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The Best Dota 2 Farming Heroes

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dota 2 farming heroes

I cannot stress how vital Dota 2 farming heroes are for gold. It is the in-game currency. No matter how high you hero abilities are, you will be useless without getting your necessary items. Some heroes have the ability to gain more gold than others. Most of these heroes are Carries since they have the most significant potential in the game.

The heroes mention are fantastic suggestions in helping you earn some extra points in Repeat.gg’s specialized tournaments where scoring formats are based on your individual ranked matchmaking games to win cash and prizes.

Based on statistics from Dotabuff, here are the top 10 best farming heroes: written by Patsiyoah

 Anti-Mage

One of the most popular Carry heroes is Anti-Mage. A decent laning stage with babysitting support will enable you to farm an early Battle Fury. With proper timing, you can efficiently clear neutral camps. His high mobility and attack animation will give you a flash farming ability.

Earn more gold by:
· Gank high-mana enemies – e.g., enemy supports trying to ward
· Split push your lanes
· Maximize the use of your Blink

  Medusa

Medusa relies heavily on her farming abilities. She can be the tankiest carry in the game with her Mana Shield, but early phase is not your friend. If you can stretch the game longer, it will be harder for enemies to kill you.

Earn more gold by:
· Use split shot during mid game (you don’t want to mess up lane equilibrium in the early game)
· Choose your team fights (stone gaze can turn around tables)

 Luna

One of the fastest pushers is Luna. Don’t you hate it when you lose team fights on your base and Luna’s Moon Glaives easily destroys your buildings in seconds? Moon Glaives also helps you clear creep stacks quickly.

Earn more gold by:
· Take objectives early game
· Win team fights before enemy cores get their BKB

 Juggernaut

Juggernaut can deal a high amount of physical and magical damage. An early Battle Fury is also a staple, especially in pub games. You can play aggressively in lane allowing you to secure your farm.

Earn more gold by:
· Pick off lone enemies with Omnislash

 Alchemist

The hero is the equivalent of gold. Greevil’s Greed can amass a massive amount of gold on a single creep killed. Although he’s reliant to his ultimate to do well in team fights, he has pretty good comeback potential.

Earn more gold by:
· Never let enemy cores outfarm you
· Radiance complements Greevil’s Greed well

So much items, only so many creeps to farm

 Terrorblade

Terrorblade’s Metamorphosis deals high damage during the early game. With Manta Style, you excel in split pushing and taking objectives faster. His high base armour makes you survive in the lane longer.

Earn more gold by:
· Farm different camps at once with long-lasting illusions

 Shadow Fiend

Being an excellent last hitter is essential to play Shadow Fiend well. You can easily deny creeps from a one-on-one matchup in the mid lane. Avoid dying to retain your damage advantage.

Earn more gold by:
· A Shadow Blade-Euls-Requiem combo can kill most heroes easily

 Meepo

Meepo is one of the hardest carries in the game. You should practice your micro-management skills if you want to play this hero. Divided We Stand lets you summon another Meepo that will give you the gold and level advantage if used efficiently. That’s where your intensive micro skills should kick in.

Earn more gold by:
· Manage clones around the map looking for lone enemies, farming neutrals or joining possible team fights

 Nature’s Prophet

Teleportation gives you a global presence. You can use it to push lanes, assists in a clash, or even kill dying enemy heroes that are trying to run away. Nature’s Call treants deal decent damage and can be used to block enemies or provide vision.

Earn more gold by:
· Micro manage your treants to exploit opportunities to kill enemies or push

 Templar Assassin

Templar Assassin’s abilities make her a highly elusive hero. She can defend herself from massive damage with Refraction, reduce armour with Meld, and cripple enemies with Psionic Traps. With Psi Blades, you can clear creep waves and neutral camps quickly. Combining her dangerous threat to the enemy and ability to flash farm, you’ll surely give a hard time to your enemy.

Earn more gold by:
· Get an early Blink Dagger for mobility
· Learn proper positioning to maximise Psi Blades

Summary

If you enjoy farming in Dota 2 make sure to check out Repeat.gg’s Dota 2 Tournaments where results from your ranked matchmaking are based on your gold earnt. All these heroes above are ideal in increasing your chances of winning cash and prizes in our Dota 2 Tournaments.

The article was written by Patsiyoah

Are you a brand or a website looking at marketing into esports? Repeat.gg offers tailored marketing campaigns with hosted tournaments with your branding. If you would like more details on how to advertise with us please contact our marketing manager here.

Best Beginner Heroes to Get You Started Playing Dota 2

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I’m going to go against the tide here and recommend that new players play carries or cores and lane with experienced support. Whenever I am introducing friends to Dota 2, I always recommend that they pick a carry and come safe lane with me. It is much easier to focus on killing heroes than it is to learn the complexities of setting up fights, ensuring enough vision and detection that the team can make confident decisions on whether or not to engage. Pulling and stacking creeps is harder than it sounds, and requires strict timing and clock management. So here is a curated list of heroes I would suggest to anyone who wants to begin playing Dota.

Phantom Assassin 

PA has always been a great hero to stomp pubs. With some new buffs in the latest patch, Phantom Assassin is one of the best heroes for new players to start carrying with.
Why Phantom Assassin is a good hero for beginners:
Simple but versatile itemisation.

Why Phantom Assassin is a good hero for beginners:
Very easy to execute (it’s a two button hero after all)
Good counter pick against popular, squishy carries like Sniper, Drow Ranger and Anti Mage.

Wraith King Skeleton King

The king of wraiths or previously known as  Skeleton King has always been a staple beginner carry. Often memed for being a one button hero, it’s still powerful and has a fantastic mechanic that stifles rampant feeding: reincarnation.
Why Wraith King is a good hero for beginners:
Different ways to build this carry due to versatile itemisation choices.
Roshan’s new Refresher Orb after 7.07 patch allows for fantastic triple or even quadruple reincarnation plays. The right balance of tankiness and damage dealing.

Sniper Sniper

Sniper is one of the most famous heroes with Dota newcomers, and with good reason. He might be a bit too squishy to stand toe-to-toe with other heroes, but that’s not how he’s supposed to be played. Usually a Carry hero (the role designated for dishing out massive damage later in the game), the Sniper is most effective when he’s at a distance from his target.

Why Sniper is a good hero for beginners:
His Take Aim ability lets him strike at enemy heroes and towers from far out of harm’s way.
While his Ultimate, Assassinate, deals extraordinary damage with a mini-stun as a bonus.
Just be sure to avoid close range combat. Sniper’s low health makes him an easy target for opponents who can close the gap.

Bristleback Bristleback

Not only is he tough to kill, but he can dish out a lot of damage. The more quills he shoots, the stronger he gets, making it a simple process to rack up some serious killing power. If that wasn’t enough, he also moves faster as well! He indeed is a great character to start with, because he’s just so hard to kill even a novice will find it hard to get into a situation they can’t get out of.

Why BristleBack is a good hero for beginners:
His entire gimmick is that he takes considerably less damage from attacks that hit his side or back. He also will automatically unleash quills that damage those hitting him.
Also adding to his ease of use is the fact he only has 2 active abilities, while the other two are passive.

