Playfull, a platform that rewards League of Legends players with physical prizes simply for playing the game, has partnered with Cloud9 to offer its branded team merchandise.

Members of the Playfull community will have a chance to earn Cloud9 merchandise, while the organisation will benefit from market research gained through the process.

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Jack Etienne, Co-founder and CEO of Cloud9, commented in a blog post: “Cloud9 is excited to partner with Playfull to reward our community with C9 merch and experiences! Creating more channels for fan engagement opportunities, experiences, and feedback is important to us at C9, and we believe partnering with Playfull is a key step in strengthening that pursuit through their sound data-driven approach and market experience.”

Playfull’s website touts partnerships with Amazon, Coca-Cola, ESL, and DreamHack. The startup has raised $3 million (£2.45 million) to date, with the latest round for $2 million (£1.63 million) led by ESL and DreamHack parent company MTG in September 2019. The companies are giving away apparel from the Puma x Cloud9 line to celebrate the launch of the partnership.

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Patrick Lu, Co-founder and CEO of Playfull, added: “We are very excited to partner with Cloud9 to offer their merch as rewards for League of Legends players nationwide. Not only is C9 one of the best esports teams in the world, but C9’s intelligent use of data and technology platforms like Playfull is going to solidify them as one of the best sports franchises in the world. I’m excited to work closely with the world-class team behind C9 to build the future of esports fan engagement, rewards, and loyalty.”

Esports Insider says: Getting free stuff for playing League of Legends? It’s hard to argue with that. It’ll be interesting to see whether more esports organisations follow Cloud9’s lead here to put their brand in front of players who may not yet be deep into esports.

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