Lesta Games will invest 100 million rubles. in holding World of Tanks tournaments
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Russian game developers and distributors are launching esports competitions in new formats and disciplines. Thus, Lesta Games will invest 100 million rubles by the end of the year. in holding World of Tanks tournaments and launching an eSports league in the discipline. VK Play is preparing to host a CS:GO 2 tournament. Both companies expect the competition to attract an audience: VK to the streaming platform, Lesta to World of Tanks. Large advertisers are still cautious about the prospects for sponsoring such tournaments.
The developer and distributor of video games Lesta Games (until 2022 it was part of Wargamming, publishes World of Tanks, World of Ships, Tanki Blitz) plans to launch an esports league based on the game World of Tanks, the company told Kommersant. It will consist of an annual title tournament, as well as smaller events organized by third parties, specialized operators or the studio itself. This year, the studio has already held two tournaments, and is planning two more by the end of the year: “The budget will exceed 100 million rubles.” In 2024, the company intends to hold five championships.
Lesta Games expects that the development of the esports direction will lead to the emergence of new teams and tournaments sponsored by companies from e-commerce and telecommunications. The development of the direction is necessary for the company to attract an audience aged 14–24 years, due to e-sports, the studio plans to increase the DAU (number of unique users per day) of the game by 30%, which now averages 1 million people. Kommersant’s interlocutor in the gaming market believes that there is another goal: “Lesta needs to stop being associated with Wargaming (WG) and World of Tanks in the eyes of the audience.”
VK is also involved in the development of e-sports. According to Kommersant’s interlocutor close to the group, VK Play plans to hold a CS:GO 2 show match at the VK Play Arena (formerly Yota Arena) in December, hoping to attract 10 million viewers online. The company has already started offering advertising integration opportunities to potential partners, Kommersant sources say. VK Play plans to organize competitions both online and offline, the company confirmed. Kommersant’s interlocutor on the market believes that VK, like Lesta Games, is looking for a young audience for its streaming platform VK Play Live. According to SimilarWeb, in July the number of visits to the site amounted to 5.8 million, of which 40% were for an audience of 25-34 years old.
Due to the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, the commercial segment of Russian eSports has found itself in a difficult situation: teams have been denied the right to participate in tournaments, and the market has drastically decreased. MTS and VK were forced to sell their teams to Gambit and Virtus.Pro (see Kommersant of June 16).
Lesta Games risks repeating the experience of WG, which launched the Wargaming.net League for the World of Tanks game in 2013, but froze it in 2018, says an eSports market participant: “Then the cost of attracting new users compared to other mechanisms was too high. Tournaments gathered an audience only in the regions, there was no interest at the global level.”
BetBoom Deputy Marketing Director Mikhail Artemiev also doubts the prospects of World of Tanks as an esports discipline: “This game is popular thanks to streamers whose skills are interesting for viewers to watch. The competitive aspect is weak.” A Kommersant source in one of the Russian-speaking eSports teams believes that integration into World of Tanks may be interesting for advertisers due to the fact that the game has a more solvent audience than, for example, CG: GO and Dota 2. Fonbet says, that they have not yet received a sponsorship offer: “If it comes, we will consider it.”
The number of amateur and professional tournaments in Russia is growing, says the head of the Moscow Computer Sports Federation Maxim Fler. The big brands, he adds, are still cautious about their sponsorship prospects, “but we see more and more advertising integrations in the case of the Dota 2 tournament hosted by the largest bank in the country, and the season of the Russian game Standoff 2, where the Chinese brand of phones was integrated” . In August, Sberbank held the qualifying and group stages of the Dota 2 tournament, with 6,000 players taking part.
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