The article was written and supplied By Chandan ’Fusion’ Padhi -Social Media / Instagram @padhichandan / Quora

Are you a brand or a website looking at marketing into esports? Repeat.gg offers tailored marketing campaigns with hosted tournaments with your branding. If you would like more details on how to advertise with us please contact our marketing manager here

Play Dota 2, League Of Legends or Smite? Sign up using this link today to receive free coins to enter into higher cash & prized tournaments.

Source: fynestuff.com

International Universities Offering Esports Courses

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Earning a diploma for your passion is not that easy, especially if you are an eSports enthusiast. Esports industry is rapidly growing, and institutions are starting to take notice. The strong academic background of the industry is an edge for gamers and enthusiasts. Universities are now offering eSports courses that will guide you into making it in the professional scene.

Repeat.gg brings you some of the universities that offer an eSports degree.

flag-400 University of California-Irvine

UC Irvine EsportsUCI was the first public university to create an official esports program and is regarded as one of the best in the world. They began offering scholarships to League of Legends teams back in 2016 and have moved on to also offer scholarships for Overwatch. The UCI Esports Arena opened around the same time and supports all gaming clubs on campus. They also offer some of the most comprehensive research programs and continue to innovate in the world of eSports.

download (2) Staffordshire University 

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Staffordshire University offers BA (Hons) Esports. It is a three-year course that focuses on the business and culture of eSports. Students will learn how to develop teams, create a fan base, organise an event, promote a large-scale event, and market these events digitally. The university also offers scholarships to top players to pursue their competitive gaming career.

“Over 73 percent of those employed within eSports are under the age of 35, and their skills are in demand. Companies are looking for people who are entrepreneurial and, and the industry is driving the creation of new jobs,” Rachel Gowers, Academic Dean for Recruitment, explained.

Find more details here.

 Robert Morris University

There are over 50 Universities offering esports courses, so it was hard to narrow down which one should be mentioned. We went for the university that started it all for the united states back in 2014 with Robert Morris University in Illinois which announced a scholarship-sponsored League of Legends team. Since then, the scene has ballooned to include around 50 different educational esport programs, with a national governing body known as the National Association of Collegiate Esports as the main home for most of those organizations.

Find more details here

 Informatics Academy

In Singapore, Informatics launched the first Diploma in eSports and Game Design. The course will last for eight months for full-timers and twelve months for part-timers. The course will equip the students with knowledge on the fundamentals of game development, game programming, live streaming trends, and aspects of the eSports ecosystem.

Informatics Academy will focus on practice-based learning to reach the full potential of the students. The course will be offered every January, May, and September of the year. Applications for September 2018 is already open

 The Lanxiang Technical School

A technical school in Jinan, China offers an eSports and Management course that costs £1,470 per year. This is a three-year course that hones the gaming skills of the students.
During the first year, their classes compose of 50% gaming and 50% of game theory.

The students will be divided after their first year. The best gamers will focus on becoming professional players while the others will learn accompanying skills including event organisation, promotion, or coaching.

Find more details here

University of Chichester

The University of Chichester also offers BA (Hons) Esports. This is a three-year program that examines eSports from several perspectives. Students who are aiming to be professional gamers will take continuous skills development sessions and study the strategic and tactical thinking to enhance their gameplay success.

After this course, you can forge a career in professional gaming, marketing, sports science, games design, journalism, and events management. Some notable subjects included in the module are Immersive Gameplay, Skills & Strategy Development, Live Event Production, Player Management, and Coaching Teams.

Find more details here

Alternative : 

Udemy

If your country doesn’t have a university that offers an eSports program, Udemy is the perfect fit for you.

Udemy provides an eSports program designed for aspiring professional gamers.The students will learn to strategise their gaming career goals and develop a success mindset.

The curriculum includes topics such as Common Mistakes Young Aspiring Pro Gamers Make, Engineer Your Environment to Boost Your Gaming Skills & eSports Business Ops, and Tools for Solving Problems in eSports Team Dynamics. Udemy also offers a discounted price for this online course.

Find more details here

Summary

A degree in eSports can be a huge factor in the individual’s success in the eSports industry. Statistics show that the eSports market is growing and will continue to do so. This booming industry will also continue to open enormous opportunities for talents and experts. In the eSports industry today, the experts are those gamers who were already there when gaming is just gaming. Do you think having an eSports degree will hone the new generation of enthusiasts better? Is it worth taking? Share your thoughts.

The article was written by Patsiyoah

Are you a brand or a website looking at marketing into esports? Repeat.gg offers tailored marketing campaigns with hosted tournaments with your branding. If you would like more details on how to advertise with us please contact our marketing manager here

Play Dota 2, League Of Legends or Smite? Sign up using this link today to receive free coins to enter into higher cash & prized tournaments.

The Most Successful Dota 2 Support Heroes

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Dota 2 Support Heroes are the backbone of any team, be it a high-level pub match or professional match. They babysit their carries, create space for their mids, sacrifice their farms as well as their own lives for the greater good, and are generally pretty exhausting to play, both physically and mentally. That is the main reason that it is often under and even over appreciated at times: it’s hard to quantify a supports impact, and quite frequently players don’t realize that how much their support has done for the team. However, almost as frequently support players think too highly of their contributions.

This post will be dedicated to a brief analysis of top-tier supports in pub and pro plays in an attempt to highlight the highest impact supports. Picking a consistently strong support hero will unlikely win all of your games, but it can be a good starting point to understand the role better and improving at it. Stats are shown by impact compared to win rate percentages below

PROFESSIONAL SCENE

Rubick: LAN Games – 43.2% win rate

Despite possessing attributes typical of the archetypal support caster, the possession of Spell Steal allows Rubick to be built differently. While he only has one innate disable, he should generally be produced with mobility and casting in mind, with items that help with initiation taking priority due to the utility that Spell Steal provides. Rubick is a flexible spellcaster, best known for his ability to copy enemies last used spells to use against them. He is commonly picked as a counter pick to big team fight spells like Tidehunter’s Ravage, Enigma’s Blackhole and so on.

Witch Doctor: LAN Games – 50% win rate

Witch Doctor is a strong support that scales well throughout the game. If well positioned can change the flow of battle with his ultimate. The Witch Doctor’s early game damage and utility from Paralyzing Cask and Maledict are extreme in the laning phase. Consider skipping points in Voodoo Restoration until you reach level 10 to maximise lane pressure and damage output. Having Maledict at maximum level as soon as possible allows you to pull off shorter duration Death Wards to secure big kills.

Tusk: LAN Games – 52.2% win rate

Tusk is a very strong initiator who can set up fights on his team’s terms. His arsenal of crowd control spells can significantly inhibit enemies during fights and ganks, giving allies a commanding edge. Tusk is a ganking specialist as he can hunt fragile heroes throughout the game. However, his skill and aggressive play style can be a double edge against him when it comes to initiating & chasing fleeing enemies as his ice shard can block his teammates from proceeding with the chase, and he can roll himself into a counter-ganking trap set up by his opponent. Thus, although his skill set is rather straightforward, a player should exercise good judgement before considering initiation.

