The video game industry is constantly shifting and evolving, and as more and more sales move to digital and many devices shun physical media, retailers have likewise had to evolve to maintain relevance in this changing business. For GameStop, the world’s largest video game specialty retailer, that means embracing a new kind of role within the lives of gamers.

[perfectpullquote align=”left” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]”The reason I came back is that I have a huge belief and a vision that GameStop should be basically the local church of gaming. “[/perfectpullquote]

GameStop sees esports as a big part of that evolution—and its future, as well. That’s why the Texas-based retailer recently unveiled partnerships with three prominent organizations all based within the state: Complexity Gaming , Team Envy , and OpTic Gaming , as well as the Overwatch League sister teams of Envy and OpTic. In the short term, it’s a content play, setting GameStop up with training videos that will run in its stores and on its website. But it’s really just the first step in a longer-term vision to make esports a key part of GameStop’s business.

Following March’s announcements, The Esports Observer spoke with representatives of GameStop, Complexity Gaming, Team Envy, and OpTic Gaming parent company Infinite Esports & Entertainment to learn about GameStop’s esports push, the benefits for both sides, and how esports can help the retailer reposition itself for an increasingly digital future.

Why Esports?

Frank Hamlin had served as chief marketing officer for GameStop from 2014 to 2016, before departing for another opportunity. He returned in 2018, armed with a plan for how to help GameStop shift gears while still serving a key role in the gaming ecosystem.

“The reason I came back is that I have a huge belief and a vision that GameStop should be basically the local church of gaming. If E3, PAX South, or Comic-Con is Mecca, the Vatican, or the Wailing Wall, then we should be the local church,” he said. Head of partnerships John Davidson—who joined the company during Hamlin’s absence—and his team saw an opportunity to make esports part of that vision. “They were here when I got back,” added Hamlin, “and they came into my office and said, ‘We need to double down on esports strategically.'”

GameStop currently operates more than 3,700 stores across the United States, with that number topping 6,000 internationally. Sponsoring a tournament or event might help GameStop in a single location or with a certain group of fans, but Hamlin didn’t think that was a strong enough play.

Credit: The Esports Observer/Esports Business Solutions UG

“The positives and negatives of esports, in my opinion—when you view it from the realm of a retailer—is that writing a check for a sponsorship that helps pull off an event is a great thing to do for the community that’s viewing those activities,” he said. “But as a retailer, I don’t think it’s taking full advantage of what we have to offer, and the millions of customers that are in our ecosystem.”

Instead, Hamlin said that GameStop saw an opportunity to start building traction in the competitive gaming scene by working with established esports teams, pairing the retailer’s resources and reach with the teams’ own experience and established fan bases. “The deals that we decided to enter into were very much about leveraging the expertise, the fame, and the followings of these professional players to create very unique exclusive content, appearances, etc. inside GameStop stores,” said Hamlin.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]”The resources, assets, and relationships that they can bring to the table are also incredibly valuable.”[/perfectpullquote]

Envy, Complexity, and OpTic will all produce tips-and-tricks “clinics,” which each span multiple videos and help players better understand popular video games, how to play them at a competitive level, and even how to prepare themselves to be esports athletes. In April, GameStop posted a series of Fortnite videos from Complexity Gaming, while May brought a series of videos from OpTic Gaming’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 team. All of that content is viewable on GameStop’s website, and will also run on televisions within GameStop stores.

The Magic Number

All three of these organizations field teams across multiple games and have considerable content creation resources. Why, then, did GameStop opt to sponsor three competing teams instead of just one?

“Each of them brings to the table tremendous resources in and of themselves,” said Hamlin. “The combination of them really shows that we believe, to our fan base, that we’re in this in a deep and comprehensive way. […] It’s agnosticism in terms of an individual fandom, but through those teams, we’ve aggregated some of the best players in the world.”

For Complexity Gaming, Infinite Esports & Entertainment, and Envy Gaming, each team’s deal provides it with an established gaming brand to add to its respective stable of partnerships. “GameStop has been synonymous with American gaming for many, many years, and being aligned with such a solid brand that really has deep roots in gaming’s past is really beneficial to us,” said Jason Lake, founder and CEO of Complexity Gaming. “The resources, assets, and relationships that they can bring to the table are also incredibly valuable.”

