THE GAMES OF ESPORTS

Nicolas CERRATO – Gamoloco.com

GAME CONNECTION PARIS

October 2014

« Easy to learn, lifetime to master. »

Zileas Starcraft Broodwar

Beta Champion

1999

Tom Cadwell

aka Zileas

is hired to lead the game design department for a new game called League of Legends

2008

October 13th 2014

AC4 Black Flag – 3 700 #62, released in 2013, peak at 16k on Day 1

STEAM daily concurrent players peaks :

Source: SteamGraph.net

CS – 30 000#9, released in 2000

DotA 2 – 800 000#1 on Steam

CS:GO – 200 000#2 on Steam

TF2 – 90 000#3 on Steam

2010 - 2014

League of Legends

2 000 000

3 000 000

4 000 000

5 000 000

6 000 000

7 000 000

League of Legends7M CC Players daily peak

27M players/day67M players/month

ESPORTS HISTORY

1/ BEFORE 1998

2/ 1998 – 2003A NEW HOPE

3/ 2004 – 2009THE LONG SLIDE

4/ 2010 – 2014TO INFINITY & BEYOND

PongStreet FighterAny 1v1 game

BEFORE 1998

Birth of Esports

In the 90’s:Warcraft

QuakeDoom

Command & ConquerAge of Empires

New dreams are born: « The NBA of video games »

MAIN GAMES1/ Counter-Strike 2/ Starcraft 3/ Quake 3

A NEW HOPE: 1998-2003

Starcraft, Counter-Strike & Quake 3 come out

Communities grow in sizes and activities

The Korean scene booms like crazy

THE LONG SLIDE: 2004-2009

MAIN GAMES1/ Counter-Strike 2/ Warcraft 3 3/ COD

The 1st crisis for esports

Warcraft 3 and CS:Source are disappointing games

DotA is played A LOT but not considered for esports

Still no TV Shows to air the best matches

TO INFINITY & BEYOND: 2010-2014

Game makers start to understand what to do and how

Starcraft 2 is the sparkle but the breakthrough comes with MOBA’s

Counter-Strike finally comes back to life

Console games start pushing hard

Add streaming platforms to the mix

The NBA of video games is not so far

MAIN GAMES

1/ League of Legends2/ DotA

3/ Hearthstone4/ Counter-Strike5/ Call of Duty6/ Starcraft

7/ Super Smash Bros8/ Street Fighter

9/ Smite

TO INFINITY & BEYOND: 2010-2014

THE GAMES OF ESPORTS

Starcraft / WarcraftREAL-TIME STRATEGY

Counter-StrikeFIRST-PERSON SHOOTER

DotAMULTIPLAYER ONLINE BATTLE ARENA

League of LegendsMULTIPLAYER ONLINE BATTLE ARENA

Starcraft/Warcraft (Real-Time Strategy)

1994 - Warcraft: Orcs & Humans

1996 - Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness

1998 – Starcraft

1999 – The Korean Boom

2002 - Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos

2010 - Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty

2010 – Hard talks with the Korean actors

2012 – Launch of the WCS

Starcraft/Warcraft (Real-Time Strategy)

Blizzard didn’t expect the esports phenom, especially not the Korean burst

Esports-wise, Warcraft 3 is not as good as Starcraft 1

Starcraft 2 isn’t either

Starcraft 2 never got the same success as SC1 in Korea, League of Legends took over.

1999 - Counter-Strike beta

2000 - Valve buys CS, hires creator Gooseman

#### - CS2 aborted, Gooseman leaves Valve

2003 - Counter-Strike 1.6

2004 – Counter-Strike: Source

2007 - CS 1.6 has 85k CC Players on AVG

2012 – Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

2013 - CS:GO finally takes over CS 1.6

Counter-Strike(First-Person Shooter)

Counter-Strike(First-Person Shooter)

After they bought CS and hired its creator, Valve poorly handled the game and the man

Steam was built off of millions of CS fans in need for the next update

It took Valve 10 years to put CS back on track

The difference between failure & success lies in a few game design tweaks

DotA(Multiplayer Online Battle Arena)

2003 – DotA is a custom map for WC3 Designers: Eul / Guinsoo /

Icefrog Community Manager: Pendragon

2007 – DotA is played by millions each month

2009 – Valve hires Icefrog

2010 – Valve registers the DotA trademark

2011 – DotA 2 Beta The International #1 by Valve

2013 – DotA 2

2014 – TI4 generates $40M+ in revenue

DotA(Multiplayer Online Battle Arena)

After they bought DotA, Valve got it right this time and let the Maestro do his work

DotA 2 has been growing constantly from Day 1

DotA 2 is a window for what the future of esports and « game as a hobby » looks like

League of Legends(Multiplayer Online Battle Arena)

2005 - Beck & Merrill decide to create LoL

2006 - Riot Games founded. Hires from the DotA core team + WoW’s Lead

Systems Engineer + Zileas (2008)

2009 - League of Legends

2011 - Tencent acquires Riot Games for $300M

2013 – 1K employees 32M watch the World Finals live 67M players/month

« the most player-focused gaming company in the world »

"Baseball has been around for 110 years. I'm not saying League of Legends will be around that long,

but we see the shelf life of LoL as hopefully decades."

http://www.riotgames.com/about

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2014/01/23/league-of-legends-will-last-decades-riot-says

League of Legends(Multiplayer Online Battle Arena)

« An Average player has spent 1 037 hours on League of Legends.

3 641 022 players took the test. »

www.wastedonlol.com

League of Legends(Multiplayer Online Battle Arena)

League of Legends(Multiplayer Online Battle Arena)

League of Legends has been constantly growing since release

Riot Games shows the kind of success « game as a hobby » and esports can achieve as a business

There’s a huge gap between the ways of AAA publishers and Riot Games’

SOME KEYS TO ESPORTS

MASTERPIECE: The game has to be LEGENDARY

GAME DESIGN: Powerful emotions generated through interactions more than graphics

CHALLENGE: Never-ending learning curve

TIME: Not a 1 night stand but a passionate life-long relationship

RESPECT: At the core of said relationship

MAGIC: Let the Maestro work the magic that touches hearts & unconscious minds

IT’S INSTANT FUN!

WHAT’S NEXT FOR ESPORTS?

KICKING A BALL ISN’T EASY TO LEARN…

AND IT’S THE CORE GAMEPLAY FOR THE #1 SPORT IN THE WORLD

GAME MAKERS…

WORK YOUR MAGIC!

THE GAMES OF ESPORTS

Nicolas CERRATO – Gamoloco.com

GAME CONNECTION PARIS

October 2014