With just a little more than a year after its founding, LOUD, a Brazilian esports organization focused on Free Fire, hit a milestone last Saturday (May 30) by becoming the first in the world to reach 1B views on YouTube. It surpassed the likes of FaZe Clan, which has a number close to that but is 10 years old.
The formula used by the company is similar to FaZe Clan’s: bringing together professional players and influencers in a mansion, to live, train for championships, and produce content. The channel currently has 7.4M subscribers and the 1B mark was reached with 461 videos.
The numbers show the space that Free Fire has conquered in the local market. According to Renato Voltarelli, director of the Brazilian branch of Webedia Gaming, a French multinational that holds rights to international gaming site IGN in Brazil and one of the main esports portals in the country, the Versus, the game is a success due to an opportunity well taken by its producers:
“Garena was able to explore the real potential of local gamers, who are not focused on top-notch PCs or consoles nor even on the latest phone launches,” Voltarelli told The Esports Observer. “It managed, in a very genuine way, to massify the consumption of a game by being functional on almost all smartphones and also by offering a huge range of payment options for in-game credits, ranging lottery shops, bank slips, deposits, cell phone operators and much more.”
Regarding LOUD’s achievement, Voltarelli states that he regards the organization’s ability to “connect the most prominent players and produce an immense load of content beyond the game. The number of videos, LIVEs, and the success of players on social media have a great impact on a young person who wants to be an esports pro player.”
Thomas Hamence, CEO of paiN Gaming, one of the most traditional esports organizations in Brazil (which launched a Free Fire team in 2019), also shared his opinion with The Esports Observer: “This milestone reaffirms the fertility of the esports scene and the representativeness of Brazil as the third-largest player market. The structures that were deficient in terms of content a year ago have evolved a lot, and LOUD helps us to prove it.”
LOUD is a mobile esports team founded by Bruno Bittencourt (known online as Bruno “Playhard”), Jean Ortega, and Matthew Ho at the beginning of 2019. Since then, it was runner-up in the Pro League 2019, participated in the Free Fire World Championship 2019, and won the America Cup in 2020. Current sponsors include streaming platform Nimo TV, Discord, and Fusion energy drink.
