Re: Life - Business & Technology

Chapter 18 - Birth Of An Esport

War Online: Arena was ready to be released after months of development, in partnership with Epic Games, and the result of Future Studio's continuous efforts.

The game mode concept was pretty simple, but Vince was very particular with latency responsiveness and server performance.

The localization team had already updated the game with 18 different language packs for users to choose from before the new major release.

Vince decided to have David contact video streaming services like Twitch and YouTube to negotiate broadcasting rights for their new competitive mode.

Future Studios also signed a deal with existing esports leagues to host the event worth $10 million. Additionally, Future Studios posted an announcement on their website and Reddit regarding the upcoming update.

There would be a professional league for the new game mode with a prize purse of 5 million Bitcash with 1 million going to the winning team.

It was a 5v5 version of the battlegrounds with leaderboards and skill-based matchmaking, among other neat features.

The teams would also earn in-game rewards throughout the league that their main characters could use outside of the arena, like in the battlegrounds or raids.

The arena would showcase the best players in the game purely based on skill and understanding of the meta. People on social media were excited to see what the update offered after reading the announcements.

Online posts were going viral, and team recruitment was already underway. In addition, famous live streaming personalities online were given sponsorship deals to play and promote the new arena mode.

The update went live a day after the announcement, with the open qualifiers happening a week later. Gaming news outlets reported on War Online: Arena and the hype train grew further and further.

Established esports teams started practicing and creating video content to promote their organizations. Even popular gaming orgs from other games like COD and DotA expanded, focusing on War Online: Arena, based on all the buzz from the gaming media outlets.

Dollar contacted Vince via video conference call regarding expanding the BitCash network to support the millions of new users.

Vince gave Dollar's request approval and funding, and he started the expansion project immediately after.

"You should also expand the Bitcoin Bank. Contact some German, U.S, and Singaporean banks with the help of Ralph and David.", Vince replied before dismissing his BitCash executive.

"Hello, everybody! Welcome to Esports Daily. My name is Ashley and here with me today is the team captain of Prime Alliance, Fortis. Thank you for joining us in discussing War Online Arena and the professional league or APL, Fortis. Can you tell me how Prime Alliance is preparing for the open qualifiers?" Ashley asked over the microphone.

"As many active players know, the Prime Alliance professional team collaborates between five top guilds providing their best player to compete. Our fellow guildmates have been assisting the team with scrimmage matches and developing the meta. The team requires players to use varied weapons, skills, and traits to gain a strategic advantage over opponents, and we've been hard at work getting this right." Fortis replied as he acted professionally in front of the camera.

"Which teams do you think will be competing for the top seeds in the upcoming qualifiers?" Ashley asked curiously. 

"Other than Prime Alliance, I feel like Blitz from Germany, Nimbus from China, and Blizzard from Russia will do the best among all the teams," Fortis replied.

The show continued for another hour before Vince decided to turn the live stream off. Vince checked the War Online user data and found close to 100 million concurrent players shattering all existing video game records. 

[Localizing the game to Chinese, South Korean, Spanish, and Russian was the best decision. It seems like everybody is either practicing or grinding to gain glory for their guild, alliance, and country.] Vince thought.

The popularity of War Online stems from the cross-platform feature, but most professional players prefer playing on a desktop with a keyboard and mouse or controller. The touchscreen controls are decent but are considered not as good as other options by most players.

Vince then received financial reports from Ralph and decided to read them. Future Studios and BitCash raked in $200 million after expenses since he last checked, coming from various sources such as transactions fees and cash shop items sales in War Online.

[Having a diverse revenue portfolio is truly one of the best strategies in increasing profits.] So Vince pondered while counting Future Tech's hard-earned cash.

The percentage of revenue from the video games was slightly lower than transactions from online stores like eBay. Nevertheless, the business' combined total value is estimated to pass $1 billion by the end of the year.

Vince then tasked half of Future Studios to focus on further development, while the other half would support the Arena Professional League.

A week had passed, and the APL's opening ceremony went live on all the live streaming platforms. Future Studios subtitled the broadcast, and other markets like China enjoyed a localized broadcast allowing more people to enjoy the ceremony in their native language.

"Welcome to our grand opening ceremony for the Arena Pro League Season 1. There will be more than 10,000 teams fighting for the top 32 seeds to qualify for the playoffs. Future Studios will hold the live grand finals at the Staples Center in Los Angeles in three months. The first qualifying game we'll be watching is Prime Alliance versus God's Temple. Please listen to our game analysts while we wait for the match to start.", the show host said with confidence.

The game started 15 minutes later. Fortis, the team captain of Prime Alliance, chose to play with sword and shield, utilizing taunts and battle auras to support his team.

"Fortis is the best tank in North America. Watch him closely. It looks like he wants to start the team fight with his shield crush. Oh! He landed the bash hit directly on Drax, the main offensive player for God's Temple. That initiation is a colossal blunder for God's Temple, and it looks like all five of them will fall soon enough.", the shout caster said with vigor over the broadcast.

Prime Alliance won the best of three matches 2-0 and moved up the qualifying rankings. The competitive War Online community played thousands of league games, and Future Studios broadcasted only the most exciting matches involving popular teams live on Twitch and YouTube.

Following league matches were to be played every weekend until the top 32 solidifies their spot in the rankings.

Vince stopped watching after Prime Alliance played and continued working. He was used to working and collaborating with people via video conference calls, but the business had grown so large that it was getting more challenging to manage.

Vince decided to invest in an office space located in downtown Austin where all his employees could work. Vince instructed Ralph and David with this critical task during their daily meetings.

EDITED