1. HOW TO GET STARTED IN ESPORTS FOR
COMPETITIVE MOBILE & INDIE GAMES

2. OUR EVENTSOUR PARTNERS OUR REACH
10+ global stadium events
100,000s+ paying attendance
100,000+ visitors
per trade show
60 MM monthly viewers
ESL is the largest
premium content creator
125+ million social media impressions per year
12,000 hours of live ESL broadcasts
• World’s largest esports company
• Global footprint with offices in nine countries
• $15 MM in prize money awarded
ABOUT ESL
89M eSports enthusiasts worldwide, by 2017 that will be 145M
32M eSports viewers in North America alone, 71.5M Globally• eSports advertising will grow to $300 MM by 2018
• 16 - 34 year olds (Millennial) | 95% male
• Internet is their #1 source of fun & entertainment
THE MARKET
ESPORTS AND ESL

3. PLAY IS COMPETITIVE
• ESL provides structure to emerging sports (= games)
• Competition scales with audience growth
• Regular broadcasts add engaging entertainment layer
• Star players emerge, creating aspirational incentives
• Retention and engagement mechanism for games

4. COMPETITIVE GAMES
• Gameplay focus is synchronous PVP
• Online
• Gameplay mechanics with clear skill curve (easy to learn, hard to
master)
• Very often free-to-play
• Attractive to watch
• Player motivation driven by aspiration (achievement, winning, skill
improvement)

5. DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS
• Game Modes
• XonX
• Win Conditions & Draws
• Symmetry

6. CORE FEATURES
MATCHMAKING
• Matching players from a queue
• Skill-based at some point
• Some form of incentive system
CUSTOM LOBBIES
• Make it possible for people to select all match participants
• Allow settings to be made, and have result screens with player names
ANTI-CHEAT
• Especially PC games need to be tamper-proof
• Store as much telemetric data as possible on the server side

7. • Scheduled Events
• Play with Devs
• Tournaments
• Matchmaking time slots
STAGE 1 – EARLY ALPHA
RETAIN EARLY ADOPTERS
Family & Friends or very limited Alpha

8. HOW TO ORGANIZE
• One main channel for communication (reddit?)
• Social channels for support
• Constant communication / feedback loop with players
• Address concerns
• Immediately handle disputes
• Doodles / Strawpoll for scheduling
• DIY tournament systems

9. BEST PRACTICES
• Start with one day per week, expand on demand
• Combat toxicity early on
• Weekly feedback threads (solicit actively)
• Implement organizational feedback
• Stream if possible (spec mode, or at least dev matches)
• Only small prizes (toxicity / legal issues)

10. • Core focus: Player liquidity in Matchmaking
• Simple point or rank system helps a lot
• Add skill matching component
• In-game rewards (random drops if possible)
• Tournaments as additional retention system for best players
and content provision
• Influencer tournaments / play dates
STAGE 2 – CLOSED BETA
BUILD TO 24/7 ACTIVITY
Alpha to Closed Beta

11. BEST PRACTICES
• Closely monitor matchmaking KPIs
• Match quality
• Waiting times
• Actively promote emerging streamers, teams & players, the
backbone of your future competitive community
• Tournament rules & dispute handling

12. • Activate Party functionality for matchmaking
• Building up a competitive scene for the top 10%-20% of
hardcore players
• Weekly cash tournaments
• Official Broadcasts
• If budget allows, take competition finals offline
• If matchmaking stable, possible to add additional XonX / game
modes
STAGE 3 – OPEN BETA
GROW A SPORT
Open Beta to Release

13. SUMMARY
RETAIN EARLY ADOPTERS
Family & Friends, Alpha
BUILD TO 24/7 ACTIVITY
Alpha to Closed Beta
GROW A SPORT
Open Beta to Release
• Smart choices in game design, feature
selection and competitive mode
• Scale activity offering over time
• Constant, active communication with
players
• Focus on player liquidity in matchmaking
• Incentivize competitive play
• Love your influencers
• Lay groundwork for competitive structure
• Increase content frequency
• Add more gameplay options as player base
grows
Benefits:
-Powerful engagement & retention tool
-Provides content for activation
-Foundation for long lifecycle of game

14. THANK YOU!
David Hiltscher
VP Gaming Communities
E: d.hiltscher@eslgaming.com
T: twitter.com/affentod
Come see us @ gamescom
Hall 8 – Intel Extreme Masters
Hall 9 – ESL Arena