Thrum.gg: Discover Games, Music and Videos Instantly in WhatsApp

Esports is booming and of course you could expect that someone would start an accelerator for esports. I did talk to Borja Varela, who is the program director of Hype Esports.

HYPE esports is a technology platform that’s dedicated to connecting and investing in esports innovation worldwide. The programme provides participants with access to the international sports world, offering training and networking opportunities.

Hype esports payoff is “the 1st global esports accelerator”

The program is trying to solve the esports industry’s real problems. You can get funding and work with the biggest brands in esports.

“Showcase a real implementation to the entire ecosystem” is making sure that participants are focusing on those industry challenges.

The accelerator will select 15 startups from applications to participate in a three-day boot camp, where they pitch in front of a selection committee, that will then select five startups to take part in the pilot program.

The five startups will receive a €20K EUR ($22K USD) cash investment as well as €100K ($110K) in facilities, exhibitions, and mentorship hours.

Additionally, the best startup in the program will receive a €50K ($55K) convertible loan. The pilot program will kick off in May and come to a close in August when the startups get to pitch their projects at SPONSORs’ SPOBIS Gaming & Media conference.

For other episodes of the game podcast you can go here.

Interesting article in my inbox last week. Helsinki and gaming. Some takes from my friend Joakim about what Helsinki's game environment is lacking and what needs to be done;  "Ultimately, getting the right mix of creative and data talent will evolve Helsinki to the next stage."

For me Helsinki is a mekka for mobile gaming, but recent years we have seen other territories/cities come up to. It is the name and fame from game developers like SuperCell, Rovio, Next Games and others that keep the vibe alive. 

But as Joakim says; "When it comes to founding new gaming companies, we need more data people and UA people as co-founders, to create a more diverse approach to game development. That is yet to happen." So if you are are data driven and love User Acquisition, then check out the Helsinki gaming scene. You might find a job!

Helsinki And Mobile Gaming

Helsinki is already the Silicon Valley of mobile gaming. We have Supercell, Rovio, Seriously, Small Giant Games, and Next Games. More are coming as dozens of new gaming startups are created every year. But Joakim believes that the potential next stages of the ecosystem's evolution are being held back. We have so much talent and capital available. So what could be holding the ecosystem back? Read about it on Elite Game Developers Blog.

Esports And Burn-out

Cris Reed talks about getting a burn out as a pro-gamer. He shared an interesting post on Linkedin. A quote of Jian “Uzi” Zihao, a famous League of Legends player in China;

“As a result of staying up late for years, a fatty diet and being under insurmountable stress, last year I found out that I was type-2 diabetic... My mental state is not as good as it was before.”

Latin Game Event called BIG, Brazil's Independent Games Festival

Every year BIG Festival hosts the largest business videogames conference in Latin America, bringing together the most important local and international players from the industry.  In 2019, there were more than 100 free lectures (free) and more than 4,000 meetings attended by 630 professionals (125 international companies), generating more than US$ 63 million in predicted returns for the companies that attended the event.

Futuresource Consulting Webinar Invitation

Consumer spend on video gaming continues to flourish, with annual spend set to close in on $150bn this year, taking more of consumers’ free time and more importantly dollars – a trend magnified by this year’s Covid outbreak. This webinar is set to highlight, interpret and identify the opportunities that the gaming eco-system can offer to the wider entertainment sector, from promotion of non-gaming content, identification of new revenue streams through to new alternative delivery platforms. The date of this webinar is Wednesday 17th June at 4pm BST (30 Minutes 10 mins Q and A).

PlayStation5 is Coming!

Good days for gaming fans are about to come as Playstation 5 is arriving this year. The device is coming with many sizzling updates and features that would amaze you. Wanna know about it? Let’s have a look.

For more episodes of Game Consultant, check out my website!

In Episode 8 I did ask Carlos Estigarribia some questions concerning Latin America, or LATAM as people call it. Gaming in LATAM. You can listen to this episode to get to know more about game studios, publishers and more. Today I want to know more Esports, localization of games, game events and other interesting topics that you should know about when targetting LATAM for your games.

Who is Carlos;

Carlos Estigarribia is  a Brazilian game industry veteran, who founded LocZ Games in 1996. Sold LocZ to Playphone/Skyzone in 2006 and then established Electronic Arts their first studio in Latin America in 2008.

