GAME has revealed all-new branding for its Multiplay esports events, which it acquired back in 2015 for £20m and will now be known as Player1 Events, according to Esports News UK. Back in 2017, GAME sold all but the esports and events infrastructure to game dev engine provider Unity.
Player1 Events will begin to roll out the new branding in the public face in the coming months with a new website. The company will still trade as Game Esports and Events Ltd, this name change will allow the company to shed their Multiplay name. The news came after GAME revealed a 40% rise in esports revenue for the year ending July 28th 2018, from 8.7m to 12.2m in 2018. The numbers exclude Multiplay Digital sales, whilst also taking into account Insomnia cancelling two events in 2017.
Martyn Gibbs, CEO, GAME, had this to say: “The expansion of the Group’s live gaming service, BELONG, has remained the key objective in the period and signing of the collaboration agreement with Sports Direct in February 2018 has the potential to deliver growth in BELONG in the next financial year with the financing required to implement the strategy. “We have moved to establish opportunities in far larger premises that will accommodate more stations as our utilisation rate at peak times continues to grow.
Currently, GAME has 19 of its esports BELONG arenas open as we near the end of 2018. GAME has reported over 350,000 hours of playing time at their venues — up from 350% the previous year.
Gibbs continued: “We are also seeing growing participation from our supplier partners to utilise the BELONG arenas for local esports events, beta and other launch activities for new games. We expect these activities and the associated revenue to grow as we add more space to accommodate such events.”
Esports Insider says: Seeing GAME announce positive news is great, especially in a year in which their retail arm continued to struggle in an industry constantly driving towards digital, GAME has found positive news in their esports/BELONG divisions. With esports bars and LAN café growing in Europe, BELONG could be well positioned as we move forward.