 to the wide world of eSports, the show devoted to all things eSports. I'm your host, Katharine Norr. Today our topic is the eSports ecosystem. With me is Ben Bueno, founder and CEO of Agency Inc. The creators of BeaconsGG. Welcome, Ben. Thanks for having me, Katharine. All right, so what is agency? I mean, at the core we're a technology company and basically we are here to create solutions for the kind of broader creator economy and basically help people pursue their passion and give them the tools and opportunities to pursue that passion and so that they can kind of keep on the grind and make money as they go. So what gave you the inspiration to start that company? Yeah, so I mean, a lifetime ago I was a competitive gamer. I was really involved in local gaming communities. I traveled and competed well before there was any money in traveling and competing, not to date myself. And for me, being a part of these gaming communities was a huge part of myself, my identity. And growing up over time, like seeing so much success in the eSports ecosystem, I was like, man, like, this is really cool. I got the chance to, you know, I started my own, you know, kind of local, you know, events organization company running local events over some time. Then I got a chance to work at Riot Games. So I've been in and around at eSports for a really, really long time. And then it wasn't, you know, my career took me in a different direction over the last, you know, 10 years. But, you know, I really saw that there was a, something missing in the eSports ecosystem. This was kind of like the middle ground of, you know, the eSports space, where like there's so many people doing so many amazing things, building these amazing communities that I used to be a big part of. And then there's this kind of like, you know, professional eSports space that's, you know, you're international, you're Louis Vuitton's are getting in, you have everything there. And it's like, well, like, what's happening in the middle? Like, why aren't there a lot of people that are finding success, you know, being the like, you know, the regional tournament organizers? And like, why isn't that they're like full-time careers? And why aren't more people finding this kind of success? And so that was really the thing that I saw that was like, man, I really want to solve this problem. And then, you know, I've been able to learn, you know, local SEO marketing skills through my, you know, my day job here, working at, you know, startups here in Los Angeles. And I was like, you know what? I finally felt like I had a thing. I was like, I got to take the chance, got to take what I've been doing and just bring it back to eSports space. You know, that's inspirational for people who do want to start their own business. But I know that the viewers are really gonna have this one important question of you. What games did you play when you were competing? Oh man. So I made the terrible mistake of being a Smash Brothers brawl player. Huge Smash Brothers fan, you know, Melee was like dominating. All of my friends were very, very, I'm from Canada, so Canadian region, pretty strong. And all of my friends were just very, very good. And I saw them and they were, you know, still practicing 10 hours a day. And I was like, man, I'm never gonna, you know, be as good as those guys. And then brawl was announced and I was in my early 20s. And I was like, this is the game. I'm finally gonna be on equal footing, like the new game I'm gonna do into it. So I just like doubled down. I imported the system from Japan so that I could get like that extra month, you know, practice on everyone. And I did the grind. It was super, super fun. I played rather robot exclusively. I know it's dirty, but you know, it was great. And I became the strongest player in my city and then in the local region. And then one of the main contenders in like the region and then I started traveling around. And then the game just wasn't the most fun. And so no one plays it anymore. You know, and that's what the problem is. Sometimes at Esports, you might pick the wrong game or you're like too early or too late or you know, something like that or your life gets in the way, right? Yeah, it's great. I mean, back then it was just, you know, like I have, obviously I invested a lot of my own personal time into it where I was like, there's a passion project for me. Like I wasn't in it for the money. But you know, these days is something that everyone needs to be really, really aware of when they're getting into Esports is like, if you are going to spend the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, you know, to start a team, it's like, well, which games you play is really important because the game might not be there in a year and all of a sudden all of that work is not there. So it's definitely something to think about. Yeah, and so let's move on to Beacon's GG. What is that and why did you start that? Yeah, so Beacon's GG is basically our first product, right? You know, we're a technology company. We build stuff. So we decided to call the first thing Beacon's because we wanted everyone to be a Beacon. And basically what we do is we take event information. So like if you're already using something like Smash GG, Tournament, Chalonge, BattleFi, you know, there's like dozens of very, very good tournament organization pieces of software out there and they're all awesome. And we are not trying to rebuild any of those things. Basically what we are is we're like a website that takes that information and