PUB SCENE

Shadow Shaman – 52% win rate

Shadow Shaman is a powerful ganker, and pusher, who possesses strong disables and nukes. His spells allow him to disable lone enemies for extended periods of time, making them easy prey for his teammates, or to make short work of creep waves and towers. Because of his strong disables and powerful nukes, Shadow Shaman benefits significantly from building intelligence items that extend the size of his mana pool and provide mana regeneration, as well as mobility items to allow him to get close enough to use his disables and nukes on enemies. The additional mobility also aids in survivability by allowing him to position himself to escape enemy attempts to kill him.

Crystal Maiden – 54% win rate

Crystal Maiden is an efficient support who specialises in slowing enemies. Her highly valued Arcane aura increases mana regeneration for all her teammates, while she remains useful throughout the game with minimal items. In massive fights, she can channel a freezing field to obliterate enemies over a wide area, along with using frostbite to target individuals. However, Crystal Maiden is quite fragile even compared to other supports and is one of the slowest heroes in the game.

Omniknight – 57% win rate

An argument can be made on Omniknight role in PUB play, some users have started to use Omniknight as an offlane aggressor. Although built to be a strong healing support, players have converted to an aggressive core that can be a menace in lanes to deal with due to his slow attack combined with his strength/healing advantage. This is a combo that is unseen in most supports mentioned above

What is your take on the way Omniknight should be played?

Pubs are a little different from the professional scene – teams aren’t as coordinated, pick progressions are very different, and games generally take longer, so greedier supports can feel better. A witch doctor is a top tier support coming in at third position with a win rate of 51%.

Closing Thoughts

Learning from high-level pubs and the professional scene is the best way to learn dota. Although blindly copying their picks, however, can be a dangerous path, since there are so many nuisances in the game. If you are serious indeed about improving, do yourself a favour and watch replays of hero you are interested in – it is unlikely all of the things will be comprehended fully, but some of the more basic concepts can be understood, applied, and built upon in the future. A great place to start for looking up statistics and what is currently in meta would be looking at sites like Dotabuff.com which is always a great place to begin looking into your own performances.

Article was written and supplied By Chandan ’Fusion’ Padhi. Gmail / Instagram / Quora

Are you a brand or a website looking at marketing into esports? Repeat.gg offers tailored marketing campaigns with hosted tournaments with your branding. If you would like more details on how to advertise with us please contact our marketing manager here

Source: dota2.gamepedia.com

How To Make Money From Gaming – Esports & Skin Betting

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skin betting

There are many forms of careers and incomes from Gaming or eSports. Most people think that the only way of making it is with the conventional prospects of becoming a professional gaming celebrity or a video game creator. In this series, I will list some career paths that can take a slice out of that delicious $101.62bn video game industry pie, suitable for gamers ranging from casual to professional, such as esports and skin betting.

We will detail what each method is, how much one can make and how to get started.

What is Esports and Skin Betting

Skin Betting

This may get a bit complex but bear with me.

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Skins are completely cosmetic and have no impact on the game itself.

Skins or items are purely cosmetic, holding no gameplay function or utility, they are digital in-game drops that are random at times for a user, with platforms allowing users to trade with each other. Skins are an overlay that will appear on a user’s screen or a weapon or the character’s appearance and can also be seen by fellow peers inside the game. These can be in-game Weapons, Skins, Badges, Knives and more.

Even though there is Selling/Trading and Buying of skins in multiple titles, we will be using Counter-Strike Global Offensive as the example. This is due to the popularity of the skins as well as it being the highest market in the world for computer game items, which can amount values of thousands of dollars for a single item.

maxresdefault (2)During the Skins betting peak period, it wasn’t abnormal to see some skins go for hundreds if not thousands of dollars for rare CS: GO Skins

How to receive in-game skins

⦁ Earn it through random drops by playing in the online community and on official servers

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Crates and Skins are like rewards for public users that play the game online

⦁ From crates that are also given randomly for playing – A user can “uncrate” them by purchasing keys, and these crates are usually from promotions and contain a lucky dip
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CS:GO Crate Keys are unique and match each individual crate
CS:GO Crate Keys are unique and match each crate

⦁ From trading with other players with the Trade function on Steam –

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The trading portal acts as a barter marketing platform to trade in-game items in Counter-Strike: GO

4. Buy Skins from a trading website

* Opskins.com is one of the most popular skin selling/purchasing site

Opskins is one of the well known of the hundred sites you can find dealing with skins
Opskins is one of the well known of the hundred sites you can find dealing with skins

How to make money from Esports Gambling / Skins?

esportsand skin Gambling is a recent feature that gamers can participate in, in fact, it’s something the general public can now take part in. This is widely due to the majority of the traditional sporting gambling websites having an esports feature, allowing people to bet on esports and gaming event outcomes.

There are two forms of Gambling that can be done in esports/Gaming:

Real Cash Betting

Nearly all the major sports betting websites now have an esports Feature to bet on the outcome of a gaming match

Websites: Pinnacle, Bet 365, William Hill and Betway are some of the sites with this option.

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Nearly every major Sports betting platform now caters to esports fans

Skins/Items Betting

Users can deposit their Skins or Items into a website that will generate a dollar amount; Users can then place skins with individual value into a bulk bet to produce an overall figure to bet with on a match. The odds for a team to win are just generated by the ratio of bets on them versus bets against them. In return, winners receive their original skin/item bet as well as a win percentage amount in skins/items of random value.
Websites: CSGO Lounge, 8Esports, and CSGOloot

You can learn how to use such websites like CSGO Lounge via many YouTube videos

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You can place your skins on the line to win skins valued at the same price when you win.

Skins/Items Lottery

Just like betting, every item and skin have a dollar value. Users can deposit these skins and items onto a CS: andwGO Lottery website and place bets in a large pool. The more items or, the higher dollar value placed into the pool gives the user better odds on winning. Winners are drawn at random with more draws going to the most amount of entries via dollar amount,and the winner takes all.

The best example to explain CS:GO lottery sites is Roulette. These pools can run every 30 seconds to a minute, depending on the dollar amounts being placed live. Players can win or lose hundreds of dollars in items within seconds. A Lottery pool can be anything from $200 to $10,000 – There are numerous videos of gamers placing $10k bets to only see them lose it all within a minute.

Websites: Skin Arena, CSGOFast, SkinJoker – More can be found http://betcsgo.org/

There are 100’s of videos on youtube that you can search of these losses. Here is an example of how easy it is to lose $6k in 1 minute – (Warning! Curse Language as Expected )

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Public outcry saw hundreds of these sites be shut down due to stricter relegations on skin lottery sites by the game developer of Counter-Strike: GO – Some rogue sites are still operating today despite the call to cease.

How to Sell Skins and Gamble Successfully?

Skins Selling

Always shop for the best price and you won’t find it hard to locate sites that deal with selling items to give you the best price. Personally, I consider the best value for money is to advertise your items and sell privately, but be careful, scammers have swarmed the market and are all too common.

