Dec
5
Barcrafts or how E-sports became Mainstream over night.
Posted by: marvinamm | December 5, 2011 | Leave a Comment
This post will constitute my last post for a while as my course in Marketing is coming to an end. I might occasionally post some more updates if I feel like it but am not too sure about the future of this blog. As such I feel I should leave the internet stage with a bang and as such the topic of this post is going to be Barcrafts and the current rise of E-sports in form of Starcraft II.
Before I get going I feel I have to paint you a picture of what dimension we are talking about. Starcraft II a Real Time Strategy Game (RTS) developed by blizzard entertainment has been out for a bit more than a year now and it has sold over 3 million copies so far. This might not seem as much when compared to CoD or BF 3 but the impact SCII had on the gaming industry and the E-sports sector far outweighs what CoD and BF3 have achieved. To give you a picture:
Huskystarcraft is the most subscribed youtube reporter of the world. People like him and Day[9], Tasteless and Artosis have developed a name for themselves and are now all living on SCII commentating full time with daily youtube casts as well as casting major tournaments like MLG, NASL, GSL and many other smaller leagues. Most of the top players in these tournaments now also play SCII for a living just like other Professional Athletes in the NBA, NHL and NFL.
MLG and GLS and co. have developed into major players in the E-sports scene and prize pool for MLG Providence was over 120,000 USD with 50,000 USD for first prize and over 180,000 live viewers for the finals. This amount of publicity around a SCII tournament has never been seen outside of Korea before but small businesses as well as large well known corporations are now seeing the potential in E-sports. The Major sponsors for MLG this year included the usual suspects that sell gaming equipment such as Dell, Alienware, Intel, Nvidia and Steelseries but more importantly some Mainstream companies such as Dr. Peppers, Hot Pockets and NoS energy drinks.
Another good sign for the growth of E-sports is the growth of Barcrafts all over the World. A Barcraft is a pocket word as a merge between Bar and Starcraft. This means that sports bars and pubs all over the world are now hosting live viewing events for Starcraft II just as they would for the Superbowl or the Stanley Cup. And the results speak for themselves. The Barcraft here in Vancouver attracted far over 200 people into one Sportsbar which lead to a number of people not being able to enter the venue. All these things combined make me very optimistic about the future of E-sports. I am not the only one interested in this: Forbes Magazine has one editor that has now written a number of articles about the rise of E-sports using SCII as the prime example of how it is done.
To conclude I would like to say that all these developments point towards a rise in E-sports unprecedented in the Western World and Companies that see this trend and consequently use the publicity generated by these events will have the opportunity to capitalise on a highly loyal and energetic market that is willing and able to support E-sport which in turn means supporting the Sponsors of major tournaments.
This shall conclude my last article for a while and if anyone has any questions about E-sports or wants to meet up for a drink at the local Vancouver Barcraft feel free to leave a comment or contact me otherwise and we can arrange something.
It was an honour writing for you all and I must say although I was rather sceptical about the whole idea of a blog for class I really enjoyed it and I might just continue blogging in my free time.