He was also one of the founders of Abragames, the Brazilian Game Developer Association, and RightZero, a consulting company focused in helping publishers to setup or launch games in Brazil. Currently is GM Brazil and LATAM at Lockwood Publishing, developer of Avakin Life.

Carlos and I talk about an event, where he is hosting a panel. The event is called BIG Festival (Brazil's Independent Games Festival) and is there  since 2012 and is the most important independent games festival and business forum in Latin America.

On top of exhibiting the most innovative games in the world, the event is also the most important meeting point for those who want to have a deep understanding of games, with lectures, workshops, keynotes and the biggest games business forum in Latin America.

Local Play in LATAM;

But also we dicuss a local hero game, which was eveloped by an internal studio of Garena. Free Fire was released in 2017 and has since built a strong audience in Latin America and south east Asia. Carlos is telling me that this is a game that is growing fast. 

Somehow, in a market that holds both cultural behemoth Fortnite and original trendsetter PUBG, there is still room for battle royales to breathe. Garena's Free Fire is one such game, yet another mobile battle royale that sticks X number of players on a big island and tells them to murder each other for fun. But Free Fire is thriving, having recently hit 80 million daily active users and surpassing $1 billion in revenue last November, just two years after it first launched.

Gaming in General;

Across all three segments (PC, console, and mobile), almost half of consumer spending on games will come from China and the U.S. in 2020. However, growth will be driven by emerging markets in regions like Latin America and Asia-Pacific in the years to come.

Esports;

Multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games have become incredibly popular among video gamers in recent years. MOBAs are witnessing continuous growth in emerging markets, especially in Latin America. Latin America is in the perfect position for a major upswing when it comes to esports. The region has 45 million viewers, with profits soaring close to $12 million in 2019. Mexico was the second country that generated more audiences in the region after Brazil. While the MOBA segment in Latin America is expected to grow at a CAGR of over 20% during the forecast period, the PC and console segments are projected to observe grow rates of over 20% each for the same period.

Furtheron;

Next to that I have Cris Reed, talking about the recent events in the USA and Esport. Joakim Achren is sharing his vision on the Zynga/Peak acquisition.

Some weeks ago I had a chat with Dave Westin of Mobile Growth Association (MGA), I have known Dave for a very long time. He updated me about their upcoming event MGS Global Virtual Conference 1.0 and their roadmap for 2020-21. Local communities is part of their plan. It sounded very exciting and he mention I should talk to the CEO of this association, Jen Laloup. I did a fun and interesting interview with her. 

Just a quick warning for people before you listen, her last name 'Laloup' means 'wolf' in french! It took the challenge and it turned out she was not scary at all, 100% passionate about her work. It got me excited!

MGA is organizing an online (virtual as they call it) event that is extremely interesting for every mobile game developer globally. It is called 'MGS Global Virtual Conference 1.0' and the dates are June 2 till 4, 2020.

What does Mobile Growth Association (MGA)

Mobile Growth Association (MGA) is a global community providing mobile marketing professionals with frontline content, education, and events to help grow their app businesses and their careers. Drawing on its roots as a not-for-profit organization dedicated to education, Mobile Growth Association (MGA)  is committed to building the world’s most comprehensive set of resources for an accessible community of mobile experts.

The events prioritize community and content quality above all else, attracting a high-caliber audience of mobile marketers, developers and user acquisition managers working in games, commerce, and other app categories, as well as executives representing Adtech, Martech, and data companies.

Interview with Jen Laloup

Jen is highly experienced in growing and scaling organizations. She brings to MGA a wealth of experience spanning, publishing, media, and news. 

Her skillset focuses on driving growth and performance, operations, organizational management, content strategy and distribution. She thrives in fast-paced and mission driven organizations. 

Jen believes in MGA's mission to provide mobile app marketing professionals with a community that has the information, tools, and opportunities one needs to connect, grow, and thrive in this fast-paced industry.

Event information MGS Global Virtual Conference 1.0, June 2 - 4, 2020

Join your peers and experts from around the globe to learn, connect, and grow at MGS Global Virtual Conference 1.0—an event held entirely online that includes all the features you’ve come to expect from an MGS event. 

Together we can solve old problems and new ones to keep the mobile industry moving. Ask questions, network, visit the trade show floor just like an in-person event—all without stepping foot in an airport.  