Websites: Skin Xchange – OPSKINS – Steam market – R2Pleasent

SteamMarketplace

How to Gamble on Esports : Tips

You are dealing with your money, and you have to be smart. Make sure to study all your bets by researching and don’t forget that odds are fairly low regardless, due to it being a new feature, so multing ( requiring two bets to win a bet placement)matches may be best or using skins to bet with for better value.

Regardless of tips, you can never predict the outcome 100% so always make sure to study everything, from how far a team has travelled and what is their best map, to the event being online or offline.

Tips:

⦁ Check head to head History
⦁ Check if team’s rosters are similar
⦁ Check Format – Some teams may be better at best of 3 or on Single Maps
⦁ bet on single maps for team’s best maps rather than the overall series win
⦁ Tie up multi bets – Odds on esports is low and you get better value linking up bets
⦁ Follow a team, learn their strengths and weakness to know how to bet for or against them
⦁ Check websites for past results (hltv.org allows you to see head to head and past results)
Summary

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HLTV.org shows previous team matches and all match statistics including head to head matches against their upcoming opponents.

If you don’t have a big bankroll the best thing to do is buy a small number of keys at once (discount bulk key purchases) and each week try your luck with opening crates and hope to be lucky enough to receive something to play with.

There is also a site out there you can bid on Skins to receive a massive discount –https://skinsanity.gg/ and if lucky you can pick up big ticketed items for less than 75% off

At the end of the day, this is gambling and you should always bet within your limits and stop when you have gone over it. Choosing a website can be intimidating so it’s always best to shop around.

Part 1 –  How To Make Money In Gaming – Introduction

Part 2 – How To make Money In Gaming – Professional Gamer

Part 3 – How To Make Money In Gaming – Streaming

Part 4 – How To Make Money In Gaming – Broadcasting

This article was written by Repeat.gg‘s Community Manager Scott “Boomser” Bednarski a former professional gamer that traveled the world making a living in video games on major FPS titles.

How To Make Money In Gaming – Esports commentator

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Esports commentator

An Esports commentator gives a running commentary or insight into a competitive esports game or tournament either in real-time or post-match.

There are many forms of careers and incomes in Gaming or Esports. Most people think that the only way of making it is with the current prospects of becoming a professional gaming celebrity or a video game creator. In this series, I will list some career paths that can take a slice out of that delicious $101.62bn video game industry pie, suitable for gamers ranging from casual to professional.

We will detail what each method is, how much one can make, and how to get started.

What is an Esports Broadcaster / Commentator?

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An esports commentator gives a running commentary or insight into a game or event in real time, usually during a live broadcast which is traditionally delivered through several outlets, such as Twitch, Streaming, television, and in-game broadcasting components. So really, an esports Commentator and an everyday sports commentator don’t differ much. Esports commentators come in all forms, from past players themselves, gaming personalities, or just game enthusiasts.

Esports have three main areas of commentating:

Game Panel Analyst
Analysts give insight into teams’ and players’ history while showing data and statistics collected over time, and also sharing opinions and predictions of their own to create interest. The Game Panel will appear before and after each game or level is played, to give a much deeper look into the tactics and outcome of the match.

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The Game Analyst team for Dota2 during The International

Play by Play Announcer
These announcers call the action during the live gameplay. While also creating hype, they serve to educate the live audience about the game or competition structure, to make it easier to follow. Announcers in the main esports tournaments usually come in pairs, with one being predominately the main caster and the other being the support caster. One will call the action while the other will give more in-depth to what just occurred on screen.

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Play By Play casters are usually commentate in a pair – One calls the play by play while the other analyst the gameplay on screen.

Host / Interviewer
A host will engage the live audience from the main stage and report back to the Game Panel before and after each match or level is completed. They also serve as the interviewer for the teams before play, or even winners and losers to hopefully grab raw emotions from the gamers.

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A host will do pre-interviews or post interviews of the matches ahead

How do they make their money and how much?

A Casters’ paycheck is nothing to sneeze at in comparison to that of a professional gamer, but what is damaging to a casters’ wallet is the lack of continuous work for casters. The majority of top casters are either part of full-time contracts with a production streaming network (Turtle Entertainment) or a game producer (Blizzard) or a gaming event staff (ESL Network) for their income, while many other casters will receive one-off paychecks or contracts for an event.

Many Casters who do not have a full-time tour gig with a production company would usually have to look for individual avenues to have a steady cash flow, which mostly comes from the form of video content, like YouTube, podcast, and streaming, which is outlined in the previous article (here).

An estimate for casters is around $700-$1000 USD a day at a major event in Counter-Strike:Global Offensive, well-known casters can find themselves easily over $1,300 a day at an event.

Where do I start in becoming a caster?

Before you even think about casting, the number one thing you must do is equip yourself with the essential tool for becoming a caster…KNOWLEDGE. Commentating is an art, and it isn’t always based around having the gift of “the voice”, even though, don’t get me wrong, that does help, but knowledge is key.

Knowing the games mechanics, gameplay, history, and its community is what draws users to want to listen to your insight. Also, having the gift of the gab is important, as nobody likes to listen to silence on a broadcast.

To start off, you need to pick how you’re going to cast. Will you be streaming live on Twitch? What games will you cast? Whose game will you cast? Will you do after-the-fact commentaries on YouTube? All these need to be considered to start off.

Becoming a Caster for a major gaming event will certainly not happen overnight, so you must start small, and the best place you can start is right in your bedroom. Casting other peoples’ live matches or post-match should be your starting point. Once you have collected a small following, you may be able to contact gaming tournaments to help increase your audience, or some production studios to give you a chance.

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Dedicated Streaming Studios are all around the world for esports

Software –

Select a streaming software – I recommend using OBSProject
A guide to help you get started can be found here 

Hardware –

I recommend you make the right choice and acquire an excellent microphone, as this will be your money maker, of course. A good CPU and GPU Strength is a must, and you can use Open Broadcaster Estimator ( https://obsproject.com/estimator ) to check if it’s good enough.

Dual monitors – This will help you while streaming and video editing, reading chat and interacting with your stream chat online, which will only help you build your audience.

What makes a Good Caster?

As stated before, Knowledge is the biggest factor, and this falls under the category of extensively knowing your teams, players, levels, and your game’s history. This will help you to be able to retrieve information during the cast and make for compelling content.

Being unique helps, as a shortage of casters is not a reality in the esports world and finding what separates you from the others can only help. Some casters are known for their hype or their in-depth analysis of the game meta they are casting

Example Video
An example of caster creating hype around a video-game match.

Example Video 
This is an example of a caster being famous for his over the top announcements of “Black Hole” in dota 2.

Tips

Master the game
This point has already been explained, but it is still critical. Learning the game’s history creates fuel for discussion during your cast and the more you know, the easier it would be to dish out your predictions for richer content in the game.

Confidence and eagerness to learn
Once you have mastered the art of casting, try shifting your new skills into other games or platforms to better your chances of being picked up. A good way of increasing your chances is to learn a newly released game that may have an esports or competition future so that when it comes to gaming commentary, you will be one of the better candidates.

