The UK is taking significant strides to elevate esports — and competitive gaming — as a mainstream form of entertainment. In bars, pubs, and community venues around the UK, competitive and even recreational events are beginning to spring up. What’s more, British sporting bodies are beginning to align themselves with esports, as we have seen with Manchester City and FaZe Clan’s partnership to take advantage of the industry’s huge popularity with the youth.
At the same time, the British educational system is evolving. In 2018, Staffordshire University launched the UK’s first esports degree, and with the industry’s growing popularity, more and more universities will soon follow suit. In the US, tertiary educational establishments are offering esports scholarships, where the ultimate goal is professional success; the UK, however, is opening career paths to the industry at large. Focusing on the development of skills and later expertise in event management, production, casting, and even nutrition, all of which are tailored to the expectations of the growing world of esports.
With yesterday’s focus on esports’ pipeline problem, now we look at our social competitive hosting platform: how will the the first phase of the IGGalaxy cater to the players?
The IGGalaxy: An Inclusive Ecosystem
The IGGalaxy is our ecosystem constructed of varying components that will operate in unison to provide a fun and social environment for its inhabitants. Primarily an online hosting platform, the IGGalaxy will cater to players of all skill levels, where rewards are not just for the very best.
The number one goal for Intergalactic Gaming will be to encourage users to compete on the platform, which will in turn increase the participation at the base of the player-pyramid for each integrated esport. Supported by our emphasis on reward, here we envisage a greater number of gamers accumulating, or realising a professional skill; at the very least, the realisation of reward for doing what gamers love to do.
To date, we have partnered with a number of amateur esports organisations that utilising the IG platform, will find regular competition as they look to break into the professional competitive circuit for their respective games. As our partnerships in the IGGalaxy expand, as will the number of competitive events giving our partnered esports teams the opportunity to build their competitive profile. Likewise, non-endemic organisations will also be presented with the opportunity to offer their services to teams and players alike.
Tournament Creation Module
In addition to our tournaments, users will also have the opportunity to get together with friends to create their own. In this instance, our tournament creation tool will essentially allow friends or tournament hosts to manage competitions, on or offline, effectively. For offline tournaments, the platform will extend to LAN competitions, which we expect will be solely grassroots initially — local educational institutions, bars, youth clubs and so on — where we will begin to consolidate the IGGalaxy as the competition hosting platform.
Following the first phase of the beta public roll-out, users will eventually be able to set specific geographical criteria for their tournaments. Prior to this, though, localised use of the IGGalaxy will support the formation and consolidation of social groups; a proliferation of these localised competitions will subsequently open the door to regional, then national, and eventually global competition. By this point, we will have integrated the IGGalaxy’s matchmaking capabilities meaning players of similar skill levels will be able to face-off against each other.
Furthermore, our partners, too, will have the opportunity to utilise the platform to carry out community engagement events, whilst also supporting with scouting and recruitment operations. As amateur organisations and teams, our partners will benefit greatly from the IGGalaxy’s player hub, especially considering some already have esports development academies in place. Our partners’, LimeJuice and For F1FA Sake, specifically, have stated their intention to host sponsored competitions. The latter, a FIFA talent scouting agency, recently launched their Unknown2Pro initiative that aims to scout grassroots players for professional teams, and is thus synergetic to the overall direction of the IGGalaxy.
An important component of the tournament creation module will be access to the IGGalaxy’s prize distribution infrastructure. To date, IGG is the only token whitelisted, which will be extended to partner tokens come phase one of the public beta. The platform’s integration of blockchain technology brings with it the certainty of rewards, which in some part, will begin to address esports’ pipeline problem: gamers that are able to earn may find greater time to refine their skill making the professional level more accessible. Once we reach a global audience, the benefits of blockchain will be truly realised as value can be transferred anywhere in the world, almost instantaneously.
IGSpectate
On the surface, IGSpectate will bring players’ preferred streaming platform’s under one ecosystem. Users of the IGGalaxy can therefore tune in to competitions, watching their favourite teams and players compete, with instances of reward for doing so.
Insofar as reducing skill gaps, IGSpectate will also serve as a means for players to showcase themselves with the aim of getting noticed, and potentially even signed by amateur or professional organisations.
Here, we have provided an overview of how the IGGalaxy will cater the teams, and more generally, players. As esports gains greater awareness from the wider gaming community, we can expect more gamers to pursue their passion in the hope for a career in esports. The IGGalaxy will therefore perfectly position itself as the platform that encourages, incentivises, and inspires the future stars of tomorrow.
To keep up to date with developments, please follow us on our various social media channels:
Website: www.iggalaxy.com
Medium: https://medium.com/@IGGalaxy
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/igg_esports
Discord: https://discord.gg/5kx4tKR
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/IntergalacticGaming/
Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/IG_Galaxy
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/intergalactic-gaming
Telegram: https://t.me/IGG_Official