This event spans four geo's, and covers topics on UA, Monetization, Branding, Fraud, Mobile Gaming to surviving in a post-COVID-19 landscape. App Publishers can receive a complementary pass by using the Promo Code MGSINVITE when registering for a pass.

Furtheron, Cris Reed with his esport item "what is esports" and Joakim talks about option-plans and pitch decks. Latly, more online events, summer editions are coming up. E3 is dead, long live the 31 events replacing it.

His name is Aðalsteinn Óttarsson, but his friends are calling him; "Alli".

He describes himself as a transformation leader with 18 years of game development experience as Director, Producer and Programmer. In his past roles he has lead large organizational changes to accelerate the delivery of two iconic video games - EVE Online and League of Legends. 

At Riot he recruited and managed a large team of Game Development Mangers across both League of Legends and the R&D efforts which were (and are) focused on putting the "s" in Riot Games. He is known for a large appetite for large scale and hefty challenges, solid and sustainable outcomes, building strong teams, and performing miracles.

Two nice did you know facts! He ran a drum'n'bass club and did stadium announcements for the Icelandic national handball team.

We covered quite some questions I had;

Normaly Cris is talking about esports, but he had a super busy week with Career Fest, but he shared a link of a panel I did with him; Fireside Chat - "Emerging Tech: What's Next for Gaming?" https://youtu.be/YIjvwYJSdZo

Joakim, who's wife is having her birthday on Sunday, is talking about the perfect pitchdeck for gaming studios. You got to check it out.

I hope you enjoyed listening and remember you can subscribe for Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or go to my podcast website PodcastGameConsultant.com.

This is Episode 27 of Game Consultant. It is amazing to see how many people are listening by now. The gaming podcast is growing every week in terms of listeners, but also people visit the website more and more. Sometimes I dont have a clear overview (yet), cause people are listening via spotify, apple podcasts, google podcasts, breaker, anchor, my website etc. 

I didn’t expect that so many would care, be responsive and actualy would listen. Some people are helping me with editorial things, ideas and introductions. Thanks so much and I will continue learning to make this THE Gaming Podcast of 2020 and beyond.

Top 40 Gaming Podcasts

I got an email from Anuj Agarwal, he the Founder of Feedspot. I had been submitting my gaming podcast & website Podcast Game Consultant on Feedspot. He personally congratulated me as the gaming podcast and website Podcast Game Consultant had been selected by their panelist as one of the Top 40 Gaming Podcasts on the web; https://blog.feedspot.com/gaming_podcasts/

As I am doing this since mid-jan 2020, this is such a rewarding message to receive. So, thank you!

Esports And Legal

My interview today is about Esports and how important legal is. Not only the contracting part but also having a legal expert advising you on things like for example; the name of the esports team and/or organization. Once you'll find out the name was already taken as a brand, it is TOO late.  Who better as Justin Jacobson could update me!

He is an entertainment and esports attorney, author and media personality. He represents professional athletes, musicians, producers, songwriters, DJs, fashion designers as well as professional gamers, esports organizations and teams.

Named a “Rising Star” by Super Lawyers for the last five years, Justin is a legal contributor to TuneCore, HypeBot, The Journal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A. and the Touro Law Review.

Justin has served as an Instructor of Music Business at the Institute of Audio Research in New York City, guest speaker at Cardozo Law School, Bergen County Community College and ICON Collective in Los Angeles, California.

He has also been featured by a range of industry publications including: YourEDM, Mental Floss, The Esports Observer, Esports Insider, SportTechie, Break The Game, The Ballgamer, and Operation Sports.

You want/need more info about legal and Esports? Contract Justin over at The Jacobson Firm, P.C.

Website - www.jacobsonfirm.com

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/justinmjacobson

Twitter - https://twitter.com/justinjesq

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/justinjesq/

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinmjacobson/

Nordic Games Online 2020

NG20 online this 27-29 May features an exciting three-day live streamed program including a string of great speakers and our popular Nordic Game Awards show, exclusive activities and giveaways on our Discord server as well as MeetToMatch Unlimited online meeting manager with integrated video conferencing.

As businesses fight "tooth and nail" to survive these turbulent Covid-19 times, it seems gaming companies are finding themselves on the right side of history right now. And EVOS Esports happens to be one of them.

