The nightclub experience on the Las Vegas Strip is better if done with friends. Similarly, fans of eSports often have a better time playing with friends rather than by themselves. Nightclubs would be a great way to integrate eSports into casino operations, an expert panel told G2E attendees Monday.
An educational session on the topic was moderated by Adam Krejcik, principal owner of Eilers & Krejcik Gaming LLC. The three-person panel consisted of five-time eSports world champion Johnathan “FATAL1TY” Wendel; FiveGen and NV eSports CEO/CSO Sam McMullen; and Quentin Singleton, Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Government Affairs at NYX Gaming Group.
Wendel competed in his first eSports event in 1996, long before the term eSports existed. “Competing against a person and not the house is sexy” for millennials and eSports enthusiasts, Wendel, told attendees. “They love competing and talking trash,” and casinos need to build a platform to foster and support that kind of interaction.
Like many in the United States, Wendel said he spent much of his youth playing video games. Friends told him how good he was at it, so Wendel paid $20 to enter his first tournament, with the winner getting a year of free Internet service.
Since then, Wendel won several world titles, with a $150,000 win being his largest single-day take. He has parlayed his professional name, “FATAL1TY,” into FATAL1TY Gaming Gear and markets himself and his gear under the FATAL1TY brand.
Wendel suggested the nightclub experience would be an ideal way to integrate eSports into the casino experience for millennials, who enjoy the kinds of interactive and shared experiences provided by nightclubs and eSporting events.
“As long as there is context and a story to the fight, that’s what’s entertaining to us,” Wendel explained.
Millennials also love the intense excitement generated from competing against others. “They have to have a rush,” Wendel said, adding: “It has to be a fast-click rush.”
That means potentially intense contests of short duration, perhaps a minute to three minutes in length, which translates into many potential contests held in casinos supporting eSporting events. Wendel thought these would work well during slow times at nightclubs.
Supporting Wendel’s notion, Singleton said the Downtown Grand casino in Las Vegas recently held a poolside eSports event, which resulted in a “nightclub atmosphere.” He said that casino operators need to learn how to integrate that kind of experience into their eSports endeavors, if they choose to embrace it.
Singleton said the barriers to entry are low, in that eSports events only require a gaming console and a service provider for the gaming content.
As a market test, Wendel suggested placing a single eSports gaming platform at a popular nightclub and holding tournaments prior to the club’s regular opening time.
Competing in a tournament or watching others compete prior to a club’s opening would “create friendly rivalries and shared experiences” that many club patrons seek, Wendel said. “They love competing and talking trash.”
While eSports is an emerging market and phenomenon that has potential staying power and already has become big business on a global level, it’s one that requires a great deal of market research to better understand and identify which titles and events millennials find most compelling.
Fortunately, millennials are very open to market research and love to talk about themselves and their likes and dislikes, Wendel said. That means a great deal of qualitative research could be conducted to identify emerging trends that generate buzz and excitement among millennials.
As for gaming titles, while many have been in existence for years, most popular titles have a shelf life of less than two years, which creates the potential for new gaming and eSports experiences.
To identify which titles are most likely to be embraced by players and generate the greatest amount of play, publishers keep the gaming operators informed of upcoming titles, McMullen said. Another indicator is online skins.
McMullen described a skin as a type of bitmap; skins are used to change the appearance of players in games like Minecraft. Besides their functionality, they have become a kind of online currency. Gaming consumers can buy skins or otherwise obtain then, and then deposit them in online accounts gaming accounts.
Once deposited in an account, the consumer can win or lose more skins via gaming, and the gaming operator can sell those skins to a third party at a discount. That third party then marks up the price of the skin, and sells it back to consumers, McMullen and Wendel explained.
The skins can provide a quantitative assessment of the popularity of gaming titles, and the community that supports those titles essentially announces which ones are likely to have the broadest market appeal, McMullen and Wendel said.
Many attendees were concerned about the potential for a ringer to clean-up on lesser opponents during an eSports contest.
Because the gaming titles are driven by community support, by the time a title has established itself, the community generally knows who are the top guns and the handles under which they compete, such as Wendel’s FATAL1TY moniker.
Although Wendel likely would beat most challengers, McMullen said he’d have a fun time trying to knock off the top guy day after day. With just enough luck, it could happen, and create the great time and story that Wendel said eSporting enthusiasts enjoy most.
With established gaming titles and rules for those games, the panel suggested eSports already has a level of regulation, which could be improved with the creation of a regulatory body, McMullen said.
He likened professional eSports leagues, such as League of Legends, to the NBA or NFL, with firmly established rules and a contest format that helps to ensure gaming integrity. But with multiple gaming titles and different states interpreting eSports and other skills-based games differently, McMullen suggested a more standardized regulatory system or body would help to ensure gaming integrity.
Singleton added that some regulatory bodies lump all types of eSports and skills-based games under one umbrella. Others differentiate types of games, and conclude some are games of chance, while others are games of skill, and then have separate types of regulatory oversight.
To ensure gaming integrity, Wendel said land-based contests are the most honest and transparent, with the promoters providing the same gaming equipment to all contestants to ensure a level playing field. The only cheating Wendel said he ever experienced in a decade of eSports competitions were in online contests.
Online competitions generally don’t involve large cash prizes or items of great value, Wendel said, so they don’t attract big-money players.
Because eSports is much larger, more popular, and generally held in land-based formats, Wendel said the industry is “highly regulated and legitimate.”
Wendel said referees check gaming systems and equipment during contests to ensure integrity, and the live contests draw large crowds.
A League of Legends championship event scheduled October 29 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles is expected to draw 750,000 visitors, and McMullen said it will “shut down” the city.
Whether that many actually show for the event remains to be seen, but anything even remotely near that number more than affirms eSports is massively popular, draws large, enthusiastic crowds, and can produce a significant economic windfall for the locales that host the large events.
