Mentioned in this article Games: Overwatch, Vainglory

We caught up with Kristian Segerstrale, the CEO of Super Evil Megacorp, just before the start of the Vainglory Unified Western Live Championships. Segerstrale has previously co-founded Macrospace in 2001 and co-founded social gaming developer Playfish in 2007, which was later acquired by EA. After working as an executive vice president for digital at EA and a director for Supercell, Segerstrale joined Super Evil Megacorp as an investor and board member before taking the role of CEO.[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]If there is a highlight of something that happened, we want it to be Vainglory that it happened in.[/perfectpullquote]



Tencent released their mobile MOBA Honor of Kings in Europe this month, which is massive in China. Other Asian developers are also planning ports of their popular titles. How will you keep Vainglory and its esport scene ahead of these competitors?

Vainglory is about delivering a competitive real-time experience on mobile, allowing access to the huge mobile market. Honor of Kings is doing a great job of expanding the target market, and there are Chinese Vainglory players, but currently we are more focused on the Asian region outside of China than China itself. We’re aiming to make Vainglory the mobile esport that people are talking about by delivering an experience that delivers highlights. If there is a highlight of something that happened, we want it to be Vainglory that it happened in.

Vainglory is the first esport to hold a franchised competition. When you look at the uncertainty surrounding the LoL franchise plans, or the bad PR with the Overwatch League, what do you think are the major pitfalls of this kind of structure, and how have you strived to avoid them?

Franchising is not new and what’s important for us is to build the community and our partnerships in a sustainable way. Originally we didn’t consider esports, we were too busy with the game, but players were asking for the more competitive environment, for spectator modes. When we implemented that, the community started running events. Franchising is an opportunity to work closely with the teams and we hope that Vainglory will allow SEMC to be the Blizzard or the Riot Games of the mobile space.

When the Vainglory franchises were announced, you said partner teams would participate in an advisory council and help shape the game’s competitive landscape. How have those conversations been conducted so far, and what have been some of the outcomes?



Working with the teams is really important to us. We want them to shape what competitive Vainglory is in a way that enables them to be successful as businesses and allows us to continue to grow the playerbase and viewership of the esports scene. We are looking long term, five to ten years down the line, so we want to make sure we start in the right way so that we can continue to grow.

Like most free-to-play titles, Vainglory generates most of its revenues through in-app purchases. Is the game’s esport scene being treated as a potential new profit centre, or is it too early to make those predictions?[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]We just want to keep working with the community.[/perfectpullquote]

Currently, we are focused on developing the competitions and working with the teams to make sure the way we work is right for the players. In the future, in five years time, I’m sure that there will be an additional revenue stream from esports with ticket sales, merchandise, and that kind of thing. Right now, we just want to keep working with the community. One of our focuses recently has been on the shorter session users, introducing the Battle Royale mode for instance, so we can cater to people who are playing more casually. Vainglory has always been about delivering the same experience that PC gaming has given people over the years, playing competitively with friends in a high fidelity game. Games are usually multiplayer now with a token single-player campaign bundled in.

Have you also considered making a campaign mode?

We did, we’ve spent some time trying to make a campaign mode that works for Vainglory. Maybe in the future we’ll have something there but the other multiplayer modes have been the development priorities.