FACEIT, the leading competitive gaming platform and creators of the eSports Championship Series (ECS), and YouTube, are partnering to take the next step in audience engagement by rewarding viewers with Loot Drops for watching livestreams on YouTube Gaming, starting with the ECS Season 4 Finals.

These rewards can be redeemed for a variety of real-world prizes, including computer hardware, branded merchandise or even a customized automobile. Loot Drops on livestreams have been used by a limited number of events until now, such as the Rocket League Championship Series and Valve CS:GO Majors, and have proven to engage viewers and boost viewership.

As part of FACEIT and YouTube Gaming’s exclusive broadcast partnership for the ECS, viewers of the popular Counter-Strike: Global Offensive league will have the opportunity to secure Loot Drops filled with FACEIT Points when they tune in to the league’s broadcasts on December 15-17. FACEIT will be distributing more than 15 million FACEIT Points over the course of the ECS Finals, and can be redeemed on FACEIT.com (https://www.faceit.com/en/shop) for real-world prizes, in-game items and other rewards. The total redeemable points on offer during the ECS Finals equals a staggering three Fiat 500s, ten Alienware Aurora PCs, over 375 eSports Team Jerseys or 3,750 Tek9 CS:GO in-game skins from the FACEIT Shop.

The new integration also allows FACEIT users to link their FACEIT.com accounts to their YouTube accounts, allowing for one unified platform to engage fans with rewards during their viewing experience. ECS and eSports fans can find all the action live on the ECS YouTube Gaming channel: http://gaming.youtube.com/faceit.

YouTube and FACEIT announced a multi-year exclusive broadcast partnership for the ECS in March 2017. The partnership between the two companies has helped cement YouTube’s commitment to premium eSports content and has positioned ECS as a leader in eSports leagues and content with its unique equity and revenue share model with Teams participating. From this partnership, YouTube Gaming offers ECS fans the opportunity to view high bitrate 1080p 60fps live video and instant playback on the platform.

“ECS offers some of the most compelling competitions with the world’s top pro gamers, and with YouTube Gaming’s powerful platform, this community has even more tools to engage with these matches,” said Michele Attisani, Chief Business Officer and co-founder of FACEIT. “The Loot Drop rewards, coupled with the FACEIT account login, gives ECS viewers more incentive to do what they already love to do, support their favorite teams.”

In addition to the linked account logins and the Loot Drop functionality, FACEIT and YouTube Gaming recently added a innovative widget to the official ECS YouTube Gaming page, allowing fans to view live game statistics to keep up with all the action.

“eSports continues to lead in viewer innovation, demanding that platforms adapt to new and exciting ways to engage audiences,” said Ryan Wyatt, Global Head of Gaming Content at YouTube. “We’re excited to work with FACEIT to add rich, content-specific features such as statistics, widgets and loot drops to reward and engage viewers. As we roll out even more cool features in the future, we look forward to hearing more from the community about what we can do to make spectator experiences even more robust.”

For more information on the eSports Championship Series, check out the league’s official site at www.csgoleague.com or follow the ECS (@ECSLeague) on Twitter.

About FACEIT

FACEIT is the leading competitive platform for online multiplayer games, with more than 5 million users logging in a total of over 12 million online game sessions each month. FACEIT allows players to easily play in tournaments and leagues for virtual and real-world prizes through automated tournament management and matchmaking technology. For developers, FACEIT’s advanced software development kit (SDK) allows game creators to easily integrate user-friendly matchmaking and tournaments into their titles to allow gamers to take part in competitive online games at all skill levels. eSports organizers, players and communities use FACEIT to create and manage online competitions. For more information on FACEIT, please visit www.faceit.com.

About YouTube

Launched in May 2005, YouTube allows billions of people to discover, watch and share originally-created videos. YouTube provides a forum for people to connect, inform, and inspire others across the globe and acts as a distribution platform for original content creators and advertisers large and small.

Source: Press release