I have a talk with Ivan Yeo, co-founder and CEO of Evos Esports. He's recently been chosen as Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia in 2020 and also has an inspiring story to share (Sadly to mention he's been diagnosed with Kennedy's Disease; an incurable genetic disease) and would like to build up the esports eco-system in Southeast Asia while he can still walk, eat and talk normally.

“Viewership and engagement has more than doubled in terms of people watching and engaging in livestreams and online tournaments, peaking at 1.2 million concurrent viewers as of a few days ago, up from around 600,000 last year,” said Ivan and contintues “Our top athlete makes around US$100,000 a month,” he disclosed.

Welcome to the world of Esports.

A millennial-dominated domain where 20-year-olds can bag US$250,000 (S$354,000) in tournament prize money playing a game you’ve never heard of. But that’s nothing compared to what they can rake in through regular sponsorship deals.

Introducing Evos Esports

EVOS Esports is the leading esports organization in Southeast Asia, and has won numerous world championship titles; Mobile Legends: Bang Bang World Championship (M1) 2019 and Free Fire World Cup 2019.

EVOS Esports' co-founders are young, diverse and dynamic, with three co-founders being listed in Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia 2020.

- Ivan Yeo, co-founder and CEO - Profile on Forbes.com

- Hartman Harris, co-founder and Chief Business Officer - Forbes Indonesia - YouTube

- Wesley Yiu, co-founder, COO - Forbes Indonesia - YouTube

- Michael Wijaya, co-founder and CMO

EVOS Esports manages 12 esports teams and over 300 influencers across the region with a total following of over 65M YouTube subscribers and 50M Instagram followers, with over 350M views per month, with a strong presence across 5 countries (Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam).

Deconstruction of Supercell — Five Items That Stood Out

Joakim is telling about Supercell and his opinion why the company is still standing out. Deconstructor of Fun released an essay on Supercell this week. It's an insightful article written by Miska Katkoff. Joakim wanted to take a closer look and share his five important thoughts on what a gaming startup founder should take away from this essay?

Free consult for you! Talk to Simon Usiskin of JWR Ventures

Simon put up a new website and I thought to catch up on his consulting offer. Free hour consult for everyone that wants to talk about games!

Simon is an advisor/consultant with 30 years of experience and I have held leadership roles in companies and founded B2B businesses with a focus on broadcast, digital media, software and adtech. He is passionate about helping companies scale up and maximise their potential, helping to grow wonderful and talented teams around me as well as steering digital businesses to maximise their potential. Check out the JWR Ventures.

Nordic Game Event and Game Music

Jacob is giving us an update about the online event end of May, still looking for extra sponsors and partners. He is telling about some speakers and panels. One panel is about composing music for games. Thor Mýrdal is telling us about his backgroup as a composer and the pannel

The mission of the Nordic Game community website is to sustain and share the Nordic games industry’s success by providing the latest news about the games industry in the Nordic region and Nordic Game events, such as the annual industry conference and the Discovery Contest season tour plan, qualifiers and finals. https://nordicgame.com/about/

Reed think about Esports

Every week Cris Reed is talking about esports and is giving his opinion on the lastest esports news. Cris has The Level Up Experience on Linkedin.

Indie Game Developers can showcase their games on Utomik.com

Doki Tops of Utomik.com is explaning how indie game developers can showcase their games on his platform for and during events. Event organizer INDIGO is the first to co-operate with Utomik where online visitors are getting the chance the play the games that indies want to showcase.

PodcastGameConsultant.com;

Reinout, the podcast host, is a games investor and strategic business consultant specializing in the games industry. Each week Reinout releases two new episodes of his games podcast show to his gaming industry audience from all over the world.

More Episodes, check it out here.

Main guest interview of today is with Dmitry Burkovskiy of Xsolla. Their slogan is “Xsolla is the video game business engine!Our set of solutions helps you improve operations and sell more.” Dmitry is explaining more indepth.

Als Xsolla is organizing an event called “Game Developers Carnival”, which is a completely virtual gaming industry event where attendees can interact and meet with representatives from over 70 exhibitors at their virtual booths while exploring the carnival and rides, all from the comfort of their own home or office. Check out the Exhibitors who will be participating in Game Developers Carnival below, and we look forward to seeing you there!

Nordic Game is very pleased to announce the debut of our online conference format for NG20 on 27-29 May, as well as a new pass offer that includes both NG20 online this May and a big discount for NG20+ in November. Register here!

