Mentioned in this article Games: League of Legends

Azubu and Hitbox are no more. Both streaming platforms have officially combined and rebranded into Smashcast, which declares itself “the world’s largest independent esports broadcaster outside Asia”. While that is technically true, can a new feature set and alternative approach to advertising surpass the 20 million viewers of its predecessors, and overcome its biggest competitor Twitch?

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]The launch includes a 4K content production studio in Vienna, Austria.[/perfectpullquote]

Smashcast comes right out the bat with a simple layout, aspiring for the lowest-cost technical and service infrastructure compared to the other streaming platforms. It’s viewer engagement feature, named the Hype-O-Meter, is essentially Facebook Live’s floating emoji feature, and as on Twitch it is now possible to integrate a channel with your Discord server. More importantly, the launch includes a 4K content production studio in Vienna, Austria, designed to integrate the firm further with the esports ecosystem.

“The new Vienna production facility is a key next step for us in ensuring the quality of support we provide our broadcasting and publishing partners,” says Martin Klimscha, European Managing Director of Smashcast. “We wanted specifically to ensure that we are differentiated from our competitors not only from our platform and technology excellence, which includes full 4K and 360 VR support, but from the quality of streaming content as well.”

There is also a planned shift in monetization. Smashcast will focus on interactive sponsor-based advertising, virtual goods sales, sponsorships and in-game betting to excel its ARPU. One of the more interesting avenues they’re pursuing is affiliate marketing, which in the esports realm currently enjoys a low competitive keyword market, and an avalanche of betting sites – with the esports bettor industry alone expected to reach $200 million in 2018.

[perfectpullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Azubu acquired Hitbox in a deal believed to be worth “tens of millions of dollars in cash”[/perfectpullquote]

Azubu acquired Hitbox in January 2017 in a deal believed to be worth “tens of millions of dollars in cash”; a bittersweet end to a turbulent year for Azubu. As reported at length by The LA Times, the start-up suffered from staggered funds from its main financer, energy and agriculture investor Lars Windhorst. This resulted in features months overdue, late paychecks for employees, and an early investor pulling out and successfully regaining their $7.5 million injection. The platform also lost out on streaming League of Legends games after it could no longer afford the million dollar rights fees.

The cautious, bootstrapped launch of Smashcast is a solid first step for redemption, and with Azubu’s remaining popularity outside the U.S. (particularly Brazil) and Hitbox’s European market share, the platform has some advantages. It will have multiple mountains to climb though, including Twitch’s exclusivity clause for partners, and emerging competition from social media streaming.