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Like an athlete browsing the market for trainers, video gamers are spoiled for choice. There are dozens of brands offering a mix of high-range desktops and entry-level computers, and this only covers prebuilt models—those looking to custom builds have near-endless variety in terms of cases, graphic cards, and more. In trying to stand out through esports sponsorship, what is the focus for a PC gaming brand?
“We, at the event, still have a presence, but the focus is for us to create the content through people, not at the event,” Manuel Linnig, director of public relations EMEA for Acer told The Esports Observer. The multinational hardware and electronics company and its Predator brand are entering a third year as a global partner of the Intel Extreme Masters (IEM). Last year, Acer took the tournament series’ traditionally modeled trophy on tour, showcasing it in retail locations, trade shows, and DreamHack festivals.
Linnig explained that the tour and resulting content were designed to link product and sales to fan engagement. Through social media channels and influencers, Acer Predator is reaching out to the majority of fans who are not at IEM. “The fan engagement we saw if you go to the expo hall, with a booth, people go in—what do they remember when they walk out? Little,” he said. “So that’s why we put less focus on physical presence versus content presence.
“It’s not like a sports match. In ninety minutes I’m going to get x minutes of view,” he continued. “If you get your logos appearing one minute every hour, is that recognizable? Not recognizable? Do people pay attention to it?”
The partnership with ESL includes a range of official IEM certified PCs, a certification aimed at reaching additional PC gamers perhaps not familiar with the tournament brand or esports in general. “With Riot Games, we [sponsored] League of Legends for two years, but we do feel Counter-Strike fits better to our brand,” said Linnig.
Acer Predator is also a sponsor of esports events for Rainbow Six Siege—arguably the second biggest tactical shooter game on the market next to Counter-Strike, which likewise demands high-performance PCs, as opposed to free-to-play strategy titles like League of Legends, which promote themselves as accessible to gamers of all stripes.
“Where the PC or industry performance goes, the games also follow,” said Linnig. “The other trend we see now with mobile PCs, notebooks especially, they’re becoming equivalently performing as a desktop. We see people now also like to use notebooks to play high-performing games, to bring them with them.”
The boundary between high-performance games and those made for the masses is also being blurred by improved internet accessibility and speed, and the fact that even easily accessible games can be played in 4K. “Definitely, we see that trend for mobility in high-performance products.”
Esports events are increasingly offering means for gaming hardware companies the chance to showcase and sell to attendees. IEM Katowice is equally known for its expo space as its esports tournaments, with this year’s edition originally scheduled to host over 15 companies over several thousand square meters of floor. How much money an individual vendor makes depends entirely on their product and price range.
“We do see a little bit of impact, but I don’t think a physical presence is going to drive anything in terms of sales,” said Linnig. “It’s like you’re coming to a football match, are you interested in hearing about the beer or hotdogs sold, or do you want to watch the match?
“For our industry, or most of the vendors here, you have to do it using the event, but then doing it mostly online and retail facilities,” he added, stating while special promotions for events (which may run for three to four weeks) can have an impact, simple discounts or two-for-ones do not.
While allowing gamers to get hands-on with gaming hardware and peripherals creates the potential for later sale, Linnig said so far physical activations are not what is driving sales. After all, a single attendee will come out of an event having interacted with a dozen or so brands.
“So, how are you going to remember where you were, what you saw, and what was it about?, said Linnig. “People are coming here to play the game. Look at gamescom in Germany—it’s called GAMEScom, not PC com, you know?”
This means that the unfortunate disruption to IEM Katowice, which closed its doors to the public in response to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), was not hugely impactful to Acer Predator. Esports events are now being canceled and delayed worldwide, with several live events having to transform to online-only competitions. Without physical space, tournament organizers will need to be smarter with how they keep sponsors and partners front and center.
“At the end of the day we still can produce content for the people that would not have come anyway,” said Linnig. “Does it have a little impact? Yes, but it doesn’t stop our operation outside of IEM to bring something to the people.”
