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Over the top (OTT) television is a highly lucrative industry, evidenced by the vast success of pureplay providers like YouTube and Netflix.
Young millennials can’t get enough of the anytime anywhere model; subscribing in their masses to powerhouse productions like Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad, and ditching the studio brands of traditional TV.
The argument that OTT will soon obsolete traditional TV altogether is gaining more and more credence.
As generations turn over, media, content, and TV providers are being forced to jump on the bandwagon and, faced with a soon-to-be saturated market, those already utilising OTT are in search of new and innovative ways to stay competitive.
With its colossal demographic, online gaming poses a hugely profitable outlet for OTT. Yet, it so far remains relatively – and mysteriously – untouched by the mainstream entertainment industry.
“The market for online gaming is growing and growing” says Nick Vanzetti, Managing Director – Australia, for the World’s largest eSports company, ESL. “What started as a few segregated communities coming together for individual games, ten years ago, has matured into a mass worldwide following with large scale tournaments now offering substantial prize funds.”
“Endemic sponsors have started to add value and make online gaming tournaments a lot bigger” he states. “But what has really seen a big surge is publisher involvement”.
“Publishers have addressed the need for eSports based on a growing community and now many tournaments owe their large prize pools to publisher funding.”
“These increased prize pools have further grown the online gaming community, and we are starting to see more non-endemic brands raising their eyebrows.”
“It is becoming increasingly difficult to access young millennials, and with their attention being redirected from traditional TV to online content such as eSports, the scale of sponsorship involvement in this space is likely to increase even further.”
Hear more from Nick Vanzetti about the commercialisation of online gaming at Ovum’s forthcoming OTT TV Summit.
[slideshare id=61074210&doc=informaotttvsummit2016-160419050326&type=d]
