Topic: Understanding the Esports Market: Strategies and Solutions for Heading to NA

Speaker: Nick D’Orazio - Inven Global / Strategic Content Director

[Topic] About how Korean game community Inven attempted to head to the NA market, and how Inven Global created a firm position in the NA market. Inven Global’s strategic content director, Nick D’Orazio will talk about the process in detail.

How can we create a North American esports presence? Inven Global’s strategic content director, Nick D’Orazio appeared on the stage to explain the strategies to advance to the NA market based on his own and Inven Global’s experience.

Although Inven has more than enough traffic, users, and influence in Korea, everything was different in the NA. They had to start everything from scratch. Inven Global was established in 2016, and had to find proper strategies to pioneer a new market. In the current 2019, they succeeded in creating meaningful success.

Inven Global achieved monthly 7 million page views, 1 million unique views, 780K users, 1.14M sessions, etc in 3 years. What strategy did they use to challenge the NA market, and what did they go through to accomplish such an achievement?

■ Heading to the NA Market - Why is the NA Market Important?

Nick started his lecture by talking about the value in the esports market. According to the statistics from Syracuse University, and market investigation companies Newzoo, and Research and Markets, the esports market is currently showing stable growth. It is predicted that the market will grow more explosively in the future.

The esports market revenue was estimated to be at approximately $1.1 billion in 2019, and it is predicted to rise up to $1.8 billion in 2021. In 2025, it’s predicted to be more than $3 billion. Also, they predicted that esports will be watched more than any other sport aside from the NFL.

Nick said that the NA market is important that of the $1.1 billion revenue in 2019, 32% of the revenue was from the NA market. China and Korea each recorded 19% and 6%, respectively, and the rest took up 38%. He emphasized that NA is a market game companies should consider seriously in the esports market.

Inven Global’s initial problems when heading to NA was that although the NA market is very large, it’s physically too far from Korea, and that the market itself was too different as well. It was difficult to bring the same thing that was successful in Korea to the NA.

Nick talked a lot about this matter with the team and came to a conclusion. Obviously, there’s a difference between the two markets, but it’s nearly impossible to consider everything since there are too many differences. So Inven Global and Nick concentrated on the points that the two markets have in common instead of taking care of the differences, and started searching for ways to adapt strategies they had.

■ Strategies to head to the NA market - Identifying Consumers, Becoming Credible, Finding Voices, Doing Something Good

Nick mentioned four steps in heading to the NA market. The four steps were identifying consumers, becoming credible, finding voice, and doing something good based on the first three steps.

First, to identify consumers, Nick said companies need to understand where they are. Which social media they’re using, which influencers they follow, what content they’re consuming, etc. Since the NA market is too large, it’s necessary to find how to be directly connected to the consumers.

The second step is to become credible to consumers. What Nick emphasized in this step was stability. He said, “there’s no shortcut to becoming credible,” and that Inven Global has been posting valuable news every day to gain that trust. The readers started to rely on Inven Global’s content, and naturally, Inven Global was able to reach the readers’ daily life.

The next step was finding a voice. What voice means here is what kind of image one wants to present. Managing how we appear to the public isn’t just marketing, it’s also connected closely to our life as well. This ‘voice’ has to be maintained, so it always has to be genuine.

What Nick explained was that the voice has to show the reality of oneself and what they want. One of the examples he showed was about a clothing company creating uniforms targeting female gamers. However, they were criticized for the marketing; unlike what they said in the marketing, the designs didn’t seem to be for female gamers.

Through this example, Nick spoke of the sincerity of the voice. The marketing targetted at female gamers wasn’t bad, but the female gamers did not feel any sincerity, so that was why the result was like that. Nick said it’s important to concentrate on the value based on genuineness when seeking one’s voice.

The last step, doing something good, is doing what the market needs. This step must have had the first three steps finished. Nick introduced this step as a process to gain a position in the NA market. Only by finding the consumers, gaining their trust, and finding one’s own voice, one can speak out about their opinion.

Inven Global aimed to accomplish the last step through IGEC. There weren’t many opportunities in the NA that people could speak about esports, so Inven Global planned IGEC. As a result, many people participated in IGEC and was evaluated as a great esports event. Through this process, Inven Global was able to gain a proper position in the NA market.

■ Q&A - What is esports to youngsters? Esports and AI? Esports of small companies?

Q: How is esports acknowledged in general in the NA? In Korea, it’s easier to form a positive image by being good at games as a student. However, it feels that students may be considered ‘nerdy’ if they play games. How is it like, and how does that atmosphere affect esports?

A: I’ve been meeting many students going around many high schools. Usually students in around 16-17. To them, esports is ‘the coolest thing in the world’, because all their peers are deeply into it. They don’t think of it as nerdy at all. They compete in who’s better at Fortnite and talk about it. I can answer that games and esports are a very cool thing in the NA.

Q: I’m an AI developer. AI will someday be ahead of humans in most of the esports. In Go, AI stepped ahead of humans already. How do you think AI would affect esports?

A: I think AI isn’t a negative issue for esports. It could rather become a new content in esports. Many pro players will fight against AIs, and fans will watch and be entertained. Victory is important in esports, but there’s always the aspect of entertainment. I think AI would improve this part. The most popular player isn’t always the winningest player. Although AI could become the best player, it won’t become the most popular player.

Q: I’m in a company that makes esports in Korea. Currently, esports is made by large game companies as a way to maintain their audience. However, most small companies don’t know how. Do they need to secure users and do esports? Or should they make esports to attract users?

A: Esports is a very important event for game companies. The game companies that have major esports businesses are usually big companies that prioritize maintaining their users. However, for smaller companies, it’s more important to attract new users than maintaining them. So I think small companies should make the environment for esports and concentrate on attracting viewership from other esports.

Q: You said that it’s important to take it slow, gaining trust from the users. However, small companies usually don’t have much capital and naturally would need a sponsor. What would be a good solution?

A: As you said, it’s difficult for a small company to make a big esports market. That’s the fact. So they should take their time, but always be ready to pounce when given the opportunity. It takes a lot of money to create a whole new esports league and it’s even more difficult to collect from it. What’s more important is to have an esports open; it should be open to whoever comes close and seizing the chance when the opportunity comes.