Talking in front of an audience is never easy, even if you only do it from the comfort of your home. Make sure to get out of your comfort zone and embrace whatever fear you may have and use it to better your skills in casting.

Be Content and Social Media Driven
Social Media nowadays is a power tool for boosting your audience and keeping your current fans interested. Use these platforms to alert your fans of production schedules and to ask them for feedback, or tell you which they matches wish to see covered by you.

Be a Tradesman with tools and software
Whether its casting or video production for Twitch, YouTube or even social media, it’s best to learn how to do everything yourself. Casting can sometimes be a solo career move and being competent in the likes of social media, graphic and design programs, will allow you to be more creative in your profession.

Learning the capabilities of YouTube and Twitch will open up another avenue in revenue, where you can source donations, advertisements, sponsorships and giveaways to up your production and audience grab.

Casting is not for everybody and you probably already have a rough idea whether or not it’s something you are capable of pursuing. Try contacting smaller production casters about maybe having a chance of doing a guest cast for one of their broadcasts and afterwards you shall have a pretty good understanding if it’s for you.

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Part 1 –  How To Make Money In Gaming – Introduction

Part 2 – How To make Money In Gaming – Professional Gamer

Part 3 – How To Make Money In Gaming – Streaming

Thank you for reading and make sure you check out our Twitch Channel. We will be casting matches played on Repeat.gg.

This article was written by Repeat.gg’s Community Manager Scott “Boomser” Bednarski a former professional gamer that traveled the world making a living in video games on major FPS titles.

How To Make Money From Gaming – Streaming

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Streaming is as simple as creating an account on Twitch. This gives you a broadcaster video channel page as well as the freedom to view any streamers live.

There are many forms of careers or incomes from Gaming or Esports. Most people think that the only way of making it is with the current prospect of becoming a professional gaming celebrity or video game creator. In this series, I will list some paths that can take a slice of that delicious $101.62bn video game industry pie, for gamers ranging from casual to professional.

We will go into detail of what each method is, how much they make and how to get started

What and How Big is video gaming streaming?

Gaming and streaming go hand to hand like salt and pepper, which has contributed to gaming becoming the number one in viewable content on the internet. Some facts to digest: Twitch TV has over 100 million viewers in just one month, YouTube Gaming Channels bring in more than 3.5 billion views each month, and 71 million people watching competitive gaming worldwide with a peak of more than 640,000 viewers at a time. This meant more people were watching others play video games than tuning in for the biggest US sporting events. These numbers have just increased eight-fold in the past few years meaning right now… these figures and statistics may be obsolete by the time you read it.

“Streamers” are players that show live footage of themselves playing video games, whether playing alone at home against others or showcasing their matches live for the viewers to watch. Twitch.com is a home to practically all of the top streamers who stream their gaming sessions or even their day-to-day life. The general public can either pay a subscription fee or donate money through the program itself to support their favourite players.

The bee’s knees in streaming services for gamers, Twitch is so popular that it is the fourth highest trafficked site on the internet, putting it right behind NetFlix, Google and Apple. So, of course, it comes to no surprise that Amazon and Google went into a bidding war for the purchase of the site back in 2014, where we eventually saw Amazon take the top bid.

So even though we have other streaming services like Azubu being in 2nd to its rival Twitch, we will be using Twitch as the leading example of how to make a living off streaming in video games.

How do they make their money and how much?

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Streaming on Twitch + Gaming = a dream job for some

Where there is popularity, there is advertising, and Twitch is no exception. You can place live running ads or message ads into chat during your broadcast as well as run referral programs from advertisers.

Another aspect of how streamers make money may be surprising to some – donations. Users or followers can send in donations which usually pop up across the streamers screen allowing for the donor to send a short message that will be seen by the viewers and the broadcast operator. Donations in the hundreds aren’t rare, and there are cases of some streamers getting tens of THOUSANDS donated to them by generous fans. One user receives $57,000 during one of his streams which is one of the largest single game donation. The dollar amount is entirely up to the followers and all start at the $1 US dollar mark.

The primary source of income for a twitch streamer is subscription buttons, which is given to users with high popularity. You can find more details here in the Twitch Application. Twitch partners can earn even more revenue through these subscriptions. If you are eligible to obtain this feature viewer can purchase a monthly subscription to your channel in exchange for access to exclusive perks such as

  • Custom Badges and Emoticons
  • Access to subscriber-only chat
  • Exclusion from slow mode
  • Unrestricted access to broadcast Archives
  • Unrestricted access to Video Quality Streaming

The standard streamers rake a 50/50 split between Twitch and the broadcaster subscriber rate of $4.99 a month, giving you $2.50 USD cut on your subscriptions.
A streamer can decide when they will run advertisements and how often, giving them full control of their brand and revenue possibilities. Huffington post reported that “a popular streamer with 20,000 concurrent viewers and $2.00 eCPM on a 60-hour schedule would make $40/hour or $1600/week or $6400/month.” This is just through good advertisement revenue and doesn’t include the $2.50 for each new follower on your page.

You will also make $3 for every 1,000 non-subscribers who watch a full ad and haven’t used an ad blocking plugin on their web browser.
An example of what a traditional streamer may make is around $20,000 a month for traditional titles like League of Legends, Dota or Counter-strike. Some may be few and far between but their gamers out there making those kinds of incomes.

If you’re looking for a clear break down or more detail, you can look at this article here which explains one streamer’s in-depth monthly revenues from the Twitch service.

How do I start using Twitch?

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It’s as simple as creating an account on Twitch. This gives you a broadcaster video channel page as well as the freedom to view any streamers you wish to watch live.

You will then need to properly set up your gaming device to record gameplay footage from your game console or PC. You will also need to make sure your internet connection and of course data allowance is up to scratch to be able to broadcast your games live, with the added complication of having the right hardware specs if you’re a PC user wanting to stream.
Minimum Technical Requirements
Minimum System Requirements for Broadcasting

  • Pentium Core 2 Duo 2Ghz or Higher
  • 4GB RAM
  • 700Kbps upload bandwidth
  • Dedicated video card, 256MB VRAM
  • Windows / Vista / XP
  • Mac OS X 10.5 or higher (v20.0.89)
  • Mac OS X 10.6 or higher (v20.2.0)
  • Internet Connection Speed For a reliable viewing experience at medium quality, we recommend a downstream connection speed of at least 700Kbps. Viewers can select a higher (up to 2Mbps for HD) or lower (198Kbps for low) video quality on the player depending on the connection speed.
    You can test your connection speed HERE we recommend testing several times as bandwidth can fluctuate.

You then need to set up your PC to record the gameplay footage from your device. Follow the instructions that come with the recording device or the recording card to set them up and connect the PC to your console.

You will need to download then and install one of the many free broadcast software programs and follow the instructions below to set up your video feed. I suggest using Open Broadcaster Software as its free and easy to navigate with their guides which can be found visiting this link 

If you have a PlayStation 4, you have the simple task of pressing on your share button on your PS4 controller once you have the game on the dashboard menu. You will see a “Broadcast Gameplay” from the menu and then just finish it off by signing into your Twitch account.

