Gaming and growing an esports industry

Since 1972, and the birth of the first consoles, esports has taken hold as a great form of entertainment, and a place to show off one's reflexes. However, what if there was more to esports than watching digital code flash across a screen? Interview with Olga Adamkiewicz, CEO of Artgeist

Interview by Sean Reynaud

WBJ: So the gaming industry seems like it is contracting a bit, as a result of oversaturation. How do you see the gaming industry today?

Olga Adamkiewicz: So gaming is a very fragmented market, right? So you have different providers when it comes to hardware, when it comes to software, when it comes to different types of games on different devices. And then there is this tiny part of it, which is called Esports. Gaimin.gg aims at democratization of esports among players, in the sense that it allows players to enter and play for a very small amount of money, and where you don’t have to be a professional gamer. So you don’t need a lot of experience. Also, it’s not a betting company. Let’s be very clear. So Gaimin.gg allows you to play with competitive gamers, with games like Counterstrike. You can compete with other players who are at the same maturity of play when it comes to gaming.

One of the things that we identified, or the founders of Gaimin.gg identified, was the challenge of making esports more available for a broader audience. There is a fundamental gap between a player and an esport player. You need to invest a lot of money in your skillset. It boils down to an investment in time and training, and so forth. And so to make it more available we created a platform that makes it more accessible for people to compete, at different levels of experience, with those of a similar level.

So is it an application?

It’s a web solution for PCs, because a majority of games are available on PC. They are less playable on consoles, and they are practically non-existent on mobile. So this is a web solution that allows people to match with other players.

Right now we are at a proof of concept level. So we have opened up the platform for two games on the Polish market to prove that it works – and it actually works very well. The feedback has been very positive. The founders are right now raising capital for a scale-up.

So for now it’s in Poland only?

Yes, but it’s available in multiple languages. But basically the game is designed in English because this is the language that gamers use. The payments are available in multiple markets, but the proof of concept was done in Poland due to the fact that it was easier for us, being from Poland.

Would you say that esports are professionalizing in Poland? Are there any esport companies or trainers?

Well, it is still emerging and many are waiting for it to develop in Poland. My first experience with esport was eight years ago when I founded a company called Brand New Galaxy, which is a big international marketing company. And one of the pillars we had was to explore esport and gaming. We had this idea about bringing in sponsors from big brands. But then the benefits of those sponsorships were not that clear, so they chose not to invest further. So I think the problem with esports is that it is still at this emerging phase, and everyone is waiting for esports to become the big thing in gaming.

What is preventing gaming from snowballing into something really professional?

One I think is awareness, but the other is basically infrastructure. If you look at countries like the US and China they have a systemic solution supporting start-ups, for supporting and financing players, to allow players to play instead of doing other things. Because if you look at players from other countries, the successful ones are spending ten hours a day training on their particular game. So they cannot work somewhere else. They have to spend their entire capacity on training in order to become successful.

In Poland we have some investors in esports, some companies working on developing esports, but these efforts are still very small compared to other markets. Even if you look at how much is being spent on players, the amount of money is very small, even compared to western Europe.

Esports is one of the sports where age matters most. What is your opinion on age? Is it sustainable to invest in a player, and at what stage do you invest that makes most sense?

Well, first of all, I was born in a world without the internet. I was four when I played Manic Miner, which was a platform game when I was younger. So overall, gaming is a relatively young industry. And within that young industry we have people that are starting to emerge from a reality different from the one I was born into. Now, I think at the end of the day, I think it’s a certain skill set attached to using a certain device, and you develop a native ability while using that device.

Now, answering your question on the age aspect, I think that people start to play very early and they get used to gamification as a concept. It doesn’t need to be esports. They’re used to gamification, and then they grow with it on more difficult platforms to more difficult games, and then they become more technologically savvy. Having said that, we have players that are not teenagers. They have been playing for ten or fifteen years. So I think this element, of age, will change as well. Our stereotype of a gamer is that it’s a male, teenager that's not leaving his room or not doing anything other than gaming, which is completely untrue. Because in order to be a professional gamer you have to be very fit, very organized and structured in terms of thinking, and you need to be mentally stable.

What we’ve also noticed is that the skillset of gamers is potentially very useful in other industries. Because it basically boils down to a specific way of thinking, and a very fast decision making process. How does that differ from being a CEO of a company? At its core these players learn a lot from . . . playing.

Would you say that the future of an esports player is mentorship; is it business?

It could be a lot of things. There are examples of players in the US being hired to fly drones. So, obviously we could debate whether it’s good or not, but at the end of the day this is something that is already emerging. I’ve worked with a lot of people in gaming, and they are brilliant people. And from our case with Gaimin.gg, the founders were first of all, players. They have a love of the industry.

What is No More Cheats?

Well, No More Cheats is an R&D company. It is dedicated to developing a solution that promotes fair play among esports players. Because that is something that is also a growing challenge. There are all kinds of hacks that you can do in games, either in the hardware or the software. So we are dedicated to finding a way to promote fairness and reduce cheating in esports, which could be helpful to promote esports overall.

Players are tired of installing new software to play games, yet we need a software solution to close the gaps in the security of games. For example, Counter Strike was made a long time ago, and so there are a lot of security gaps in the game. The challenge is to plug those gaps. If somebody can come up with a solution that is more acceptable for players then, it could be interesting. And this is exactly what No More Cheats is working on.

gaming industry

esport