Esports Weekly Update – Stories you may have missed!
An esports governing body has formed to help grow and promote the UK scene – and has plans to open a national training centre.
It has been announced that German football club, FC Schalke 04, have expanded their esports operation into FIFA.
Potentially the biggest news in esports so far this year was last week’s controlling stake of Supercell by Chinese Gaming giant Tencent at a $10.2B valuation.
Esports Experts – June 27th
New British Esports Association Aims to Open National Training Centre
It’s nothing like the joke that was the United Kingdom eSports Association (UKESA, which still apparently owe Team Dignitas £11,000) – the British eSports Association is not-for-profit and backed by the UK Government. It has been set up to foster local talent and ‘represent competitive video gaming at all levels’.
The association has been formed today, following authority from the UK Business Secretary Sajid Javid. It will act as the National Governing Body for eSports in the United Kingdom.
It confirms rumours we heard back in May that a UK eSports governing body would be set up.
As an independent organisation, the British eSports Association will be chaired by games industry veteran Andy Payne OBE, with Chester King in the role of acting CEO.
It will be located at Pinewood Studios, and will work with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to represent players at all levels.
Read the full story here
FC Schalke Esports Expand Into FIFA
When revealing their League of Legends team that would be competing in the European LCS, the organisation advised they’d likely be moving into the FIFA scene a priority. A press release was released Monday June 27th about the expansion.
Heading up the project is a former FIFA and European champion for SK Gaming, Joshua Begehr. He’ll be developing the talent in the squad which so far consists of two new players, Mario Viska and Cihan Yasarlar. Mario is a six time German and Austrian Champion, whilst Berlin born Cihan is a young up and coming player with a number of championship titles already in his short career.
Read the full story here
Tencent’s eSports Domination
Can Supercell produce a third massive game to go with Clash of Clans and Clash Royale? Did Tencent buy Supercell at it’s peak? Or was it reasonable based on other companies revenue multiples?
Plenty of people have covered it already and this overview by Gaming analyst ZhugeEx is the best of what I’ve read. Ill just leave this here for perspective:
- Microsoft bought Nokia for $7B
- Supercell’s Valuation = YouTube ($1.6B) + Mojang ($2.5B) + Oculus ($2B) + Lucasfilm ($4b) COMBINED
Even without Supercell, Tencent was already the world’s largest Gaming Publisher. That also doesn’t include Tencent’s other platforms and revenue streams like WeChat, QQ, Weibo and numerous others. Let’s focus on the Gaming aspects or we’ll be here all day.
Read the full story here
E-LEAGUE | Complexity – 1 Thorin – 0
Interview with Diego Buñuel, the mind behind Canal+’s new esports show
Yesterday, Canal+ revealed the arrival of a weekly show about esports. So, we reached out to Diego Buñuel, the person behind the esports push at Canal+, to find out more.
Buñuel is a French film-maker and the host and director of the National Geographic series, Don’t Tell My Mother. He is also the host of a television news show in France called Les Nouveaux Explorateurs, broadcast on Canal Plus. In 2014, he became the Director of Documentaries and Factual Entertainment at Canal+.
Buñuel also served as the direct contact for Team Vitality within Canal+, which led to the sponsorship deal revealed a few weeks ago. With that in mind, we picked his brain for what he thought of esports—and where it would go from here.
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First Person Shooter Esports: The Road So Far – The Coffee & Scotch Esports Show