“On top of the great price of 99 EUR, we’ve also thrown in a substantial 150 EUR discount on passes for our next Nordic Game at Slagthuset in Malmö, NG20+ on 25-27 November,”  Jacob is giving me a further update on what we can expect at the online event.

Another game event is organized by the boss himself, Hendrik Lesser. The event is called European Games BizDev Gathering. European Games BizDev Gathering is a two days long online event focused on supporting European game developers during challenging times of the ongoing global crisis. 

Ian Scarffe ([email protected]) is an Independent Expert at the European Commission -  Horizon 2020.

Horizon 2020 is the biggest European Union Research and Innovation programme ever with nearly €80 billion of funding available  – in addition to the private investment that this money will attract. It promises more breakthroughs, discoveries and world-firsts by taking great ideas from the lab to the market. 

The fund is for development and scaling up of innovations by projects, startups and small to medium size enterprise (SMEs).

A free game industry Twitch event: as a result of the pandemic, all recruiting events for graduating game devs have been canceled so Edmar volunteered to help produce a Twitch show this Friday hosted by Nvidia's Julian Huguet to help these developers show & tell their final game projects and connect with industry professionals and recruiters. Julian will play 8 games, including 2 VR titles, and interview the teams (some teams are looking for a publisher, too). The games have been developed by groups of 12 for one year: 31 programmers; 25 artists; 39 designers; and 17 producers. Here is the RSVP (please feel free to share):

Julian Huguet is the host of the PC Gaming YouTube channel NVIDIA GeForce from its launch to today. It now boasts over 500 thousand subscribers who tune in to watch in-depth discussions of cutting-edge computer hardware and graphic rendering technologies.

In episode 23 I am talking to Kate Edwards. Our talk is about people in gaming. Cause this is what makes Kate ‘tick’. She cares about the people that make the games industry (complete).

Various Topics do pass in our fun conversation about gaming and the industry;

· IGDA; how local communities can take over from this early institute;

· Union; should there be an union for gaming people;

· Culture (work ethics); how are gaming employers dealing with their staff;

· Difference between US/europe; huge difference in terms of employment;

· Labor laws Europe versus USA; tomorrow could be your last in the US, Europe more secure;

· Gameworkers unite; How they can help, find paragraph below in this article;

· Adwill employment; If you are employed at will, your employer does not need good cause to fire you. How to deal with that;

· Negative cultural force; like Poor internal communication, Micromanagement, Bad habits, Poor management and leadership etc;

· We need to help eachother; as an industry we should, shouldn’t we?

Nordic Game 2020, May 27th-29th; REGISTER NOW!

As a small side note, since we are there to support eachother, I had a quick interview with Jacob of Nordic Game. NG20 online passes for just 99 EUR, featuring three days of live streamed programming, unlimited MeetToMatch with video conferencing, loads of activities on Discord and a BIG discount for NG20+ this November – are on sale now!

About Kate Edwards;

Her absolute passion of this moment is; The Global Game Jam (GGJ) is the world's largest game jam event (game creation) taking place around the world at physical locations. Think of it as a hackathon focused on game development. It is the growth of an idea that in today’s heavily connected world, we could come together, be creative, share experiences and express ourselves in a multitude of ways using video games – it is very universal. 

Kate is perhaps better known for her culturalization work in the video game industry, and her award-winning industry advocacy efforts - including her current role as Executive Director of the Global Game Jam and former role as Executive Director of the International Game Developers Association from 2012 to 2017.

During her time at Microsoft and since, she's worked on many game franchises, including Halo, Fable, Age of Empires, Dragon Age, Modern Warfare, Mass Effect and many others. She's also the founder of the IGDA's Localization SIG and co-organizer of the former Localization Summit at GDC. 

Find out more about Kate;

Global Game Jam: http://www.globalgamejam.org

Global Game Jam NEXT (for younger people): http://ggjnext.org

Geogrify (Kate’s consulting work): http://www.geogrify.com

Her Twitter:  https://twitter.com/geogrify

IF your work in gaming is not fun any more, and need help, check out this organization;

Gameworkers unite; Have you ever felt exploited by the game industry? Are you in a precarious situation? No job stability and in desperate need of support? Are you losing hope that you can work in a medium and industry you love at all? Can't stand how your fellow workers are treated? Check this site!