Credit: OpTic Gaming

GameStop is based out of Grapevine, Texas, which is in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, and all three of these teams are likewise headquartered in same region. Hamlin also pointed to Southern Methodist University’s Guildhall video game development program and the area’s National Videogame Museum as signs of DFW becoming a gaming hub in a variety of ways. “The Dallas/Fort Worth area is really becoming the epicenter for competitive gaming and gaming overall,” said Hamlin. “We’re just helping to strengthen those community ties.”

GameStop got its first taste of local activations with April’s Bud Light Homestand Weekend – Dallas event, which featured the first-ever Overwatch League games held away from the Blizzard Arena in California. Team Envy’s Dallas Fuel was the home team, and GameStop activated on-site with seating upgrade benefits for customers, plus the company sponsored the official after-party.

[perfectpullquote align=”left” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]”It’s one of those brands, that as lifelong gamers, we’ve known and been a part of. “[/perfectpullquote]

“I think they’re rightly very excited about all of the things that are going on in Texas, and specifically Dallas/Fort Worth with esports,” said Geoff Moore, chief operating officer for Team Envy. “One of the things that they’ve communicated that’s important to them is that they want to diversify the way they serve their fan base and customer base. Obviously, they’ve been an important part of the buy-sell-trade gaming community for a long time, but with the emergence of esports, I think they saw a way that they could interact and connect and engage with their customer base in a way that makes them boost their fandom, which is kind of a different sort of relationship. We’re excited to be a part of it.”

For OpTic Gaming and Houston Outlaws parent company Infinite Esports & Entertainment, GameStop represented an opportunity to help a familiar brand make a big impact in a new kind of gaming space.

“It’s one of those brands, that as lifelong gamers, we’ve known and been a part of. I’d say most of us here, whether it’s staff or players, have done some type of midnight release party,” said Chris DeAppolonio, executive vice president of partnerships at Infinite Esports & Entertainment. “GameStop has always been core to that audience, and to be able to help them get into the esports space through our fans and our passionate, loyal following is really phenomenal for us. They’ve been around forever, and OpTic Gaming’s been around just as long, so it’s nice to see two kinds of traditional brands come together in this way.” They want to really put DFW on the map for esports, and I think the fact that all four parties can work together to make this partnership really amplified is something that you don’t really see anywhere else in esports partnerships,” he added. “Esports going local is fairly new, and I applaud GameStop for going with the partners in their own backyard.”

Credit: Team Envy

The GameStop Performance Center

Another big piece of GameStop’s esports push is naming rights for Complexity’s new facility at the Dallas Cowboys World Headquarters at The Star in Frisco, Texas. Dubbed the GameStop Performance Center, the newly-opened headquarters is a lavish building designed for many different purposes. It houses Complexity’s training facility, employees, and content teams, but also will have a publicly-accessible area used for activations, merchandise sales, and esports-centric experiences for visitors. The public area is set to open this summer.

“GameStop being a local Dallas company, it made a lot of sense for us to start reaching out to them last year,” said Complexity’s Lake. “Our own [vice president and chief revenue officer] Daniel Herz reached out and began discussions with them. We were explaining about the facility we were building here in Frisco, Texas, and they became immediately interested and talks went from there.”

The GameStop Performance Center provides many potential benefits for the retailer. With the three-year deal, GameStop gains naming rights to a prominent building at the headquarters for the NFL’s Cowboys, the most valuable sports franchise on the planet, and develops a more extensive relationship with the recently-rebranded Complexity Gaming and the Cowboys organization as a result. More practically, the building also provides a space for events and activations, as well as content creation.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]”The play there is that it is a really sweet, modern, state-of-the-art facility, predominantly built for the Complexity corporate offices but even more predominantly for their teams.”[/perfectpullquote]

Related Article: Inside Complexity Gaming’s Rebrand, Alignment with Dallas Cowboys

“The play there is that it is a really sweet, modern, state-of-the-art facility, predominantly built for the Complexity corporate offices but even more predominantly for their teams,” said Hamlin. “For one, for GameStop, it’s just an association with that level of professionalism. The second huge, and most important piece for us is that it will predominantly be the place from which all of this content that we’re creating with all of the teams emanates. We’ll be streaming many of our events from Complexity’s Performance Center.”

