On the back favorites EL Gaming's win at last weekend's World of Tanks APAC Season 1 Finals, several questions arise - aren't Wargaming afraid that the fact that it's always the usual suspects who takes up the wins at championships scare new players and teams? How do Wargaming plan to continue growing? What do they plan to do to ensure future competitions remain exciting? What do they think of the perception that competition is getting 'boring'?
"It is a sign of stability amongst professional players." said their Deputy Head of Global eSports Alexey Kuznetzov
"What is the definition of when it starts to be boring? Is it when 10% of the players (in the finals) are new or 20%? We are aware of this and have been working hard to bring out and encourage the participation of new blood and teams into joining the season and finals."
"It is a sign of stability amongst professional players."
He refers to the current ladder system where rookie teams have the opportunity to climb up the league-like structure starting from Bronze to Silver and finally into the elite ranks of the Gold league. Promotions and relegations are based on teams' performance throughout the year and according to Alexey, one of Wargaming's moves to encourage more participation is by increasing the pool of players in the Silver league and providing two chances of promotions (to Gold) in a season.
Adding up to Alexey's point, Wargaming's Senior eSports Manager for Asia, Jini Jun added "If you have a league and you want to grow it, you will always have to have more new players coming in but it doesn't happen overnight. You will get most of these players via casual tournaments be it online or offline."
"One recurring issue is that most players don't know where to start. Some players love the game, spend a lot of time on it and they are very skillful at it but they feel intimidated by the idea of meeting their fellow clanmates in person especially for those who play online matches. To tackle this, we've set up a lot training camps to allow them to play together while also simulating actual tournament environments." said Wargaming's Head of Marketing in Asia Jemima Loh.
One recurring issue is that most players don't know where to start.
"Of course they won't instantly get into the big leagues but we have set up numerous tournaments for new players and rookie leagues as such to give these players opportunities to get their feet wet." she added
Contrary to popular belief, not all big teams participating in the WGL are doing eSports professionally. Three-time WGL Season winners from Korea, ARETE were largely made up of part-time players who only recently moved to the professional side of things after their name change. Now known as KONGDOO, all members are now paid a fixed salary by Wargaming based on the team's performance in the previous season. This is on top of other incentives they obtain via commercial agreements and sponsorships.
According to Kongdoo team captain Junhyeop Song (aka ‘KONG_Cowthief’), "A few players from the previous team (ARETE) had commitment issues and sometimes we faced problems getting everyone together to train. With the new (salary) scheme, issues on commitments is no longer there and we just need to focus on fully training for the next tournaments,"
Not only does this move provide incentive for players to come train day-in-day-out like professional athletes do, it cancels out full dependence on win earnings. Jini added "This move (by Wargaming) allows teams under this scheme to focus solely on training and growing their brand on various platforms".
By doing so, it ensures continuous stream of revenue from merchandising for example, lifting teams' sole dependence on tournament winnings as source of income and encourages them to build their brand outside of the battle arena.
So in short, for those interested in getting into the eSports arena, Wargaming seems to have it down pat - for their part at least - when it comes to welcoming new players as well as ensuring performing ones well taken care off once they have the skills and opportunity to make eSports a living.
While countries in the SEA still have a long way to go when it comes to emulating the likes of Korea in terms of eSports scene development, the road is set and pretty much paved by Wargaming - all left is for you and I to pick up the game we love, pour in some hours getting the hang of it to a point of competitiveness and go battle it out.