basically makes an SEO optimized website for local events. So basically if someone is on Google and being like, hey, I wanna find a Smash Brothers Tournament near me or I wanna find a Street Fighter or League of Legends, something happening in a certain area, like you should show up because you are creating an experience in that area and hopefully people will find you and choose to sign up. And so that's what we do right now. And so how do you fit into the eSports ecosystem? Yeah, so we're not really an eSports company. We're like a technology company and technology and advertising, marketing automation, that kind of stuff is how I describe ourselves. But really like our goal is, you know, to really help people grow. And we also really, we wanna make sure that we're helping people grow in a way that they can't get elsewhere, right? I think that this idea of like local SEO is something that like no one else is really trying to do. So it's like, yeah, this is something we can add and like by us helping people grow, like the whole ecosystem is growing and everyone's growing together. We really are not trying to come and be like, oh, we're gonna just redo what those guys do but a little bit better and take their market share. And like, I don't know, that's not like our mission. Our mission is to like really grow the entire thing and make that middle class kind of become a stable ecosystem. Sure. And so how is eSports used as a marketing and engagement channel for game publishers? Yeah, so eSports has gone under like a ton of growth recently, right? And like, you know, when I was doing it, it was really small and now you look at it, it's kind of like everywhere. And I think it's really important to kind of see it in the context of like the game publishers that rely on eSports for engaging their players long-term. And this is kind of like, this has come about because their business model is shifted from the like one-time purchase box, you know, go to the store, spend 60 bucks, you know, buy it to the micro transactions, the loot boxes that everyone hates, the battle passes and like the longer-term monetization. And so as their business model shifted from like an upfront purchase to like lifetime value, like, okay, well, how do we keep players engaged for a month, a year, 10 years? And so eSports is that way for them to keep people engaged. There's like the seasonal content drops and so that keeps people playing their game for longer and longer, so like they make more money. And it's just like, that's really like why, you know, the game publishers really pushed eSports really, really hard and they were dumping so much funds and like into creating it because they're like, well, this is how we're gonna do it. And I think for me, you know, the biggest thing today that kind of like proves this to me outside of, you know, my direct experience in the industry is like Fortnite tried to do this, right? Where they were like, we're gonna do an eSports, we're gonna have like millions of dollars of tournaments and then it didn't really happen because like their game didn't really like turn into an eSports, right? It wasn't meant to be like the experience wasn't that competitive kind of thing. And so I was really impressed that they were able to pivot into these like the virtual experiences and the concerts and everything. And you know, turning it into that kind of like metaverse, you know, it was their version of like, well, we can't do eSports, well, let's try something else like keep our players engaged. And so I think that, you know, those, these things are should be considered, you know, different tactics to keep players engaged long-term. Sure. And you know what? I really can't talk about the eSports ecosystem unless I talk about something that has just happened. The Olympics, okay? So we just had the Olympic Games. And so do you have any thoughts on eSports being an Olympic part of the real Olympic Games and not just like a side event? Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. I, to me, like the eSports is like a word that gets thrown around a lot, but to me there really is no eSports. Like each game that gets played is its own competitive ecosystem. It's kind of like, you know, like, are there gonna be sports in the Olympics, right? It's like, well, of course there's gonna be sports, right? But like which sports are gonna be in there, right? Is it League of Legends? Is it Overwatch? Is it, you know, Rocket League? Is it, you know, Crossfire? Is it all these games that like North America has very little, you know, invested interest in, right? Like you run into that kind of as well. So I think there's a long road ahead of the gaming industry to get a uneSports into the Olympics officially. And I think there's a lot of like, obviously, IP issues and monetary things, but also I think that question really has to be resolved first before, you know, any major steps happen. Yeah, and you know what's interesting is we've just seen skateboarding, surfing, competitive, or actually speed climbing. We've seen that addition of those events. So it's kind of like saying, I like how you equated a eSports to sports in that. And you know, so it would be more like, it would be more correct to say, now we're gonna have Rocket League. Yeah. Rather than have eSports. Yeah, and honestly, that's like the toughest thing from the Olympics, I guess, point of view is like, well, which ones do you add, right? Well, which ones are the most popular? Which ones are the best viewing experiences? Which ones, you know, to