E-sports, organized video game competitions watched by spectators, continues to experience exponential growth as the most valuable companies in the industry diversify their business offerings.
As e-sports continues its rise as a popular and profitable form of entertainment, its appeal is apparent. Over the last decade, it went from an underground movement and niche activity to a mainstream cultural phenomenon. The hype surrounding e-sports still persists today, and FIGHT Esports, a global e-sports marketing agency, is at the center of the fanfare in Southeast Asia, heralding “the next big thing” in the golden age of e-sports.
Since 2016, there has been a significant increase in e-sports viewers among both casual viewers and enthusiasts. According to research by Newzoo, between 2018 and 2019, there was a 22.2% increase in livestream gaming viewership from 2020 to 2021. The market research and intelligence platform then adjusted the figures in 2019, reporting that there were 200.8 million casual viewers and 197 million e-sports enthusiasts, bringing the total audience to 397.8 million.
The year-on-year growth continued in 2020, with 220.5 million casual viewers and 215.4 million enthusiasts, bringing the total combined e-sports audience to 435.9 million. A separate report by Statista also revealed that the global e-sports market acquired a value of over USD 1.08 billion in 2021, up 14% from the previous year.
“Lockdown measures imposed globally during the early period of the outbreak contributed to the gaming industry’s spike in both revenue and engagement. The number of people that turned to gaming as a form of entertainment increased significantly, including those that spectated e-sports live-streams,” said Matthew Ho, head of FIGHT Esports.
One thing is certain: the industry’s colossal growth isn’t dampening anytime soon, especially since the market’s revenue is forecasted to reach USD 1.62 billion in 2024.
FIGHT Esports has been helping build an ecosystem for the gaming community while supporting the development of the industry through livestreamed tournaments and gaming content. Established in 2019, FIGHT Esports has so far organized over 80 tournaments in seven markets, including Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, Taiwan, and the Philippines.
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FIGHT Esports over the years
In the early years of its inception, FIGHT Esports was set in motion as the e-sports arm under Forest Interactive, a Kuala Lumpur-headquartered tech company that develops scalable mobile platforms. As an e-sports entertainment platform, FIGHT Esports focused on building the gaming community across East and Southeast Asia through various localized community-focused online tournaments, featuring multiple game titles including the Arena of Valor (AOV) Campus Tournament in Taiwan, the Dota 2 Paradise Cup in Indonesia, a Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) tournament in Cambodia, an Apex Legends tournament in Thailand, as well as a Valorant tournament in the Philippines.
FIGHT Esports has also formed numerous partnerships to organize tournaments, including with Garena for Level Up KL 2020, TikTok for #TikTokGGPH Creator Cup, and KITAMEN for Level Up KL Junior Cup 2021. Last year also marked FIGHT Esports’ first-ever regional multi-title tournament, FIGHT Campus League/Legend (FCL), for university students in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines.
“Our team has pushed ahead with our initiatives to not only build and grow gaming communities around the world but also create value for partners such as non-endemic brands and products, as well as government agencies,” said Ho.
“In the past two years, we have collaborated closely with game publishers and partners from various industries to organize events and tournaments in our effort to celebrate the modern gaming culture and empower grassroots e-sports communities.”
The multi-title varsity league was recognized as the gold winner at PR Indonesia Awards (PRIA) 2022 for the PR Marketing category and brought home the bronze at Marketing Events Awards 2021 for the Best Consumer Event – Esports category. The tremendous growth of FIGHT Esports eventually led the global e-sports entertainment platform to establish itself as its own business entity at the end of 2021.
Leveling up
This year, FIGHT Esports shifted its focus towards becoming a full-fledged e-sports agency, expanding its service portfolio beyond organizing events and tournaments to meet market demands. As an agency, FIGHT Esports now offers game marketing, e-sports public relations services, merchandising, community building, short and long-form gaming content production, content and broadcast localization, as well as regional tournaments in Southeast Asia.
Currently serving as the official agency for some of the world’s biggest mobile game publishers—including Tencent Games, Sea’s Garena, and ByteDance’s Moonton Technology—FIGHT Esports is actively looking to expand its clientele across all regions.
What’s more, after establishing a strong presence in the e-sports world, FIGHT Esports is planning to break into the burgeoning cryptocurrency market, with plans to launch a multifunctional crypto platform called Nypto. Slated to first launch in Thailand, the platform will initially include a vote-to-earn feature. Moving forward, more features will be added to the platform, including exclusive NFT collectibles through Nypto’s partnerships with e-sports teams, custom tournament creations and promotional events, gamification opportunities for game publishers, staking and rewards pools, and exclusive e-sports memberships.
What’s next for FIGHT?
Industry pundits have widely spoken about how the integration of crypto and blockchain into the world of e-sports offers a wide variety of opportunities to innovators, users, and established players. In FIGHT Esports’ approach, Nypto will capitalize on blockchain technology to create a platform that allows gamers to fully experience the benefits of blockchain-supported e-sports. These include secured prize payments using a blockchain-based backend, cross-border payments, a gateway for game publishers to utilize Nypto without directly investing in crypto, and most importantly, connecting gamers to the crypto space in a seamless and engaging way.
FIGHT Esports has already assembled a team to develop Nypto and is now actively looking for investors and partners in preparation for its launch.
FIGHT Esports also plans to launch exclusive NFTs and an e-sports NFT marketplace. The move to tap into non-fungible tokens is timely, given how NFTs allow blockchain innovators to create one-of-a-kind digital assets. Since these in-game assets are securely stored on the blockchain, players own them—not game publishers—giving them the ability to use them or sell them at any time through Nypto’s NFT marketplace.
“This convergence of cryptocurrency, NFTs, e-sports, and gaming is appealing to many key players in the industry as they create huge potential to drive higher engagement as well as reach new audiences. However, since the technology is relatively new, we will continue working closely with our partners to figure out ways to incorporate it into our platform safely and securely,” said Ho.
To collaborate with FIGHT Esports, drop them a line at [email protected].