Mentioned in this article Games: Dota 2, Hearthstone, Overwatch, Vainglory

Esports is a momentous opportunity for advertisers. Already accounting for 74 percent of revenue, within a few years marketing and sponsorships will cement themselves as the lifeblood of the industry. But when it comes to the games themselves, esports is rarely promoted on the street, in pre-roll commercials or at trade shows. The competitions provide good PR for big time publishers, but when new studios need to assure investors that a game will find a core player base and solid viewership, why not use esports to promote games to an increasingly competitive audience?

Some publishers already put esport-centric promotions to good use. Before last year’s Blizzcon, every registered Hearthstone player could go online, “choose a champion”, and receive free packs whenever their pick was victorious. More notably, Valve uses a unique crowdfunding system for the Dota 2 International, where backers purchase in-game items in full knowledge that 25 percent of the revenue will go to the competition. This resulted in a prize pool of over $20 million last year; the biggest in esports history.

These campaigns can drum up esport interest, but only in already converted customers. Why aren’t more publishers pushing new franchises over their competitive viability? One problem is that pro gamers are highly skeptical of developers who prematurely promise a balanced meta and plenty of prize money. For players to buy your game as an esport, you need to convince them it’s a worthy investment of their skills.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]For players to buy your game as an esport, you need to convince them it’s a worthy investment of their skills.[/perfectpullquote]

Let’s pretend I had a talent for first-person shooters. Now imagine a small-time studio brings their highly-balanced Quake clone out of beta, showcasing a highly-refined leaderboard and robust qualifier system. I would be more tempted to buy the game knowing that a tried-and-tested competitive scene was waiting right out of the box. This is essentially what happened with Overwatch. The first World Cup at Blizzcon was watched by 100,000 people on Twitch, largely because the competitive framework had been constantly refined since (and even before) its release.

Certainly, advertising your game as spectator sport can be disastrous. It recalls botched attempts such as The Wizard; a feature-length Nintendo commercial masquerading as a throwaway 80’s kids flick. In the film’s memorable climax, an unreleased Super Mario Bros. 3 is revealed to the characters (and North American gaming audience) as the final challenge of a video game tournament. Extremely shallow advertising for sure, but to its credit, this was an effective introduction for one of the all-time bestselling video games. Almost three decades later, and the company still uses fictional stadiums to promote its games – Splatoon is hardly a major esport, but that didn’t stop Nintendo advertising it as such in its debut Switch commercial.

Compared to traditional sports, competitive gaming has a more accessible infrastructure. Football (both American and soccer) asks its future stars to spend years slogging through college and drafting programs to even earn a shot at a career. To be a professional gamer, you just need to get insanely good at one video game. Perhaps that’s oversimplifying the esports dream, but it’s still an easy dream to sell.

Virtually all traditional sports, from athletics to golf, also require specialist equipment. Video games, conversely, can be played with universal hardware. Even if your game is the technical outsider, due to limited graphics or an unusual control scheme, that doesn’t automatically rule it out of the competitive class. The premier tablet MOBA Vainglory showed that if you target potential players for their ability in a specific genre, your USP (ie. the MOBA “perfected” for a touch screen) can easily outweigh any hardware limitations.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]If a blockbuster shooter is genuinely competitive, who cares if it’s just Call of Duty with a sci-fi facelift?[/perfectpullquote]

By advertising to a well versed, pro gamer audience, AAA game companies could even turn one of their major criticisms (a reliance on familiar game design over innovation) into an advertising plus. If a blockbuster shooter is genuinely competitive, who cares if it’s just Call of Duty with a sci-fi facelift?

Leading esports publishers realized early on that there’s also market potential for investing in developer tools and anti-cheating technology. Superdata’s research showed that esports will grow to reach $1.1B in 2018, partly due to the growth of direct revenue sources such as amateur tournament platforms. This will only be possible with significant input by Western publishers, who are already predicted to assist the growing revenue by 27 percent in 2017.

When it comes to influencer advertising, using streamers to promote indie titles has been commonplace for a while now. Most heavyweight YouTube gamers are happy to devote a video or two under the “sponsored content” banner, but if the game scratches a competitive itch, future viewership engagement takes care of itself. One of the top posts on /r/Hearthstone this month was an announcement from G2’s Adrian “Lifecoach” Koy, who’s quitting the Hearthstone ladder. With the same breath, the German player praised rival digital card game Gwent, precisely because it embraced strategy in a way Hearthstone wasn’t.

Esports isn’t just a profitable side-arm of the video game industry. It’s now woven into the fabric of gaming culture, and publishers need to embrace the players, teams and even core concept itself as a marketing vehicle if they want a game to be worthy of champions.