eSports is big business. It’s probably the most prominent business you don’t really know anything about. In 2020 global eSports revenues will surpass $1 billion, and that’s without including broadcasting platform revenues.
That’s a lot of cash, and if you fast-forward those projections another five years, top franchises are expected to be earning around $20 million a year.
It might be time to start getting good at Rocket League.
With cash numbers like this floating around who should come knocking at the door looking for a piece of the action. Ah, hello Facebook, we have been expecting you.
Facebook Gaming first emerged out of Menlo Park in a bid to take on the likes of Twitch and YouTube as a viable platform for online game streaming. While it hasn’t, as yet, hit numbers close to its competitors – indeed, you may not have even known it existed before today – content creators have been quick to point out that they can actually make more from streaming on Facebook than the other longer-established platforms. Its figures at the end of last year still showed that it had an 8.5% market share, and that’s without any real active comparative promotion
As ever, Facebook is all about the data, and they have now finalized plans for, and indeed instantly launched on the world their new Tournaments. This new platform lets users join or follow virtual tournaments easily and offers all the tools available to manage them.
They have launched it at a time where we are all social distancing and are billing it as a way gamers can come together – (you could argue that gamers have always mainly been social distancing as online play is nothing new for them, but it sure sounds good).
The tool isn’t totally finished yet, but you can sign up, join in and create or join tournaments now. Imagine that family retro gaming tournament at the weekend. Or joining a Street Fighter V competition. Imagine the possibilities. Imagine the potential to sell you games. Imagine the data. All that lovely data.
You could see where this could go, and depending on where you morally stand on Facebook’s ethics will probably decide whether you see this as another way of bringing humanity closer together in strange times or another data harvest.
One thing that is for sure however, is that it is a tool that will make all the difference when it comes to competitive gaming – whether that’s you competitive gaming with your friends or trying to win $1 million prize money playing Fortnite.
As Facebook Tournmaments About pages states, “We’re excited to open early access to Facebook Gaming tournaments, a feature to help people stay connected through games. Gaming is all about friendly competition, and Facebook Gaming tournaments help bring that experience to everyone wherever they are, whatever game they’re playing.”
And we at PC Guide couldn’t agree with that sentiment more.
