The stereotype image of the video gamer is
someone rooted to a sofa while a TV flickers in a darkened living room or
they’re up in their bedroom gazing fixedly at a PC screen while jabbing at
mouse and keyboard.
However, it seems that video gaming is moving
from solitary pastime to spectator sport with the emergence of ‘eSports’– and
this is could be good news for property landlords.
Last year, the eSports market grew to $1.1bn.
That was year-on-year growth of about 26% and the sector is forecast to jump up
to around $2.3bn within three years according to Forbes. Growth is also being
fuelled by the competitive nature of gaming: in 2019, Epic Games, the creator
of Fortnite offered prize money of more than $100m for competitive tournaments.
And like mainstream sports, the best players
of these games are also attracting an audience. First, this was through online
platforms like YouTube and Twitch but now it’s moving to physical spaces ‘game
arenas’ where you pay to watch and learn from the best players who are often
competing as part of corporate sponsored teams.
And, like regular sports, if you prefer to
play rather than watch there are smaller centres. In London this trend has seen
the expansion of the Belong Gaming Arenas introduced by the retailer, Game, to
sit alongside their traditional retail stores, and for Wanyoo to acquire their
first UK gaming café on Charing Cross Road. Wanyoo is Asia’s largest gaming
café chain with 1,000-plus cafes in more than 50 cities.
Revenue streams are driven by playing fees –
typically £5-7 an hour – or the cost of admission if you’re watching your
gaming heroes in arenas such as Gfinity eSports arena in Fulham Broadway. And,
of course, there’s lots of scope for adding on food and drink offers.
On average, Wanyoo’s gamers stay in venues
for 3-5 hours. While audience dwell times are shorter, the game developers are
looking at how they can embed advertising in the same way that you have
hoardings around a pitch in a televised football game with companies such as
Bidstack bridging the gap between game developers and advertisers.
And the cross-fertilisation of the digital
and real worlds doesn’t stop there: celebrities like Michael Jordan, Drake and
Gareth Bale have made substantial investments into the eSports sector.
The good news for landlords is that these
eSport centres don’t have any particular property requirements other than size;
they have taken units on high street locations and shopping centres, and are
not too precious about ground, first floor and basement spaces!
The global eSports audience is now estimated
to be around 450m people and, of course, many of the gamers who cut their teeth
on Counter Strike, Quake and SuperMario more than 20 years ago are still
playing today so the sector has a strong demographic profile.
And, if you’re not sure that eSports are here
to stay then consider this: they’re under consideration for inclusion at
forthcoming Olympic Games.