Here's an excerpt from the interview:
What opportunities do you see in global eSports over the next five years? How do you see eSports evolving in the U.S.?
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One of the biggest opportunities in eSports is fostering growth from the bottom-up and solidifying the foundations of competitive play. We need to take a step back from highlighting and celebrating only the top 1% of competitive play and start highlighting ALL competitive play. With our new competitive circuit HoN Tour, S2 Games focuses on the foundation of eSports in HoN by offering consistent, prize-winning competitions for all skill levels. In fact, every two weeks, 112 separate teams are winning their share of over $33,000.There are many opportunities for eSports to grow and evolve in the U.S but developers and organizations need to tread lightly and not rush anything. For starters, I see more headlining events such as DreamHack, PAX, and MLG popping up. Also, either naturally or forced, eSports will start being more legitimized in the mainstream media. We’ve only begun to scratch the surface on how big mainstream gaming can get and I am excited to see its growth over the years.”
What role do you see Heroes of Newerth playing in eSports moving forward?
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We are big fans of eSports over here at S2 Games and we will do anything we can to support a thriving competitive scene. With the launch of HoN Tour, we focused our attention on the foundations of our competitive player base. By growing eSports with our bottom-up tournament structure we are able to unite our players and fans by building personalities and watching teams grow. With the way our tournament structure is set up, every other weekend is a “Grand Finals” weekend where our streaming platform Honcast covers not just the highest level of play but amateurs as well. This will allow for teams and players to create their own storyline and have a strong following before they even enter the highest level of competitive play.”Full interview with Sam "Milkfat" Braithwaite
Links
Forbes.com - Source