get more people to watch and care about the Olympics kind of thing. The weird, unique kind of thing that eSports has is like, there's that person that owns, there's that entity that owns the football game, right? Like with football, no one makes money every time you go out into your backyard and play football. But like really, again, like, you know, Riot Games owns League of Legends, Blizzard owns Overwatch. And so like there's a lot more, you know, considerations when you're trying to involve that in another event like the Olympics. Sure, and okay, so then when you're talking about like publishers, and players and everything. So what is the power dynamic between players, teams, League, and publishers? Yeah, I think it's super interesting because like the publishers are kind of like the wild card in the eSports ecosystem, where you kind of, it's like, you have individual players, right? There are the people who play the game, you know, they're in it to be famous. Like it takes a lot of time and effort to be a professional player and like they genuinely want to be the best, right? And it's like, well, you know, teams are there to kind of provide, you know, support to those players. And it's like, hey, like join us, you know, you're gonna have like health benefits, you're gonna have a salary, it's gonna be consistent. You can focus on, you know, honing your craft. And then it, but then there's also like, oh, also look at all these other cool people we have. You'll have a good, like if it is a team game, it's like you have a good chance of winning and being recognized as the best if you join us. And then Leagues are a really interesting spot where it's like, well, if you win our League, you will be recognized, right? So they're all like creating frameworks to help each other succeed. And so it's a very interdependent relationship between the three. And then you have the publishers that are like, well, we just own the whole thing. This is our game. And so, you know, you have the Leagues that are trying to, you know, create a brand. And then you have the teams that are creating brands and you have individual players that are creating brands. And it's like between the three of them, it's like which one brings the most value to the table? And it's like, you know, if you're like a superstar, individual player, like you, you're not gonna give a lot to a team that you joined because like you're bringing, like you're worth more, right, but the same with the teams, right? Like if you have like a superstar team brand, it's like just the idea of you competing in a League is like, oh, it like elevates that, you know, minor League up to fame status, right? Or vice versa, if you can establish yourself as the destination of a League, you know, this is where you go to prove yourself, then you kind of hold the power. So it's very interesting push and play where they're all trying to compete for that brand recognition, but they're all required to be working together for any one of them to succeed. So they're kind of at odds with each other. They're kind of working together. And then the game publishers are like, well, you know, this is our IP. We spent, you know, a lot of money developing this IP. This is our game and like, you know, my personal kind of opinion is like the, like any League that truly becomes profitable or like under the guise of we are the destination for, you know, X game. And then the publisher, like once that's like a profitable business, the publisher will definitely be like, well, no, like we own anything that's the, you know, the collegiate X for this game. Like that's ours because this is our IP and it's ours. You can operate it if you want. And we'll contract it out to you, but like they're definitely going to bring that kind of stuff in house long-term. Sure. So is there an art to creating value like as a sponsor with a creator community? Yeah, I think this is something that like, I remember I was at the Sports Business Journal, eSports Rising Conference. I personally really liked that one because it's like from the sports side. And so you see really different perspective coming in. And like there was a brand, I forget which one it was that was talking. And they were like, oh, you know, people think that as a creator, if you take like a bad sponsorship, then they have all the risk, right? And that the creator is going to kind of like, their reputation is going to go down. But really it's kind of the opposite. Like if you're like a major brand and like you're using influencer marketing and you're trying to reach your audience and you do work with someone that doesn't, isn't aligned with your brand and that gets out there. Like the major advertisers actually have way more on the line than individual creators up there. So it's a really interesting kind of dynamic there. And then especially when you go down to like the micro-nano influencers and everything, like understanding how to work with them to create value is very difficult, right? Like my favorite example, so we're sponsoring a bunch of like local organizations just to, you know, work with people. And like we do believe that there's there. And with the end goal of like, we're also gonna be helping organizers find other sponsors as well. And it's like, you know, you can't just go find a tournament with like, you know, four or five people and it'd be like, here's a hundred bucks, right? Like doesn't make, you're not gonna add a hundred dollar prize pool to like a five person tournament, right? Like that doesn't make