Introducing Fan-Fueled eSports

Real-time collaboration between fans and gamers

eSports may be one of the fastest growing sectors in the video games industry. This year, eSports revenue is on track to gross nearly a billion dollars in revenue. By 2021 it is expected that those figures will nearly double. So what will the introduction of True Ownership do to an already rapidly expanding arena of gameplay?

Audience growth for eSports increases at about 14%-20% YoY

One expected outcome is that eSports tournaments will become dramatically more inclusive.

Enter Fan-Fueled eSports…

Professional gamers currently earn their living through three primary revenue streams: sponsorships, tournament prizes, and donations from fans. While this is a recent and revolutionary development in terms of income and lifestyle — it is the first time gamers can make gaming their full time careers — it is also an impossibly skewed opportunity, reserved for only the best players. True Ownership has the potential to modify that.

The most competitive players will still likely be the only ones who professionally compete in tournaments. Their skills are too highly honed. However, True Ownership may usher in a new dynamic between the pros and their fans, which will allow anyone to participate in the tournaments — even small contributions have the potential to make a massive impact.

Fan-Fueled eSports is the next generation of competitive gaming. Professional gamers will no longer be constrained to the limited resources of the tournament, but will instead rely upon their fans to win matches. eSports will effectively become a fan-based team sport.

Fans would become sideline players. Their fanaticism could be rewarded and they would be as much a part of the tournament as the professionals they’re watching.

How does it work?

Fan-Fueled eSports is a proposed tournament style which is enabled only through True Ownership of video game content. The basic premise includes four player dynamics:

Professionals compete in tournaments Fans send items to professionals during matches Managers are hired to negotiate the terms of the item transfers in real time Fans are rewarded when professionals, who they support, win tournaments

Collaborative gameplay

Professionals currently compete for massive tournament prizes. These are often awarded as cash, but in the future may also include exclusive game content. When items and cash (or, more accurately, crypto) prizes are all secured together on the same blockchain, then smart contracts can be deployed to share tournament winnings with a pro’s most supportive fans.

Fan-Fueled eSports essentially combines two current behaviors into one experience: tournament gameplay and donation-based fan support. During tournament matches, fans would be permitted to send items to their favorite players. This may be necessary, for example, when a professional’s sword is unexpectedly shattered or they take a critical hit. A fan could directly deposit a new sword or a life potion into their wallet and save them from an imminent loss.

Because substantial tournament prizes are at stake, a professional may be willing to offer some of the potential winning to fans who provide them with the greatest level of support. A manager would likely be hired to make negotiations with fans in real time during gameplay. For example, a rare life potion delivered to a pro in peril may earn a helpful fan something like 35% of the entire prize pool if timed correctly.

Managers would negotiate with fans on behalf of players to get them the best items at the lowest rates. Fans could earn tournament prizes, limited content, and other fan club exclusives.

Rules

Tournaments would likely experiment with a wide variety of variable rules. Some of these might include:

A limit to the number of items that can be delivered to a pro per match

A limit to the size of the prize pool that can be allocated to fans

A whitelist of permissible items that can be delivered (and blacklist of others)

A limit to the number of matches per tournament where fan support can be called upon

A limit to the number of players a fan can support per tournament

Rules could be written into smart contracts at the start of each tournament.

Conclusion

There is more to this idea than the scope of this blogpost permits, but it is worth considering further how True Ownership blurs the line between fans and players.

This isn’t uncommon. “Blurred lines” is a theme that continues to emerges whenever True Ownership is introduced in virtual worlds — even the real world begins to merge seamlessly when you consider that one day you’ll be able to spend your in-game loot at Starbucks.

If any eSports projects are interested in exploring this idea further, please reach out — even if just for fun. Our Alpha SDK is complete and we are collaborating with game studios who are experimenting with adding True Ownership to their games.

Also on the roadmap — Hoard is building a high performance decentralized exchange. Such an exchange will be the perfect tool for managers and fans to meet and negotiate in the Fan-Fueled eSports tournaments of the future.