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Credit: Fergus Halliday | IDG
This weekend, the first season of the first edition of the Gfinity Elite Series Australia comes to an end, Melbourne Order winning the lion's share of the $ 225,000 prize pool in season 1.
Sydney Chiefs in a hard-fought but largely one-sided game of CS: GO . Then they came out better against local rivals Melbourne before Gaming when he came to Rocket League . To close things, they finished the game by defeating the best players of Perth Ground Zero Street Fighter V in a fierce series of seven clashes.
Credit: Fergus Halliday | IDG This trio of victories has earned Melbourne Order the $ 30,000 Club Championship Award. Added to their already considerable earnings, the club has won a total of $ 130,000 in prizes
Launched earlier this year, the Gfinity Elite Series Australia is unique among local esports events for several reasons. First, it is a tournament populated by teams based in the city rather than by independent or brand-owned organizations.
Second, unlike esports events like the recent Intel Extreme Masters Sydney 2018 or Rift Rivals, Gfinity does not rely on a single title. In its current incarnation, each team must line up players in three titles: Counter-Strike: World Offensive, Rocket League and Street Fighter V .
Source: Fergus Halliday | IDG Third, Gfinity's Elite Series Australia is currently the only local esports event that has consistently made its way onto the airwaves through a partnership with Network Ten. The partnership, which marks the first entry of Network Ten into the space of esports, has seen live broadcasts of all matches of the Elite series Rocket League on Ten ONE.
All of these points of contention were in mind, as we met with Dominic Remond, the CEO of Gfinity Australia, to recap the final of the first inaugural season of the Elite series.
really good life experience this weekend. The crowds were exceptional and there was entertainment gameplay. As an entertainment show, it was probably the best we had during the tournament. "
" I actually think we delivered a concept that was a bit cynical. That's probably what we are most proud of. We came to the market with something very new and different: this concept of urban clubs and having three teams in each club. It's a format that has never been done in Australia and people were wondering how it would work. "
Source: Fergus Halliday | IDG " I also think we have delivered an arena of exceptional quality. Without a doubt, the comments we received from everyone [have reflected] are that it is the first scene with live audience capabilities in Australia and we are very proud of it. This was certainly a difficult step in the construction and approval process leading up to the series, so very proud of that. "
"My feeling is that we have a great sense of community.In the end, as major stakeholders, it is very important to get comments and comments have been very consistent and positive at all levels. "
Remond says that building the Gfinity Arena was one of the biggest challenges of the project." Australia's regulations are significantly more complex than those in the country. from the United Kingdom and the United States. So when we [did] did a lot of work on construction planning, there were [were] some health and safety issues that had not been taken into consideration.
According to him, "they represented a major hurdle to overcome" and allowed Gfinity to delay the start of the inaugural season of the two-week Elite series.
"It was probably the most complex part of the whole business: building an arena from scratch according to international specifications," says Remond. Australia is not due until November, that does not mean that the Gfinity Arena itself will remain dormant until then.
Credit: Fergus Halliday | IDG Remond says "we consider ourselves to be a supplier of esports and"
"The Elite Series is at the heart of our business – two seasons of seven weeks each year – but what we will do, c & Is working with publishers and brands to organize tailor-made events. "
" There will be fourteen weeks of the year that the Elite series will take place, and then our goal is to d & # 39; use the site for other weeks of the year. "
" It could be a lot of things, it could be game-related. "It could be product launches. other opportunities live.We have the ability to broadcast and we have a permanent structure there, so we do not have the variable cost of having to come across hardware, etc. So that goes to be at the center of our activities until early in season 2. "
" But that being said, the ecosystem of the Elite Series begins with the Challenger series and then goes on to draft and then to the Elite series. The Challenger series "will start in mid-August, so we do not have a lot of free time [before then]."
Source: Fergus Halliday | IDG Another event that must occur before the inaugural return of the Gfinity Elite Series in Australia is the upcoming Melbourne Esports Open. The Victorian-era government says it wants to put Melbourne ahead of the Australia and Melbourne Order gold medal winners of the three Gfinity titles, one question was in the lead.