sense. And, you know, one of the most interesting examples of this at scale, I think was like the Valorant launch, which I think, you know, Riot Games did a really, really good job of, you know, using the influencer market influencers and like the Twitch drops to like get the word out. I truly believe that like the ability to just like overnight, everyone knew what the game was. Everyone understood like exactly what that game was gonna be and when they bought it, they got what they expected. I was like, great. But what ended up happening is they left the drops on for so long that like the community started getting flooded with bots and like thousands and thousands of these just like people that were like the value of watching, like normally when you're watching a content creator, you're like, oh, I'm gonna be part of the community. This is gonna be fun. But like during that period of time, like the prize was so big of like the beta access key that you had just people sitting there, you know, doing nothing. And, you know, all of a sudden the community changed and like it wasn't the same community as it was like a week before. And, you know, you had a summit one G was someone that I was watching through that time and he was very vocal about his like, you know, he hated having to stream. He was like, I have to stream this game. It doesn't matter if I like it or not. If I don't stream this game right now, no one's gonna be watching me. And right, like my chat is just full of bots doing nothing or people spamming. Like I can't really interact with my community the way that I wanted it. And it was a very negative experience for his community. Now clearly he had like a huge boost of numbers and I'll admit that I haven't really followed up to see like, did it like permanently boost his numbers and everything. But I thought it was a really interesting, you know, way of like, you have to be careful about like, you know, like the reason influencers and creators are valuable is because their community is engaged. And as soon as like, if you add too much, then that's lost. And then you're probably not gonna get your money's worth out of that. Yeah, you know, and I think it's interesting that Valorant was released recently. And I think with each new release of a big title, I think we're going to see some new things and learn more. So what do you think are the big trends in eSports? Oh man, there's a lot. I mean, trends in what area? I don't know. Let's talk about big leagues. Big leagues, okay. Yeah, I mean, I think my biggest thought in the big leagues is that like, leagues are going to need to find a way to create their own value. I see a lot of leagues that they're being like, we're trying to be the NCAA. We're trying to be collegiate. We're trying, we are this space. So, you know, we are the destination. And I'm like, as I said before, like publisher, like if you are the destination for something, the publisher is gonna own it, right? So, you know, like outside of being the place for this, like what value can you create, right? I think there's a lot of, kind of like regional collegiate communities. I'll call them communities. I have to admit, I'm not a part of this community, but like they do a really good job of saying like, okay, like here's like a, here's a group of colleges, they create their own league and they like encourage participation. These aren't like national brands, but like the students care because, you know, it's not like their team is playing against someone across the country or in a different country, because again, in North and the US are the same. But like they care because it's the school down the street, right? And like it creates that rivalry and like they get more people are actually watching those experiences, more people are engaged with it. And so like as a, you know, I think there's a lot of value in those like, you know, smaller regional things. Like they're like, we're not trying to be the place. We're just trying to provide a place where this group of colleges can compete, have some fun, you know, have some cool stories. And you know, because they're creating value, I do know of one up in my home town near Ottawa, where like now they're getting, they are getting sponsors and like the winners are getting scholarships. And like they're not even trying to be a national thing, but like they are creating enough value where they can now offer that to the winners. So what about trends in traditional sports and esports? Yeah, it's really like, all right. A lot of traditional sports maps onto the esports very, very directly. And like that's on purpose, right? Like, you know, sports are valuable. It's a good model. And I'm very happy that esports, you know, matches it very closely. I think that like today we're seeing like a lot of investment into like arenas and those type of like physical location to mimic that next generation of mimicking sports. There's a lot of like sports betting is like a huge thing. And I mean, for me in my focus, there's a lot of like fan engagement is like a very, very big focus right now. Obviously, you know, if you have fans the engagement monetization. And I think that there's a, one of the things that I think doesn't necessarily map directly is like in arena fan engagement experiences. And I know this is kind of like awkward or just in general like fan engagement apps. I think that the nature, like when you're watching an esports event, there's no commercial break, right? Like the commercial break is in between games whereas traditional sports, you