Premium Passes Increase in Popularity
Premium passes gives audience additional content to enjoy their eSports watching experience. Fans will expect to pay extra for the passes to gain access to more premium contents. The premium contents can include behind-the-scenes videos, Q&A sessions with league players, optional view streams with different angles, and possibly in-game contents.
Znipe.tv, eSports streaming company has also partnered with ESL, DreamHack, and Face It to offer premium viewing experience unlike other platforms. They give viewers stream different camera angles based on viewers’ choice. Besides, users that subscribes to Twitch Prime will also be given free in-game content in Blizzard’s biggest games such as Overwatch, Hearthstone, and Heroes of the Storm. Expect to see more of this eSports trends in 2019 as broadcasters seeks new models of monetization.
Esports Venue Increasing
As esports expects to reach 580 million audiences in 2020, more esports venues will need to meet the growing demands. More Investment in esports will be using to build dedicated eSports arena. The dedicated arena will not just accomodate big audiences, they will also be able to create a spectacular competitive game festival.
There are already numerous eSports arenas that are currently in construction and expect to open doors in 2019. One of them are Riot Games esports arena, LoL Park in Seoul, South Korea. Full Sail University’s $6 million U.S. dollar esports arena in Florida, USA. In Malaysia, the government is also in talks and consideration to build an esports arena to push and develop a professional eSports culture locally. We will expect to see more dedicated eSports venue in 2019.