The GameStop Performance Center is decked out with modern features and benefits for players, including a mental training Mind Gym created in association with Kobe Bryant’s Mamba Sports Academy and peripheral maker HyperX , as well as nap pods for players to decompress in before a game. It also has a branded Miller Lite Player Lounge sponsored by MillerCoors.

“I think for GameStop, as they look to modernize their efforts in gaming, having one of the foremost training facilities in the entire world was just a logical move,” said Lake. “The GSPC is meant to be the apex of competitive training facilities anywhere in the world. We spent a year designing in every possible feature that anyone could ask for, to try to create the perfect fusion of being accessible to the public but also providing the highest level of training for our professional gamers.”

Credit: The Esports Observer/Esports Business Solutions UG

According to Lake, the public area represents about the front one-third of the building, but that area can also be harnessed for brand activations. “Whenever we choose to, we can close that off and do partner activations, whether that’s onsite gaming clinics, or whether that’s watch parties for people who have gone through our partners to win those opportunities,” he added. “There’s really a plethora of different ways we can activate that gaming space with our partner before we even get to the back of the house.”

Team Envy and Infinite Esports & Entertainment get the added benefit of sponsorship for their Overwatch League teams, the Dallas Fuel and Houston Outlaws, respectively—but Complexity has its own significant benefit in the GameStop Performance Center. Ultimately, Lake sees all three deals as positive for esports and the region.

“I think it’s fantastic that they’ve committed to different organizations around the Dallas/Fort Worth area, because in many ways, it is a situation where a rising tide does raise all ships,” he said. “We have great relationships with the fine folks over at OpTic and Envy, and we’re looking forward to figuring out bigger and better ways to collaborate with them and GameStop in the future.”

[perfectpullquote align=”left” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]”We’re a very national retailer, and partnering with esports teams is sort of a weird thing to do. “[/perfectpullquote]

“Being one of their lead partners, I think,” Lake added, “is going to open up lots of doors and present lots of opportunities for national, if not global growth for our brand.”

Getting Competitive

Hamlin said that opting for a regional focus might seem like an odd approach for a national retail company, but it’s an opportunity for GameStop to begin with local partners and then consider broader steps in the future.

“We’re a very national retailer, and partnering with esports teams is sort of a weird thing to do. Any kind of a regional partner for a national retailer is a hard thing to do,” he said. “Esports teams, the way that they’re organized, is slightly different. But when you get into something like the Overwatch League, you really want to partner with every team because we have fans that are fans of an individual community’s team.”

Credit: GameStop

“This is our first foray into it,” Hamlin continued. “It was a logical place to start because we can partner very closely with these people because of the geographic lack of distance. But this, by no means, means that we would never partner with somebody outside of the Fort Worth community.”

GameStop’s vision for its role in the future of competitive gaming includes local tournaments at stores, as well as the possibility for store-vs.-store competitions. The company appears to be taking cues from board game and collectible card game stores, which often host tournaments and have space for pickup games to drive engagement and draw people into their locations. Given the rise of esports, however, and GameStop’s significant retail footprint, the company has the potential to execute a much larger plan.

“The Southlake Southpaws could take on the Glade Gladiators,” said Hamlin, suggesting potential team names for a couple of local Texas GameStop locations. “You could build a network league amongst our stores, and those things could escalate. Many of the conversations we’re having with pro teams is we could get to a point where we’re sort of the U.S. Open, and an amateur winning team in the GameStop network could become the team that gets to compete in a professional event.”

[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]”It was a logical place to start because we can partner very closely with these people because of the geographic lack of distance. “[/perfectpullquote]

That all seems to be further out in the future for GameStop, given its initial activation plans with Complexity Gaming, Team Envy, and OpTic Gaming—but if these first steps are fruitful, then there could be many more ahead for GameStop. Hamlin, fond of metaphors, used one more to suggest the potential impact of such an approach on local communities.