STACK #166 Aug 2018

GAMES FEATURE

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Five questions with Nick Vanzetti Managing Director of ESL Australia How long have you been planning for the MEO? As a concept we’ve been looking to bring an event like MEO to Melbourne for well over a year now, but in terms of getting these things off the ground it takes a lot of business modeling conversations. The initial part is putting together a model to make it commercially viable and then we bring all the parties together and align; from there we go into full operations mode into actually building the event. Why did you decide on Melbourne as the host city? Obviously the size and population are important factors, but I think the thing that makes Melbourne unique and an attractive choice is Melburnians enjoy all sports and activities, and love getting out and about in a cultural sense. They’re fans of AFL, rugby, soccer, wrestling, anything really – we wanted to play on that and we think Melburnians will come out to see all kinds of content - hopefully esports is one of those. Last year, Riot were unable to have an arena-style finals for their Oceanic Pro League so after the event organisers were able to provide an platform for an established esports series such as the Oceanic Pro League with League of Legends it was a no brainer for us to bring them together. The Contenders final happens to align nicely in terms of dates and timings as well so we were a little bit lucky – the stars were aligned and we were able to run both finals at roughly the same time on different days. I think each game has their strengths and very own audiences so it’s great to have them both there. What was involved in getting the OPL finals and the Overwatch finals on the same weekend? As far as working with a company like JB Hi-Fi – how did they get involved? JB have been getting behind gaming in a big way for a long time so it just made sense for us to partner up together and help develop this show. It’s a great partnership for us. What influence do you think an event like the MEO will have on esports in this country in the future? I’d like to share a bit of the vision with you if I could? This event was designed to be very different from the Intel Extreme Masters event we did in Sydney that is extremely successful in its own right. But the reality of relying on that kind of content and global calendars is not realistic and sustainable in Australia for multiple cities. While we’re hoping to get more international events down to the Melbourne Esports Open in the future, we need to create a really solid base for Australian and New Zealand domestic esports so our vision for the future is to bring together under one roof multiple franchises like Forza, Minecraft, FIFA and Fortnite hopefully, in a more inclusive way. By running a whole host of open tournaments, pretty much anyone can play in the series at the event and possibly end up on the stage in Margaret Court Arena. Everyone who comes will get the chance to see how good you are at various games and also get to see the best in the region compete, too. What we’re trying to do is create a more significant platform for Australian esports so our local competitors can have a bigger stage to shine on. Hopefully that will attract more people to esports and continue to grow what we’re doing.

Esports – electronic sports.With the rise in popularity of video games and competitive gaming, it’s now totally feasible that all those years you spent sitting in front of a television or computer screen when you were younger can now earn you a living.Take that, mum and dad. Though Australia is still considerably further behind when it comes to recognising esports and pro gaming as a viable career (our lacklustre internet speeds only part of the problem), there are a select few who are really making names for themselves in the competitive gaming scene, not to mention all the local competitions and tournaments that are propelling once casual players into the limelight.There’s an Aussie playing in the Overwatch League – anything’s possible! In this issue, we aim to give you a brief introduction to the idea of esports, as well as look at what’s coming up in the Australian scene – specifically, the inaugural Melbourne Esports Open in September. “So, you get paid to play video games?”

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AUGUST 2018

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