Monthly Update August '23

Hi Reader,

We played in front of 123K esports fans who tuned into the live stream of our game against Karmine Corp (or K Corp as they're sometimes called)! Now that's big isn't it!?! That was our last stand in the League of Legends EMEA Masters on 23 August, what a stand it was taking them to a play-off for a spot in the Quarter Finals.

Before we take that look back into August we have to touch on our rebrand of the Nativz Collegiate Esports Series.🚨 On Tuesday we revealed the new Ireland Esports Collegiate Series, check out our video below! 📺 We're now heads down preparing to launch the 2023/24 Series, it's going to be epic.

Looking back at August we'll start with a recap on some industry news and then share an update on our success, challenges and more;

Ireland Esports Collegiate Series: A New Era

INDUSTRY

👉🏼 Feature - we're admirers of the success Denmark has had building esports into their culture. Take a look at this article from Esports Insider that looks at a Danish report on the state of esports

Here's a few other topical articles to take a look at which focus on the state of play for the esports industry;

👉🏼 August marks a busy season for esports as many disciplines see some of their biggest tournaments hosted. CS:GO, Valorant, League of Legends, and more all experienced huge viewership throughout last month, take a look at this summary from Esports Charts.

👉🏼 SETU launches a new gaming hub in their Waterford Campus, this new state of the art facility will certainly boost their chances in the upcoming 2023/24 Ireland Esports Collegiate Series!

👉🏼 Counter-Strike 2 is coming and so are some changes to the rules for hosting Counter-Strike events. The biggest change will ban tournament organisers from having "unique business relationships or other conflicts of interest" with teams in their tournaments putting an end to the semi-franchised partner team model.

SUCCESS

🚀 Our LoL First Team not only won the Northern League of Legends Championship (NLC) Summer Split but they narrowly missed out on a Quarter Final place in the EMEA Masters (check this clip out) - ending the group stage level with K Corp (who went on to win the title), we forced them into a play-off for that spot!

🚀 2023/24 Ireland Esports Collegiate Series leadership team is locked in with an increased focus on our production quality. Ryan Fleming joins as our new Production Lead alongside incumbents Ronan Monaghan (Operations Lead), Yannick Gloster (Technology Lead) and Sammy Davies (Social & Content Manager).

🚀 We achieved two of the five most watched games in the EMEA Masters! Sitting in 5th spot with 105K and then 4th spot with 123K for two group stage games, at this level we were an unknown. The social traction achieved was eyeopening, check out this meme that hit 306K views. We'll be back next year when we push for repeat EMEA Masters appearances.

CHALLENGES

🎮 The new Nativz Player Shirt launch went well, at least we thought. From the launch email alone we had an open rate of 57% and unique click throughs to the product of 25%. The conversion just wasn't there. For marketeers the answer could be in the data, we're looking at that. We're also interested in any first hand feedback, so if you took a look we'd really value your feedback - email would be great via [email protected].

NEEDS

👀 Is there anyone you think we should be talking to? We're looking for referrals/introductions to people you think we should talk to that could help us increase our business awareness amongst likeminded professionals (i.e. sponsorship, bridge to esports, tech innovation, young tech talent, entertainment).

There's a couple of really easy ways to do this that won't take more than 1min:

(1) send me a super quick email with a link to the LinkedIn profile of the person you're suggesting and I'll happily reach out; or

(2) this is a link to my calendly/diary in case this makes it easier to get an introduction call set up

METRICS

The following metrics are for the period of 1 - 31 August 2023:

💯 Social audience on official channels = up 12% 🔼

💯 Unique web visitors = Down 21.3% on August 2022 🔽

💯 Opted in marketing database = 2.9% increase in the month 🔼

COMING UP

Take a look at what we've got coming up over the next month:

📅 Northern League of Legends Championship Aurora Cup commences on Saturday 23 September for the 1st Division teams. We'll share more information on this equivalent of the FA Cup once the schedule is locked down

📅 2023/24 Ireland Esports Collegiate Series commences on 9 October, we'll be launching the series w/c 18 September so keep an eye out on our social channels - in the meantime take a look at our brand launch video, it's cool!

📅 GamerFest (21-22 October) - it's back with the Winter edition and tickets are now on sale here so do take a look

📅 Ireland Industry Thought Leadership Event (26 October) - we're back at Dogpatch Labs with our second edition which will focus on the considerations around a National Strategy for Ireland Esports. More details to follow

Please keep the faith, we're building and we love having you with us on this journey.

Regards,

Kurt & the Nativz Team