What makes a good streamer?

DrDisrespect is known as one of the most entertaining streamers today.
DrDisrespect is known as one of the most entertaining streamers today.

You don’t need to be some highly profiled professional gamer that travels the world in front of large audiences to grab high viewership, in fact, the majority of the streamers who are partnered with Twitch, are just casual gamers that just stream their casual day to day gameplay. Because people come to twitch to be entertained, and that is what you are offering when you are streaming publicly, so spend time with whatever number of people you start off with and build from there.

Consider yourself as a brand, think about what you are going to offer that is going to be different from other streamers, Some like DrDisrespect create an alter-ego personality and plays a character which has seen him become one of the most popular streamers of today.  Focusing on your fans and social media is also a huge key to success, each streamer will take out time to give shout outs to those that subscribe and support them during their streams with giveaways and incentives to do so.

Ten short tips for beginner streamers
1. Get a webcam (A good one not a $5 one from an electrical store)
2. Have a good Microphone before you start streaming
3. Make a HUD (You can use OBS Software for this)
4. Be yourself and have fun streaming
5. Critical to have a Strong internet connection
6. Use a Chat Bot (Nightbot or Moobot)
7. Be Consistent in what you stream
8. Stick with it – success doesn’t come overnight
9. Interact with all your viewers
10. Create Social media pages and notify your viewers when you’re streaming

Those are of course the simple tips, but for more in-depth information and one of the best websites I found to read on the do’s & Dont’s for growing your Twitch viewership came from this article

Part 1 –  How To Make Money In Gaming – Introduction

Part 2 – How To make Money In Gaming – Professional Gamer

Part 4 – How To Make Money In Gaming – Broadcasting

How To Make Money In Gaming – Professional Gamer

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professional gamer

How to become a Professional Gamer and how much do they make, this article is from a 9 part series of how to make money in gaming

We start our journey into how to make money as a gamer with one of the most common paths that people know… Professional Gamer.

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What is a Professional Gamer?

Gamers make a living by being involved with the eSports world – What is eSports? (Electronic Sports) Can be defined as a form of sports where the primary aspects of the sport are facilitated by video games. The input of the players and teams, as well as the output of the eSports system, are mediated by human-computer interfaces. Most commonly, eSports take the form of organised multiplayer competitions, particularly between professional players themselves.

If you remove one of the norms of defining a Sport, that being physical interaction, Gaming does not vary at all from traditional sports definition. Even saying there is no physical aspect involved to the game is not accurate, considering the importance of heart rate and clicks per minute in Gaming. These can have the same affects over a player on a much shorter scale when it comes to it being physical, but the definition of competition is there. A Professional Gamer must spend hours a day repeating the same actions until they are mastered, so it is his second nature, and that is just for his personal improvement, much like fitness training for an athlete. A Gamer in a team environment will need to practice individually for his sharp wit and on top of that, practice for hours on end with his team, to be a well-synchronised unit.

Professional Gamers enter in tournaments held by numerous gaming organisations, and leagues hosted online and in live arenas, which can see an average professional travelling to over 30 different live events around the world in a single year. Players are backed by franchise organisations or “teams”, which are themselves backed heavily by sponsors or independent investors, enabling them to pay players under contracts to compete in these tournaments, which may have multi-million dollar prize pools.

Examples of the prize pools that can be found can be seen in this chart of the highest gaming prize pools ever given in eSports up till 2016.

1. The International 2016 $20,770,640.00 Dota 2
2. The International 2015 $18,429,613.05 Dota 2
3. The International 2014 $10,931,103.00 Dota 2
4. LoL 2016 World Championship $5,070,000.00 League of Legends
5. DAC 2015 $3,057,521.00 Dota 2
6. The Boston Major 2016 $3,000,000.00 Dota 2
7. The Frankfurt Major 2015 $3,000,000.00 Dota 2
8. The Manila Major 2016 $3,000,000.00 Dota 2
9. The Shanghai Major 2016 $3,000,000.00 Dota 2
10. The International 2013 $2,874,407.00 Dota 2

How much do Professional Gamers make?

professional gamer

An exact number is extremely hard to answer because they have many ways to earn revenue which can come from streaming, coaching, salaries, sponsorship, bonuses, advertisement, crowd funding (Stickers and banners) and the size of the organisation they are a part of reflects salary they are given. We will be providing more in-depth information about the revenues listed above in upcoming parts in this series.

For this part, we will stick to pure salary only, which, as stated before, can vary depending on sponsorship arrangements that some organisations have with their sponsors. Income figures are hard to come by, but recently, a professional League of Legends franchise by the name of “Ember” made a statement about how much their players are currently receiving.

In this statement from Ember CEO Jonathan Pan, the team disclosed that their new League Of Legends lineup would be receiving split incomes based on the player’s position within the game – At the top of the list is the mid-laner who will earn $65,000 USD with a further $27,000 in performance bonuses. Next came their top-laner who would also be making $65,000 in salary with $21,000 in added possible bonuses. The AD Carry earns $75,000 in total as well as $72,500 and $75,000 for the two remaining support roles. The Ember franchise isn’t even close to the size of other well-established teams sponsoring players, which means we can assume the players in the higher profile teams are getting paid higher salaries.

Let’s flirt with the idea that an average professional gamer gets $72k USD in a year. For professional Dota 2 player Fear, who last year won the largest prize pool of $1,730,076 in money per player in a team, that mixes with other possible revenue streams like sponsorship and advertisements, meaning this player could’ve earned over $2 million for his efforts in 2015.

Possible income for an international competition team- $50,000 to $100,000 in Salary
Revenue Possibility – $80,000 to $200,000 in Bonus’s, prize money, stickers, team merchandise and more

The top echelon teams can see salaries of over $300,000 USD per player like team Virtus.Pro from Counter-Strike: GO or even $3 million which is rumoured for League Of Legends player Faker

How do I become a professional gamer?

If you have ever been part of sport, the fundamentals are the same, with the most obvious one being practice, practice, practice. Start off by selecting a game that you find personally interesting, as you won’t make it very far in gaming if you don’t have a passion for the game you play, so you have got to love what you do.As Spending hours upon hours on it means you are going to have to enjoy it.

Here are some quick tips on starting out

Practice against AI or in-game bots
Don’t make it hard on yourself early and start directly playing with players that are already competent in the game, as it will only make it un-enjoyable for you and those that play with you. The majority of multiplayer gaming titles have training modes or “bots” for you to practice at your pace.

Learn the language
Every game has its language; this is mostly used for being able to communicate with others in the game, by using abbreviations and jargon to quickly convey your message with teammates or, in some cases, your opponent.

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Watch and learn
Like a fighter that watches his opponents, studying is the key to success as you can learn, little tips, tricks, decision making, or even movement that can enhance your game play. Most video games allow you to download replays of some of the biggest professionals competing, and you can also use streaming networks such as Twitch and YouTube, with the Twitch giving the option to watch in real time.

Stock up on the latest gaming gear
Believe it or not, but just like in sports, you are going to need the best equipment to compete. High-end options for headsets, mouse, keyboard, and monitors are just the basics that every gamer will need.

