive community

• Tournament rules & dispute handling

• Activate Party functionality for matchmaking

• Building up a competitive scene for the top 10%-20% of

hardcore players

• Weekly cash tournaments

• Official Broadcasts

• If budget allows, take competition finals offline

• If matchmaking stable, possible to add additional XonX / game

modes

STAGE 3 – OPEN BETA

GROW A SPORTOpen Beta to Release

SUMMARYRETAIN EARLY ADOPTERS

Family & Friends, AlphaBUILD TO 24/7 ACTIVITY

Alpha to Closed BetaGROW A SPORTOpen Beta to Release

• Smart choices in game design, feature selection and competitive mode

• Scale activity offering over time

• Constant, active communication with players

• Focus on player liquidity in matchmaking

• Incentivize competitive play

• Love your influencers

• Lay groundwork for competitive structure

• Increase content frequency

• Add more gameplay options as player base grows

Benefits:-Powerful engagement & retention tool-Provides content for activation-Foundation for long lifecycle of game

THANK YOU!

David Hiltscher

VP Gaming Communities

E: d.hiltscher@eslgaming.com

T: twitter.com/affentod

Come see us @ gamescom

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