Esports bloody media. Counter-Strike: 2. FaZe UP, Esports BARRED and Ryan.
A mix between fun, serious and anything in between. #Esports in the last week.
I’ve decided anyone that continues to pursue a career in satire given the current political climate is extremely brave. I think even the great Armando Iannucci OBE would struggle to satirise half of the rubbish that happens on a daily basis on this truly bizarre planet we inhabit.
So to carve out a niche, and ensure those that decided to throw me $30 for a year’s worth of content get value (+ more) for their money, here’s your latest weekly update on what’s going on at the heart of esprouts.
You’ll sometimes get analysis, and sometimes get financial analysts-turned-esports-journos linking porn sites that flag on the affiliate parent co’s IT system. Cheers Ryan.
Number Five
Coming in hot at Mambo No. 5 is aforementioned finance man, North American Counter-Strike shill Ryan having no blushes spared by the affiliate overlords at Better Collective flagging up his SEO URL anchors not being quite as spot-on as they should have been.
In a week where William Hill have been hit with £19 million in fines for lack of safeguarding and shoddy business practice, it’s good to see there’s still some policing going on out there.
Number 4
Multiple places have reported that GAMURS Group have laid off upwards of 40+ editorial staff across the multitude of publications that they own.
Most notable from an esports perspective would be Dot Esports, although the publication has also changed significantly over recent years.
There was much to be made about the “big return” of Upcomer with huge salaries being slapped at the finest long-form scribblers and storytellers in the esports world. Now the site looks an SEO shell with guides on how to find guns in different games, more than the destination of esports that it was touted to be.
Monetisation in traditional content remains difficult, and with esports the pyramid of content is very lopsided
Here’s my vastly over-simplified esports media pyramid (I am meaning to write a longer substack on media at some point soon, so don’t take this as gospel just yet).
It goes down a bit like this:
Player falls out with team, wants to leave, posts on Twitter
Unreachable millennial Gen-XYZ age group are digitally engaged and glued to their screens, see it on Twitter and share it on Discord/Reddit
People who were gaming at the time, or otherwise engaged catch-up on the top posts on Reddit and click back to the Tweet
Top-tier ‘journalists’ see Tweet, scribble together 300 words of fluff to surround said 140 characters
Article is posted to Reddit
Information’s a bit stale considering it’s been through the mill
Don’t hit the 15 million hits required to make a B2C site work
Making money in esports, and in esports media is hard. Although you may assume everyone out there doesn’t want to ‘investigate the bad guys’, or do long-form deep-dive storytelling about player background, most publications will never see an ROI unless there’s a serious amount of revenue being churned elsewhere.
Something that I truly think only Dexerto have managed to get spot-on in the B2C side. People that scoff at Dexerto posting clips of Twitch streamers are the same that think leaking roster moves from a Discord with professional players in is ‘high-level investigative journalism’.
Watching that much Pokimane to stay on the pulse of the gossip is about the same as being an esports transfer gossip columnist. But don’t get me started on that, because we don’t even have gossip columnists.
If you get a roster move wrong you’re annihilated. Whereas in football, an agent will fabricate transfer stories on the daily to drum-up client interest.
I’ve never understood esports roster move excitement either.
Other than when I did the best esports transfer tweet in the history of esports transfer tweets for the Overwatch League.
Just another esports quirk.
(That’s why they pay me the big bucks)
Serious note: media substack is on my list to expand rather than nonchalantly brush off fundamental issues to a very scuffed industry where even ‘traditional’ media is having to pivot to ‘sub-only’ digital editions… and we all know the reluctance to pay for anything you normally get fed to you in gaming and esports.
Number 3
Performance on the field reaps rewards in the stock market! FaZe UP!
FaZe CS:GO enjoyed a cracking run over in Malta, securing one of Counter-Strike’s biggest prizes in the grand slam.
On market opening, the stock jumped 13% to a high not seen for over a month in USD$0.77.
A long-lasting legacy.
As we speak it’s back down 18.18% to USD$0.63 and FaZe are considering coming off the stock exchange. Little surprise.
Number 2
Esports BAR(RED)
Nothing says “The World’s Greatest Esports Business Gathering” like scrapping an event and putting the entire esports ecosystem you claimed to champion in the bin in one fell-swoop.
Rest in peace, £1,800 tickets and daily phone calls to have your own “one-on-one” meetings curated for you.
Nothing says breaking down the barriers to esports like paying 2 grand to stare at Sam Matthews through a wall of shit roll-ups adorned with partner logos.
You can tell they really cared by the fact it’s not just a year long hiatus, but a “fuck this we can’t make any money immediately, see ya later”.
Surely you all know now (as if there was any bloody doubt) who holds the best esports b2b conferences - and although Wembley Box Park might not be as idyllic as the beach in Cannes, axe-throwing and street-food for a fraction of the price? Don’t be daft!
/salute
Number 1
Counter-Strike: 2 is coming. Pretty exciting. I’ll spare you too much hardcore analysis.
The killer of CS:GO, a sleek looking new CS is coming.
The announcement has filled me with glee for a multitude of reasons:
It proves that Valve have employees.
Encourage an open ecosystem without franchises all you want, but anyone that tells me that Valve run anything esports well can get in the bin
This mainly applies to Dota 2 which is feeling the brunt of Valve’s negligence with Majors looking akin to 2010 BTS bedroom streams and sustainability a word that scares even the most ardent of Valve employe
I now have hopes that as CS:2 is announced, a few of the chaps over at the CS:2 desk wheel their chairs round to the dust-lathered Dota 2 esports desk, get a hefty crobar and free the professional scene from the sticky Valve-endorsed PGL slobber that seems to drench every event
All my favourite LinkedIn chaps are back letting me know how old they were when esprouts was cool
I knew that Counter-Strike was a game before it was Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
I remember playing de_dust2 on Counter-Strike Source
Well I played de_dust (OG) on Counter-Strike: 1.6
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