The rise of esports
Esports, or competitive multi-player video gaming watched by large audiences, are a growing industry, estimated to be worth more than $900 million in 2018, up 38 percent year-on-year, according to consultancy Newzoo.
Millions of people also watch esports via live platforms such as Twitch, a site bought by Amazon for $970 million in 2014.
“You don’t play the game. You watch other people play the game … Twitch is TV for gamers … Usually you watch the best in the world. And the best in the world are the esports players,” Xbox founder Ed Fries told “The Brave Ones.” Newzoo estimates the global esports audience to be 380 million.
For top players, vast sums are involved. Tyler “Ninja” Blevins has 14 million subscribers to his YouTube channel and makes $500,000 a month playing the game “Fortnite.”
“It wasn’t obvious a decade ago how large this business would become,” Hwee told “The Brave Ones.” “But we all read statistics, so we can see the gap of the gaming industry closing in on movies, magazines, book publishing, TVs, almost every single year.”
Esports is also huge, with global revenues forecast to reach $1.4 billion by 2020, according to figures from research company Newzoo, and an estimated 60 million people watched the esports League of Legends Championship final in 2017.
But Hwee would like to see it go up a gear. “It is my hope that the amateurs will not be spending 24 hours a day (gaming), but it is also my hope that the professionals who are doing this will take it as seriously as the people who play soccer or football or anything else like that,” he said.
Gaming will continue to grow, he adds. “I think the growth will eventually slow but I think we’re a long, long way from that. And the reason is because the gaming experience gets richer every single year. You know, you’ve got movies being made out of games, and vice versa.”
“You’ve got consoles and PC systems and mobiles all coming together. So you can now go from casual, five-minute games when you’re riding the train system to work, to if you’re really wrapped (up) and involved in it, to watching the esports that are going on around the world,” Hwee said.
The company is unlikely to start publishing its own titles, suggests Frost & Sullivan’s Cavin. “Games themselves can be hit and miss as any media and entertainment property, but focusing on gaming attributes and products is a more stable strategy,” he told CNBC by email.
It’s also well-placed to expand beyond a gaming audience, Cavin said. “As Razer focuses on the gaming community, ideally the attributes of that gaming focus — performance, precision, focus, a certain aesthetic — translate to a wider audience.”
Tan’s ambitions are considerable, too. “Now that we are one of the biggest brands in the world for gaming, can we be one of the biggest brands in the world for entertainment? What else is ahead of us? You know, that’s really what it is for ourselves. I don’t think it’s bravery, but I think it’s about this constant sense of adventure. And trying to do cool stuff.”
