Wargaming: We spent $32 million and still don't understand what esports is

Wargaming does not fully understand what esports is, although it has spent $32 million on this industry. This was told at Casual Connect Europe by the head of the company’s esports direction, Mohamed Fadl.

After almost four years of studying esports, Wargaming is still far from understanding the industry. “We have invested $32 million only in our main cyber-sports initiatives – not in the entire infrastructure. In the first year, in 2012, we spent $10 million. They started streaming, and they were like, “People, do you actually like esports?”But we realized very quickly that we were far from understanding whether [we like it or not], because we ourselves have no idea what esports is,” Fadl shared.

To figure it out, Wargaming started collaborating with ESL esports league. The company helped the publishers of World of Tanks to improve the quality of streams and events. And partly understand what the user wants.

“We have financially secure players, but many of them do not know what esports is. These are age gentlemen. They don’t hang out on Twitch around the clock. Hence, an interesting task arose, since we did not understand how – or why – to attract them to esports,” commented Fadl.

While Wargaming is only moving towards the goal. There is still no final understanding. “It’s a pity, but we haven’t decided yet. Far from understanding. Our esports [teams] are 7 by 7, and the main gameplay is 15 by 15. Therefore, when a player watches [cyber competition], sometimes he does not understand what is what, because there is no similarity with the game he is playing,” Fadl said.

But despite the fact that certainty has not yet been achieved, Wargaming, according to Fadl, is going in the right direction. Users like to watch broadcasts of competitions, the number of viewers is growing. And the company is trying to adapt to the requirements of the audience.

“Evolution continues. We cannot control this process. Twitch, YouTube Live and Hitbox have created a new entertainment format. If we don’t adapt to our audience, we will miss a lot,” Fadl concluded.

Source: VentureBeat