Esports Mogul extends Razer relationship and doubles registration numbers
Electronic sports (eSports) media company Esports Mogul (ASX: ESH) has added two new features and has announced a sharp increase of new registrations for its proprietary Mogul Sports gaming platform.
Its most recent innovation is Esports Elite, an interactive addition to its core platform which allows esports participants and fans to participate in gaming events being held on Mogul Sports.
Esports Elite users can speculate on the outcome of events using zSilver, a “virtual loyalty credit system” that serves as a means of exchange and voting collateral for participants.
zSilver has been introduced in partnership with Razer, a US-based “lifestyle brand for gamers”, as a means of monetising the growing interest in eSports from both professional full-time gamers and spectators watching gamers compete.
Razer was founded in 2005 and is backed by institutional investors such as IDG-Accel, Intel Capital and Horizons Ventures.
Razer zSilver can be exchanged for a range of rewards including full Razer products, discount vouchers and games with over 35,000 rewards having been redeemed by gamers worldwide to date.
According to Esports Mogul, the new features allow spectators to back their favourite players and teams by predicting the outcome of professional matches across a variety of games and genres.
As an established online entity, Razer has been selected as Mogul Sports’ official hardware and peripherals partner which means it will provide prizes for winners of selected Mogul Arena tournaments.
Tournament winners will be awarded substantial prizes within the Mogul Arena ecosystem which is forecast to attract a significant number of new professional gamers to the platform and increase the level of participation amongst gaming spectators with ambitions to become professional gamers.
Gaming for the commercial eSports pie
Esports has quickly taken a strong position as one of the fastest growing industries in the world, currently estimated to be worth around US$116 billion (A$150 billion) per year.
According to industry research, there are currently 2.2 billion gamers across all platforms globally with professional gaming taking an increasingly lucrative position and commanding multimillion-dollar prize pools.
The strong uptake of online gaming and gaming as a dedicated full-time profession in recent years has been fuelled by US-based entities such as Twitch TV and Steam, offering gamers the opportunity to play games not only with unprecedented interactivity but also the ability to record and broadcast their activities to millions of viewers around the world.
As one of the first Australian companies to move into this niche market, Esports Mogul’s popularity is growing, with the company reporting a doubling of its registered user base in less than 1 month.
According to Esports Mogul, its Mogul Arena platform acquired 39,697 registered users in just 6 days, earlier this month.
The feat was the company’s highest rate of acquisition to date and takes its overall registered user base to over 55,000, which equates to its highest rate of acquisition yet and includes dedicated gamers, viewers and fans alike.
The company says that “acceleration of marketing activity and the recent launch of Esports Elite” were largely responsible for the sharp rise in users and also cites its ongoing monthly Asian tournament series on Mogul Arena for both Counterstrike Go and DOTA 2 (Defence of the Ancients), as reported by Small Caps last year.
“The Company is pleased to be showing this increase in user acquisition as we continue to develop our platform, accelerate marketing activity and enter into more strategic partnerships. We look forward to giving the market regular updates about our sustained acquisition activity,” said Gernot Abl, managing director of Esports Mogul.