To Catch a Predator, Esports Edition
A selection of some of the best stories in esports for the week ending Aug. 27, 2023.
It’s been a bit for newsletter content, huh? We’ve been working on a few things here at The Fudge Retort/The Esports Advocate over the last several weeks (read on to find out what) but first, congratulations to Evil Geniuses, who beat Paper Rex 3-1 in the grand finals in Los Angeles at an in-person event on Saturday to be crowned the 2023 Valorant World Champions. Congratulations to all the teams that made it into the finals. Hopefully, viewership for this multi-day event is record-breaking, which will be a further validation that people care about international esports and motivation for non-endemics to come to the table and be a part of this growing entertainment phenomenon.
Also of interest; earlier in the week The International Esports Federation (IESF) 2023 World Esports Championship Finals kicked off on Aug. 25 with an opening ceremony at the Palace of Culture in Iași, Romania. IESF claims that “111 countries from six continents” have qualified to compete for national pride and the WE Championship trophy. The competition will conclude on Sept. 4.
Onto this week’s highlights in esports and gaming! - James Fudge, Editor.
📰 Top Stories
Gaming and Esports Professional Victor Davila Charged With Two Felonies in Utah
The Esports Advocate reported this week that Victor Davila was arrested in Logan City, Utah, on Aug. 18 (Friday), for allegedly soliciting an undercover police officer (posing as an 13-year-old girl) for sex. Davila, who was serving as a sales manager under contract with gaming-focused group Tampa Never Sleeps (the organization has dropped him in,ight of these allegations), was let go from MSI last month, and is well-known in the collegiate esports, event production, and influencer spaces, as well as the fighting game community in the United States. He has been charged with two felonies and is in custody at the Cache County jail. READ MORE.
Valorant Champions Skin Bundle Generates $40M
Riot Games announced this week that Valorant Champions skin bundle has managed to generate $40M USD since its launch on Aug. 4. The in-game bundle is part of a revenue sharing program that lets Riot give back to the 16 partnered organizations in the Valorant Champions Tour (VCT), with approximately 50%, or $20M, being split evenly amongst teams’ that’s roughly $1.25M in revenue (as of this writing) for each team, on top of any prize money being earned this weekend in Los Angeles during the Valorant Champions 2023 Finals. READ MORE.
Report Shows Japanese Youth Prefer Consoles, Open to Esports and Streaming
A new 60-page report from research firm Niko Partners, offers some interesting data on the attitudes of Japan’s consumers aged 6-18 and their parents when it comes to gaming. In its new report, Niko Partners found that 46% of Japanese gamers aged 16-18 and 67% of parents of these children believe that it is parents who should be in charge of what their children play, and that a majority of those parents have a favorable view of the leisure activity. Consoles are the platform of choice amongst the age group, followed by mobile, and then PC, and most children play an average of about eight hours a week. READ MORE.
Call of Duty League Team Florida Mutineers Rebranded to Miami Heretics
Misfits Gaming Group’s Call of Duty League (CDL) team the Florida Mutineers has been rebranded as the Miami Heretics as part of a deal with Spanish esports organization Team Heretics. The “transaction to rebrand the Florida Mutineers to the Miami Heretics,” also sees Heretics become an equity partner in the franchise. READ MORE.
🤼People on the Move
Here's a small selection of movers and shakers in the esports and gaming industries this week.
Layoffs hit Destiny series developer Bungie this week.
At least two employees were let go from Activision Blizzard’s marketing/editorial department related to Call of Duty.
Bill Roper joins game studio Lunacy Games as its new CEO.
Rob Martin helps launch Midwest Games as head of partnerships and co-founder.
Biren Sharma joins Lets Game Now as a content creator.
Fabian Kerngast has been promoted to commercial director at Shikenso Analytics.
Michael O'Dell joins SCAN Computers as director of gaming and esports.
📢In Other News
Fnatic joins DRX, ZETA DIVISION, Cloud9, SCARZ, and 100 Thieves for Red Bull Home Ground 2023 in November.
Riot Esports Director Raul Fernandez: LoL esports struggles to break even.
Call of Duty leader Johanna Faires takes some softballs from Politico.
India’s FanClash launches Spectatr.
InGame Esports partners with Tencent for PUBG Mobile World Invitational 2023 SEA.
India’s Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports greenlights 15-member esports team for Asian Games 2022.
Four former Velocity Gaming players were banned from FACEIT.
👊Thanks for Reading!
As a bonus for making it this far, here’s a little extra information on what’s going on with myself and The Esports Advocate. I’m happy to share that I have secured enough personal funding to continue on with TEA and this newsletter until the end of 2023. We have not really made an effort to secure outside funding (we are laying the groundwork to start pursuing it if we so desire) so this entire effort has been accomplished by bootstrap funding.
We also moved our servers from a less-than-optimal provider in the U.S. to a new location in Europe, and our speed and our optimization on search engines has vastly improved over the last month or so.
I have spent the better part of 2023 building a brand and creating value for readers with original reporting and content, and now it's time to move into a new phase of building traffic. Tobias Seck and Hongyu Chen have been incredibly supportive colleagues and friends and I would not have been able to accomplish much of anything without them in my corner!
I’m also deeply grateful for the continued support of our readers; right now our readership pool, particularly with this newsletter, is small but it is composed mostly of industry professionals and executives from some of the biggest gaming, esports, and marketing agencies in the world. This is a very long way of saying that if you are out here in the world trying to do business or promote a brand, this is probably a good space to enquire about leveraging in the future (hint, hint, wink, wink, nudge, nudge).
Thank you for your support and love. - James Fudge