I’ve been a programmer and IT enthusiast for 30 years (since the zx spectrum) and concentrated on AI (neural nets & genetic algorithms) at University. My principle skills are concentrated on Enterprise and Solution Architecture and managing effective developer teams.
I enjoy the mix between technical and business aspects; how technology enables and how that (hopefully) improves profit/EBITDA & reduces cost-per-transaction, the impact upon staff and how to remediate go-live and handover, and risk identification and mitigation. My guiding principle is “Occams Razor” that simplicity is almost always the best option by reducing complexity, time to build, organisational stress and longer term costs.
What are esports?
Summary
We work a lot in esports and people outside of games always ask: what are esports? Hopefully we'll do it justice here.
A simple definition is the competitive playing and viewing of videogames!
Talking about it like a Pro
Esports is a noun. Always using Esports or e-sports is wrong.. it's "esports" and capitalised at the start of a sentence!
Tradition Sports versus Esports
Everybody understands sports and esports are purely the "virtual" version.
Sports are played at grassroots, amateur and professional levels and at various grades. For example football (soccer to our American clients!) in England/Wales is played at the top level (the Premiership) all the way to children and adults playing on Saturday and Sundays. Across leagues and competitions..
Esports is no different; players compete both online and in physical locations across a wide range of games. There are also professional players and esports can be team or individual based just like traditional sports.
And, just like sports, players and teams have a following and are watched. Many many more people are watching esports than actively engaging both online and offline.
When will esports be "mainstream"
In all truth they already are; millions of people play and more millions watch esports online. Some TV channels are transmitting esports play but the majority of esports viewers are watching via platforms like Twitch, YouTube, Caffeine.tv and the games' publishers own channels.
Major competitions are now selling out venues like Wembley arena..
How does esports relate to me?
If you've got co-workers, employees or partners then chances are that you've already got esports fans in your midst.
Adding esports internally within your organisation can have strong effects on engagement and employee retention: it's an easy way to bring people together across multiple locations (teams don't have to be in the same office so that can reduce employee isolation) and it can be a massive work-life balance improvement for people who don't engage in sports or other activities.
We've also helped clients to create esports environments to engage new customers and retain/re-activate existing ones.
As ever, give us a call if you want to chat as we'd love to help.
About the author
Stuart Muckley
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