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eSports digest, week 20

Want to keep up-to-date with the fast moving eSports industry? Here’s your weekly digest of trends, facts and results.

The hero eSports deserves, but not the one it needs right now

The latest attempt to an eSport Federation, the WESA, is being panned by the community and the media alike. While some members have come to its defense, others are already rumored to abandon ship. Ruling the world is no easy task.

eSport is just like Sport

Ah, the Twitch Chat. The infamous flood of lolz and memes can also show its worst side at times. That’s what we all saw and read during the Dreamhack, where each Hearthstone player TerrenceM appearance on stream unleashed a smelly wave of racist jokes and insults. Blizzard and Twitch want to change that. Seeing how traditional sports struggle to silent their most racist fans, we wonder how they’ll prevail. Silence spell card, anyone?

It’s in the game

Popular sports club are diving into eSports. This week, UC Sampdoria (Italia) and West Ham United (UK) signed their first FIFA player. Popular German club Shalke 04 went a step further and bought Element’s LCS spot and some of its players. Big move.

Faker faked its slump

Let’s remix Gary Lineker famous football quote: “LoL is a simple game. 10 gamers run after each other with spells and at the end, Koreans always win.” That’s what everybody thought while SK Telecom took home yet another trophy, the Mid-Season Invitational. And to think the team was said to be in slump for the past few months…

An epidemic of non-endemic

The much awaited ELeague from Turner is about to start in a few days. We know the teams (pretty much all the top CS:GO teams) but what about the title sponsors? Here they are :
Arby’s, Credit Karma and Buffalo Wild Wings. Anything special? None of them is related to gaming, which is a great sign of eSports entering the mainstream market.

Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems?

To the excitement of its 12 million active players, Valve released its Compendium for The International 6, included in a seasonal Battle Pass. Loaded with even more bonuses and eye candy than last year, it is poised to push the money prize to new heights – we’re talking 25 to 30M$ range. But we also hope the publisher will deliver on its promises, as huge delays on rewards delivery plagued the fan experience last year. And again: this year’s Compendium is way more generous than its predecessor.

Our new Facebook Page is your new eSports calendar

We’re happy to announce our new Facebook Page, “Toornament eSports”

Yes, it’s 2016 and we’re launching a Facebook page. But make no mistake, this is not just your regular fanpage!

We thought our Facebook page as an eSports calendar embedded right into your Facebook timeline. As many people use the famous social network to manage their calendar, we thought it’d be cool for them to track eSports tournaments too.

Just “Like” our page and participate in our events to be notified of all the major eSports tournaments around the world.

Our Facebook page is a nice sidekick to our main website and mobile app to discover and follow eSports tournaments everyday, from everywhere.

Like the Toornament eSports Facebook Page

Use case: ESWC COD 2016

For the second year in a row, we’ve powered ESWC’s famous COD tournament, making extensive use of our features and testing a few new ones. Here’s the breakdown!

1 Paid Registration

The Online Qualifiers for each region all went through our Paid Registration system to collect the participants’ fees coming from all-over the world.

2 Structure

The tournament organizers picked a “Bracket Groups + Single Elimination Playoffs” structure, and manually modified the Playoff seeding to even the rest time for all the teams.

3 Overlays

A premiere. Tapping into our API, the production crew was able to generate real-time overlays with all the results, scores and maps. The regular method is to manually check a match result and then create a graphic through Photoshop, before sending it over the screen. We all know this is a hassle which lacks reactivity and can lead to typos and errors.

These automated overlays are one of the numerous uses you can make from our API.

4 Toornament TV

The Toornament TV was the Gaming Zone welcome screen, so that every participant, journalist or admin could be up-to-date in the blink of an eye. It was also put to good use on the main stage and streams. Information is key!

5 Widgets

Most media such as Dexerto, Millenium and aAa used our widgets to display the latest results in real-time, allowing their reporters to focus on interviews, photos and analysis.

6 Mobile app

We advertised our mobile app to everyone from the audience to the players so that everyone could know everything from anywhere!

Is Clash Royale the first real mobile eSport?

Clash Royale latest update brings the game closer to a great eSport, with per-Arena replays, live spectator mode, new clans options, meta balance… Wait a second, are we talking about Clash Royale, the funny, colorful Supercell mobile game as core, competitive game? Definitely.

While the doubters had their fair share of arguments to put the game in the “coffee pause” category, Clash Royale has gained more momentum and more credibility than any other games as the days go by. Millions of players, thousands of “best of” videos, filled tournaments… Are we witnessing the birth of the first and massive mobile eSport? We insist on both “first and massive”, as others have tried before…

The PC eSport on mobile fantasy

Let’s talk about Vainglory. Hyped as the mobile eSport champion since its announcement two years ago, the Super Evil Megacorp MOBA aims to bring a pure PC genre to mobiles. The game has been a success so far, with an engaged community and emerging pro scene, but remains minor compared to the major PC and consoles eSports out there.

Most people playing Vainglory praise its top notch execution and the way it deals with the trade-offs from a mouse/keyboard input to a tactile screen. But they also point out that Vainglory remains a chopped-down experience compared to a traditional MOBA. If it’s an excellent mobile game, it still suffers from the comparison with its older brothers.

Chopped-down PC, or Buffed-up Mobile?

On the other hand, Clash Royale is based on a pure mobile experience, with less mechanical skills and more decision making, shorter games and no teams. And it then proceeded to build upon these foundations, with advanced strategies, placement skills and competitive features. And it works.

The game has been a massive hit and #1 grossing app worldwide pretty much since its launch. One could say that it rides on the Clash Of Clans wave, but other Supercell (CoC and Clash Royale publisher) games haven’t met such a success.

The community also answered with an impressive activity on traditional eSport venues like Reddit, Youtube or Kamcord (a mobile-focused Twitch).

By aiming for competitive gaming while retaining all the mobile game design DNA, Clash Royale may have nailed it: an massive mobile eSport that doesn’t necessarly have to replicate the existing ones on PC.

In the end, it’s a great win for mobile eSports, as we’re now enjoying two great games. So, which one do you prefer: Vainglory or Clash Royale?

eSports Pros survey

Since our launch, Toornament grew up from a B2B platform to a media of its own. Our community grew even more, leading to a wide array of profiles.

In order to know you better and focus our efforts on the parts and features that matter to you, we’re launching two surveys: one for the eSports fans and one for the eSports professionals.

Following last week eSports Fans survey, we’re releasing our eSports Pro survey. Your answers will help us a lot and we’ll reward you with a little lottery: one of the survey participants will win a swag bag full of Toornament goodies!

Happy answers and again, thanks you for making Toornament the best eSports platform!