Esports
We find out about Gfinity’s upcoming tournament and how the European esports scene shakes down.
Gfinity's upcoming G3 eSports tournament is heading to The Copper Box in London, from August 2–3. A total of US$160,000 in prize pots is up for grabs for players of Call of Duty, StarCraft 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and FIFA. But Gfinity as a company has only been around for just over a year, so we got in touch with Chief Operating Officer Paul Kent to talk company roots, player support, gaming controversies and which nations do best at which esports.
Tell us about Gfinity's philosophy...
Gfinity is about a year and two or three months old, so the company itself is quite new to esports. That said, we've been involved in esports since back in 1996 – before it was even called esports – as enthusiasts, gamers, pro-gamers, running amateur leagues and cups, events. The time was right to apply [that knowledge] to bring something different to esports. The whole philosophy is that it's about the players. The viewing experience is great and we have the technology to stream and show people these games with big production, but ultimately it's about the players, whether it's the guy who plays once a week for 10 minutes or the guy who'll play 10 hours a night. We try to put them first.
For many years I've been to events where the top gamers in the world would be sitting in a dusty corner on an old school bench for 10 hours, yet we're trying to tell the mainstream media this is going to be the next big thing? That just doesn't tie up for us as a company. So for us, with online and offline events we've put them in prestigious places in London and treated the players like sports stars. It doesn't mean doing anything too extravagant, it's little things like giving them a player lounge so they can relax or giving them a special secret venue so they're excited. It's supposed to be fun.
This tournament is based in London, but how would you say the European esports scene breaks down? Are there national scenes?
When I was coming through in the first batch – the QuakeWorlds and the Counter-Strikes – a lot of the best players for FPS were Scandinavian. That still is the case. But that was the first wave. Then you look at the console scene in Europe and the FPS is dominated by the UK with only a few French teams and the rest of Europe is way behind. Then you look at League of Legends and Dota 2 and all of a sudden you're looking at Germany and Eastern Europe, so it breaks down quite nicely across Europe. They all seem to have different skillsets and bring something different to the table. There's a European scene and then there's all these subscenes. Unfortunately for the UK – and it pains me to say it – just now, outside of the console demographic we're lagging behind our European friends and partners. Hopefully that will change.
Does this influence the games you have at tournaments?
We try to take all games forward and progress them. We're doing the biggest FIFA tournament that's ever been done in Europe at our event to try and help FIFA get a bit further forward. For CS:GO we're doing the biggest CS:GO tournament that's ever been seen in the UK. It's about helping [the esports] develop but you do have to cater for what game is the most popular in your local region – which is why Call of Duty has always been a staple of what we do and it will be again at this event.
You pushed the tournament back to after the exam period – was that a request from the spectators or the players?
We had feedback from spectators saying, "We have exams around that period," and those who didn't have exams needed to study. Education comes first. We also had competitors coming to us saying, "We want to come to your event, but we're starting a very busy period." There was a DreamHack– it was a very busy period. It was an expense to move The Copper Box but it was worth it to put our community and the players first.
Do you offer support for players taking part in your tournaments?
We do offer assistance to the players and have great relationships with them. I'm sure you're aware, a year or a year and a half ago there was an event with another company where players behaved in a way that wasn't becoming of a family event. We felt although the players got attacked and punished for it, our view is these are kids and for the first time they've got a media spotlight on them. They don't know how to deal with that so, although their behaviour wasn't acceptable – and you can see some players go quiet or react in different ways – but it's because they've not had the support. We take a lot of time with the players to sit them down beforehand and bring them into the studio weeks before the event and go through everything with them. If they know how to handle the situation they perform better and if they perform better it's a better event.
What's been the biggest challenge for you at Gfinity?
The biggest challenge was building relationships with the teams, but it was also the easiest because it's been happening over the last 15 years. It's now extremely easy, but it has come from 15 years of effort and work and listening.
There was recently a lot of discussion about gendered esports tournaments because of the IeSF's Hearthstone rules – what's your approach to gender and esports?
I couldn't believe that happened in 2014, but there you go. Our view is we're against positive discrimination, but we're acutely aware that it's an industry where something like 87 percent is male. We actively engage with the female gamers in our community and we'd love to find female commentators like Pansy [Lauren Scott] over at ESL and we'd love to find a great female team, but we don't want to do it in a clichéd way with girl exhibition games. We support all the gamers in our community and we'd love to see a female team win one of our events.
Have you noticed a shift over the years in terms of male and female participants?
There's certainly been a positive shift. When I got involved 15 years ago there were no females. Equally, it was a hidden male demographic that took part. It wasn't cool kids, it was the stereotypical guy who hid in the closet. As games become more mainstream you are starting to see your typical school football star will also be a gamer and you're starting to see females involved in gaming. At our events you'll see girls actively involved and in teams who come to watch the best talent because they want to be the best talent.
What about the prize pools? Everything seems to pale in comparison to the US$10million TI4 is offering – are you considering compendia or other methods of crowdfunding?
We work closely with Valve and we have some crowdfunding stuff coming out. Valve will be the first to admit they didn't see such a monster coming with TI4. We can't compete with that but hopefully with the tools Valve are providing and other developers we'll see prize pots going up.
And given you've worked in the field so long, how do you see esports developing?
There's easy access to esports which has never been there before and it's changing things considerably. Games getting released now are coming with esports elements built in. Take League of Legends. That, ultimately, is esports and the game is massive. The $10m prize for Dota, 2 the fact Call of Duty is a big focus, Counter-Strike's come back and that's about esports. We're now seeing games aimed at people competing because what esports is is Sunday league for the digital age.
