Jacob Carlson of Manatt Digital penned a nice summary of Gaming and Esports for 2018, including a look ahead at what’s in store for 2019. Here are a few snippets:
It’s a Fortnite world, and we’re all just living in it. While the gaming and esports industries have continued to thrive, the 800-pound gorilla has been Fortnite’s continued dominance in the market. We haven’t seen anything like this since Pokémon Go in 2016. Even though Fortnite is garnering most of the well-deserved press and attention, there are lots of big developments in the space that shouldn’t be missed. …
Epic has committed $100 million to prize pools for players and competitors. It is organizing a World Cup event in 2019 that will provide competition and opportunities to win some of that available cash. While that seems like a lot of money, there have been reports that sponsored partnership deals around the World Cup could run as high as $25 million each. …
Overwatch League has reportedly upped its expansion team franchise fees from $20 million to $30-$60 million per team. Team Liquid parent company aXiomatic raised $25 million in Series B funds earlier in the year, while Cloud9 just closed a $50 million Series B that will enable it to build a 20,000-30,000-square-foot training and operations facility in Los Angeles that may be used for team members and, potentially, community. TSM’s parent company, Swift, closed a $37 million Series A to help with its NA LCS buy-in fee as well as growing operations. …
While the quantity and diversity of content available to consumers today are bigger than ever before, the gaming and esports industry continues its growth trajectory unabated. Gaming has been shown to be universal and without boundaries across geographic and demographic lines. This type of open market opportunity continues to drive innovation in an effort to capture a piece of the ever-growing pie.