Learn to play with others
After you learn how to play the game, start off by playing in a multiplayer environment even if your game is solo play. Not only will you get to play as a team but you will learn quicker by following the footsteps of those that are on the battlefield with you, than being dominated by those you are against.



Source Tips, Tricks, and Guides
There is an assortment of online websites, either free or pay to view, that will help your game play. Certain games will have Guides that show you exactly how to equip in-game items or settings to get the maximum quality of your game-play.

Make Friends and Play Nice
Networking with other gamer’s with whom you have real in-game experiences like this will better your chances in finding a team or group of players to play with, thus giving you more people to learn from… and have fun with.

It also helps to build a reputation, as one wrong comment can set you back in the gaming community and in some cases even get you shunned from your chance of showing off your skills to the right people.

This concludes the first part for “How To Make Money In Gaming”. Now that we have explored the most widely known career choice in gaming (Professional Gamer). You now have the basics to further educate you in other avenues of the ever expanding eSports industry.

Part 1 –  How To Make Money In Gaming – Introduction

Part 3 – How To Make Money In Gaming – Streaming

Part 4 – How To Make Money In Gaming – Broadcasting

As always please leave me comments as I love to hear your opinions. If you have some blog ideas for me to write about in the future, feel free to make some suggestions in the comments

I can be found @Scottyboomser on Twitter if you want to chat

Bruisers and mages have taken over the botlane, are you ready?

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Hello everyone, I am Arturo Pavon ‘Godlaik’ with another article on League of Legends. In this article, we are going to talk about the changes that have the whole game making it unpredictable and diverse: traditional ADC champions no longer dominate Botlane. Most people are asking themselves now, how did we get to this situation? What champions can be played botlane now? Should I play traditional marksmen? ADC in 2K18?

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  • What changes have been made to make ADC lose power in the botlane?
  • What type of champions has appeared as a consequence?
  • Highest priority champions.
  • Conclusions.

What changes have been made to make ADC lose power in the botlane?

Everything has an origin, and this situation is not an exception. It is called patch 8.11. Marksmen champions before that patch were the only class of champions that was used in the role of bot, except for Mordekaiser in Season 5 and Ziggs last season.

They started being more and more strong with the increase of power given to their partners in the lane and also the early power spikes due to the strength of on-hit items such as Guinsoo’s Rageblade or the strength of crit items in general. Riot Games in this patch decided to change things up for them and decided to introduced the following changes:

  • Reduce the power that marksmen had in the early stages of the game, making them more of scaling champions by reducing the basic stats and moving them into a mid and late game strength.
  • Crit items suffered several changes to emphasise the initial base stats nerfs to the ADC for them to scale later into the game. This was done by increasing the cost of the items and making some modifications to them
  • Rising of solo carry potential with new bounty changes and turret’s gold.

These changes made crit ADC worse overall, but also make games faster, which influence negatively in the marksmen performance because they have no time to scale due to the changes in the itemisation.

What type champions have appeared as a consequence?

Riot has been talking about helping other classes to appear in the botlane for quite a long time, but they were not able to get this until 8.11. As we commented in our previous point, games are faster and as a consequence ADC are not able to have the same impact they had previously.

At first, high elo players from different regions started to think how to solve this problem. They needed to find champions that scale faster and had a cheaper itemisation to go along with the meta. Here is where mages and bruisers make their appearance.

Highest priority champions

Marksmen keep existing in the botlane despite the changes, and there are three that are the most relevant:

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These three champions have in common that they do not need to build crit items to be relevant, and as a consequence, scale reasonably well into the game.

On the other hand, we have the new champions that have taken over the games:

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The new botlane champions in League Of Legends

As we can see, there are both bruisers and mages. Probably the go-to champion against any of the other champions is Vladimir, bruisers suffer against ranged champions and Vladimir is a ranged champion; but he also does reasonably well against ranged champions like ADC because of his ease to burst them.

This has also influenced the support picks that come with them. Champions that provide hard and reliable engage such as Nautilus or Fiddlesticks have come back into the botlane. On the other hand, champions like Soraka keep appearing in a lot of game because of their ability to sustain the champion they have by their side reducing the impact from the previous ones.

Conclusions

The game has changed, some will argue that for the best since all five roles now are diverse regarding champion classes, others will say it is for the worse. It is important to notice, that even with the changes if the game goes long enough into the late game, marksmen will continue to be the real powerhouse that they have always been. Nonetheless, only ADC in the botlane position has come to an end for now, so enjoy it as much as you can! For any questions do not hesitate to contact me on Twitter and I will gladly answer them!

This content was produced by Arturo Pavon ‘Godlaik

Are you a brand or a website looking at marketing into esports? Repeat.gg offers tailored marketing campaigns with hosted tournaments with your branding. If you would like more details on how to advertise with us please contact our marketing manager here

Major Non-Endemic Brands In Esports in 2017

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esports
Image by The Next Level - Most of these brands came into the scene in 2016 and has doubled since today (2018)

We explore what major non-endemic brands to invest in the esports scene with some creating new brands and social media pages to home them

We are in the age where esports is no longer a niche community, and in fact, it’s widely accepted as a legitimate sport and business model today. So much so, the largest companies in the world are part of it, and each year we are surprised at the different types of non-endemic brands entering the world of gaming.

The esports industry has 250 million fans and growing; the scene has attracted the largest brands we know today with esports forecasted by newzoo to surpass $278 million and increase to over $765 million this year.

That fan base will create an audience that can generate over $612 million in direct and indirect revenue. This leads to an expected entrance of these brands to the scene which will help promote and create tournaments in gaming. The recent Overwatch League had a franchise buy-in of $20,000,000 which require the need of non-endemic sponsorship through investors and sponsors in 2018.

Newzoo Revenue Growth Chart
Newzoo Revenue Growth Chart

In this article, we will explore some of most surprising and most significant of those to invest in the esports scene with some creating new brands and social media pages to home them. These based on previous sponsorship deals and current sponsorships up to 2018.

Turtle Wax

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Link – https://www.turtlewax.com/gaming
Twitter – https://twitter.com/turtlewax
One of the new kids on the block, the automotive appearance product manufacturer came onto the scene in 2017 putting their full focus behind the NA organisation Optic Gaming. In 2018 Turtle Wax doubled down on their investment to the esports space by also expanding to the European market by supporting the gaming organisation Splyce.
The marketing director Courtney Lauer explained in an interview that Turtle Wax saw a 25% growth in social media engagement since the edition of supporting the esports scene and citing it is a significant factor of revisiting the support in 2018.

Part of their partnership with one of their players they create a custom wrap on the players car
Part of their partnership with one of their players they create a custom wrap on the player’s car

Late 2017 saw them in a marketing campaign with one of their professional sponsored players “Crimsix” from the Optic Gaming organisation which contained unveiling a Turtle Wax wrapped Porsche GT4 owning to the player.

Budweiser – Budlight

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Twitter – https://twitter.com/budlightesports
Just like peanut butter and jelly, Budweiser pairs with esports perfectly. The average age and sex for an avid esports fan according to statistics in North America is between 24-27 Male, the perfect demographic for an alcoholic beer beverage company.