Is Gfinity likely to stay? exclusive to Sydney? The answer, it turns out, is not necessarily. Remond says that the resources that Gfinity has invested in building the profile of their Sydney-based stadium do not prevent them from expanding elsewhere.
"The goal, when we started our partnership with Hoyts, was to set up this place and then consider opportunities to expand to other states."
"Our focus is probably more on the structure of the league"
"That's why we came to the market. an opportunity for clubs and brands to have this longevity.If you are involved in the Elite Series, you will participate at least fourteen weeks of the year, which will give you greater visibility for your brand. , for your club and, for our broadcast partners, it will give them content on a "
Speaking of broadcast partners, the first season of the Gfinity Elite Series in Australia was part of a". a handful of more and more local esports events to make their way on the ground waves.We asked Remond that he believes that collaborations of this kind between new and old media are likely to become more court antes.
Source: Fergus Halliday | IDG "Definitely," he says, "If you look at the overall situation internationally, a combination of online streaming and commercial unencrypted broadcasting is something that will continue, obviously we have a fantastic partnership with Twitch, we had more than 3.2 million views on the Twitch platform, which is interesting.The Rocket League we had a range of 1.5 million. "
" I think This is an interesting space for broadcasters.Of course, we just saw with the Overwatch League in the United States that they have an important partnership with Twitch, but they also announced that they were establishing a partnership with Disney, ESPN and a few other channels.I would say that there is definitely an opportunity to reach the audience on multiple platforms. "
This opportunity seems to be facilitated by the unique structure of the Elite Gfinity series. One of the persistent concerns around esports is the fact that the games that people want to play and watch tend to change over time. In addition to giving the Elite Series a different vibe from other local events, this list-based approach allows Gfinity to work around this problem.
Source: Fergus Halliday | IDG "I think it's important for us to have another point of reference to support a club.If you look at the traditional sports market, you have a passion for your state, for your local club, etc. – and that's why we were quite dedicated to this club concept in town.It offers a reference point that no other league in the country has. [19659003] Remond notes that "having multiple teams in each club means we can attract a slightly different audience.Each game has a different bias." Rocket League being a G rated game means it's a Street Fighter, being a game that has existed for a long time, has a slightly older audience, just like CS: GO . "
" L '; idea of the three games is that we can attract a slightly different audience for each of them.These are also games that are quite easily understood from the point of view of the general public.
Source: Fergus Halliday | IDG "Our goal is to grow the esports community, we want more people to be involved as players or spectators for esports, and if we want to hire people who have not always been involved in esports, understanding the game is very important and that's why we chose the three titles we have at the current stage. "
Asked if the Elite Series The current configuration makes it more marketable or attractive to them advertisers, Remond's answer was confident.
"We think so, I mean, being on the market and talking to a lot of brands, they certainly have an understanding of esports but they really have not been able to see a tangible opportunity." 19659045] Read More ELEAGUE Street Fighter Invitational V 2018 will present the first use of eye-tracking technology
"The fact that they can watch the Elite series and say" well, it does not " is not too different from the way the Big Bash works or the "AFL or LNR". There are seasons. Our teams play every week. They are broadcast weekly. They know that there is a model and a longevity opportunity in the market. I think it certainly resonated with our trading partners "
Source: Fergus Halliday | IDG Remond was convinced that the current configuration would continue at the end of season 2 at the very least when asked if the Gfinity format would change or increase soon to capitalize on the rapid popularity of royal battle titles as Fortnite
"I think the challenge with something like Fortnite is that" it's really an esport – it's the question "In the end, you have to be able to broadcast that to the audience. I suppose there are hybrid versions of Fortnite but we are attached to the games we have right now for season 2. "
" Part of our agreement with the clubs is as we sit down and see how the series is going. They are partners with us, so we certainly do not rule out changing the games for the next season, but for season 2, we are going ahead with the three games we had for season 1. "
Season 2 of The Gfinity Elite Australia Series begins in November