have like, okay, well, you know, it's commercial break. So we're gonna play the song one more time that's gonna become an extra long break between these plays. And you know, it's kind of like woven into the actual game at this point. And so just like, you know, in traditional sports you have like that start, stop, start, stop, you know, kind of happening very frequently. And so like the type of, you know, X, like the game on top of the game kind of thing, you know, that needs to fit into those little moments like throughout, you know, a lot of little moments throughout the game. Whereas with esports, it's like, well, you're, everyone's watching the game and then the game's over and then there's like pretty large break in between like the intermission in between games is very long and kind of condensed. And so I think that like, if you try and map that type of engagement one to one, I don't think it's gonna land very hard. And I think you have to really try like, this is an esports event, you know, here is an engagement for this event. So I have, you know, so that leads me to believe that, okay, so if you're looking at, like we talked about the Olympics earlier, if you look at the Olympics or you look at the Super Bowl, okay? Those are sponsorship events. They're sponsorship events and security events as much as they are traditional sporting events, okay? So then it leads me to believe that potentially in the future that a publisher will create a title that can be broken up in ways that sponsors can provide, you know, their messages. What do you think about that? Yeah, I mean, the in-game monetization and like advertising is something like super interesting. I know that obviously like, you know, League of Legends tends to lead the way with like the banners in the game and like the in-game advertising, like super interesting. I think it's gonna be a little bit, it's gonna be very difficult for an esport to truly mimic that cadence, I think, because like as a game designer, making a game that is like fun to play but also fun to watch is already hard enough. Like those are two very different things and they're both individually very, very hard to do. And now when you add a third one onto it, it's like also it has to have this kind of cadence and this flow so that we can put commercial breaks in is like crazy. I think game developers already need to kind of like design around a monetization strategy. It's like, oh, like this is how we're gonna be making money and that's like baked into the experience and you have to kind of design around it. I think that's one of the reasons why like a lot of the games fall flat and it feels like the monetization is tacked on because it kind of is the really good ones. Like the whole game is really designed around making it feel fair and make people want to actually do that kind of stuff. And so just adding on one more thing on top of that, I think it's just gonna break their minds. Yeah, okay. So I really wanna make sure we get to Beacon's GG. So what is your goal? And tell us about what you're doing in there. Yeah, so again, our goal, we really just wanna help people pursue their passion. We just wanna build technology that other people can use to find their version of success, right? Like not everyone's trying to be the next, you know, massive superstar. Some people just wanna be the people that support their communities, right? So whatever you're trying to do, we're here to support you. We have our beta product out basically, you know, it's the SEO optimized events website. You know, we're looking for anyone who runs a eSports event in an area. We wanna talk with you. And we just wanna work with you. And we want you to tell us, you know, we wanna build this product with you, right? There's a lot of different things we could build. We wanna make sure we're building the right thing. So we want people that want to both use it, test it, give us feedback and help us build the products. And so, yeah, I mean, the things that are like, after this, I think I alluded to it, we're doing some like marketing animations to make it easier for you to promote your events. We're doing some analytics so that you can kind of, a lot of what we do is around, you know, we are very into the advertising and sponsorship space. So, you know, making sure that we can automatically kind of package everything that you're doing and present it to potential advertisers and sponsors in a way that they kind of understand it and they feel good about it. You know, not everyone knows how to do that today. So those are the things that we're focused on next. And we're really excited to work with a lot of really passionate people. So if someone wants to reach out to you, how do they contact you? So you can just go to beacons.gg slash sign up. You can also email me directly at ben at beacons.gg and I'll get you going. And I know that a question that the viewers will have before we wrap up is, what's your dog's name? Because your dog is with you in... No, that's important. Yes, this is Atlas. He's four years old. We thought he was gonna be a pit mix at around 30, 40 pounds. He's a husky and he's 100 pounds and he just loves hanging out there. Well, fantastic. Well, thank you, Ben. I really appreciate all of the information you provided us today. Thanks for having me. It's been great chatting. All right, terrific. And thank you to our viewers for joining us today. Next week, my guests will be Gerald Solomon and Kevin Brown of the North America Scholastics eSports Federation. See you then.