Almost two years deep in their support for esports, they have taken a different approach to sponsoring gaming athletes, instead of backing full team lineups they supported certain individuals within them voted by public popularity. This worked with individual organisations not wanting to be associated with an alcoholic beverage company and to assure all their sponsored players were over the age of 21 in North America.

BudLight put full production into their video series of their esports all-stars
BudLight put full production into their video series of their esports all-stars

Besides the investing money into esports tournaments such as DreamHack Atlanta, DreamHack Austin with bar lounges at the events they created a content video series with their sponsored athletes in their “Budlight AllStars” campaign. Bud Light seems to be sticking with esports with content still being published out today, primarily by hosting their sponsored all-stars on their Twitch channel.

Mcdonalds

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The most recognisable logo in the world being Mcdonalds only recently started to heavily market within esports in the past couple of years since 2013. They have done a bit of everything, and the list of projects Mcdonalds have invested in is too extensive to place in this article. They have supported every form of events to the local region and on to a larger scale of partnering with the most significant esports tournament organiser on Earth, ESL.

McDonalds-LaLiga-eSports-feature-image

Mcdonalds latest partnership has been with Virtual LaLiga eSports the first significant project from LaLiga esports.Officially part of the EA SPORTS FIFA 18 Global Series on the Road to the FIFA eWorld Cup 2018, the goal is to transform this ambitious tournament into the hallmark competition in Spain.

Regardless of what and where Mcdonalds decides to sponsor in esports next, it’s going to bring immediate interest from the gaming and general public. We can only hope they continually invest into the scene with their dominant brand power behind them and continue with riding the growth within the competitive space.

Coca-Cola

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Link – http://www.coca-colacompany.com/tags/coke-esports
Twitter – https://twitter.com/CokeEsports

The soft drink maker and the enormous branding power behind it being Coca-Cola was the third most valuable brand in 2015, seeing them in the mix of esports has given esports instant gratification to gaming. Coke hasn’t had the smoothest transition into esports in their last few years as projects have come and gone such as iGN Esports Weekly, a sportscentre type production for gaming which lasted for only a few months.

They have been heavily involved in the league of legends scene after announcing a partnership with the league of legends developers Riot and with their marketing saw extensive involvements with the brand during tournaments for the game. This partnership with Riot Games has been a successful venture for Coca-Cola as one year in they became the #1 non-video game brand associated with the 85 million player base of League of legends.

Coke is branded along the single player story campaign in the latest Fifa game
Coke is branded within the single player story campaign of the latest Fifa game

Currently, Coca-Cola threw their marketing power behind the newest release of EA SPORTS™ FIFA 18, which saw the brand obtain in-game advertisement as being the virtual advertiser for the game character in the single-player campaign. Along with the virtual commercials, the brand has also hosted their league being eCOPA Coca-Cola – a global EA SPORTS FIFA 18 tournament for 2018.

Having Coca-Cola in esports is a massive point in the right direction and further cements the prospect of what is to come when a brand this large has an invested interest in the sport.

ESPN

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Link – http://www.espn.com.au/esports/
Twitter – https://twitter.com/ESPN_Esports
ESPN is a U.S.-based global cable satellite television channel and global sporting content website, the most significant sporting network in the world. Late 2015 ESPN dabbled in viewing esports tournaments on their sports channel with mix feedback, but viewership numbers showed promise for the network. Soon to follow in 2016, they announced ESPN esports on their site platform.

The site house’s content with results, articles, interviews and tournament updates of which mainly focuses on the higher profiled titles such as LOL, Dota 2, CSGO and Hearthstone.

It became a big headline in the esports scene as finally, it had legitimacy for the general public that professional gaming is, in fact, an actual sport. Not everybody was so optimistic about esports having coverage on ESPN such as Colin Cowherd, a commentator for the network who went on to state that he will quit if forced to cover esports and quoted saying

This guy had no time for esports
This guy had no love for esports

“Somebody lock the basement door at mom’s house and don’t let ’em out,” “You know what the funny thing is? Listen to how intense they are. Those guys are totally into it.”

Well eventually he ate his words shortly after the news broke out, Cowherd and ESPN have parted since the announcement of the esports coverage while ESPN stated the comments were not related to the split but the timing seems to tell otherwise.

RedBull

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Links – http://www.redbull.com/au/en/esports
Twitter – https://twitter.com/redbullESPORTS
Saving the best till last, The Energy drink maker and one of the largest sponsoring athlete corporations in the world is a considerable advocator for esports. The unique thing about Red Bull is their longevity in the scene and was one of the very first major corporations to invest back in 2008. They are a tremendous driving force behind the workings of the growth in the industry with their continuing support from gaming athletes to the hundreds of minor and major tournaments that were hosted and funded by the company.

PartinG celebrates his victory over sOs in the final of Red Bull Battle Grounds, at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City, NY, USA on 24 November, 2013.
PartinG celebrates his victory over sOs in the final of Red Bull Battle Grounds, at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City, NY, USA on 24 November, 2013.

Red Bull has a list of players and teams they have sponsored over the past as well as hosting their tournament competition. Red Bull Battle Grounds which has been played by the best gaming royalty has to offer with prize pools of hundreds of thousands of dollars given for Dota 2 & SC2.

If you were at a gaming event and didn't see these girls, were you ever really at a gaming event?
If you were at a gaming event and didn’t see these girls, were you ever really at a gaming event?

Much like ESPN, Red Bull has been the pioneers in creating esports content with their dedicated page purely for pro-gaming news and content. Since the dawn of time, Red Bull had attending gaming events across the world handing out free drinks to thirsty gamers with the added help from the Red Bull promo girls. If you went to live gaming events, you would most like seen these girls handing out free drinks.

Honourable Mentions –

Supplied by The Next Level -Non-endemic Brands from 2017
Supplied by The Next Level -Non-endemic Brands from 2017

Gillette, Snickers, Visa, Mountain Dew, Adidas, Vodaphone, Chipotle, Toyota, Audi. DHL, KFC, Lionsgate, Pringles, AirAsia, PaySafeCard, BetWay

Summary

Of course, it’s hugely encouraging for esports to see new brands bring legitimacy to the sport. The most exciting part is that the majority of these brands increase their original investment in the scene and extending their current contracts they have made previously.

The questions that would be asked by the general public’s opinion is, Why? This question is quite simple to answer, traditional media is fading, and it’s become harder to target the demographic audience of 18-35-year-old millennials which obtain disposable incomes for these type of brands to want to attract and market too.

If you found this article interesting make sure to read our other Prize Pool Articles –
Highest Earning Esports Countries
Highest-Earning Prize Pools of 2017
Highest Paying Game Titles In History
Highest Earning Individuals In Esports

Article Written by – XYGaming Community Manager Scott “Boomser” Bednarski – Twitter – @Scottyboomser

Are you a brand or a website looking at marketing into esports? Repeat.gg offers tailored marketing campaigns with hosted tournaments with your branding. If you would like more details on how to advertise with us please contact our marketing manager here.

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