Esports is getting even better with advancements such as artificial intelligence allowing tournaments to be run without the need for a central authority or as many people.
Games.tv is one such platform with a goal of helping decentralized esports tournaments using artificial intelligence and the company announced it has raised $25 million in funding during a round led by Intel Capital this Thursday.
The company also announced the launch of its Discord integration and tournament web app.
It is now possible for players to set up and operate tournaments directly through Discord, Twitter, and Facebook.
“In researching the emergence and growth of mobile esports, we identified Game.tv as having unique technology and business model,” said Lisa Hanson, managing partner at Niko Partners, one of the investment firms joining in this round. “As the mobile esports segment expands, Game.tv is well-positioned to build a substantial user base, scale its services, and be an important player in this space.”
Games.tv’s primary product is Tourney: an AI bot that takes inputs from tournament operators, can set up matches, inform participants of schedules, record submitted wins and losses (using a screenshot), and coordinate brackets for finalizing the tournament series.
Tourney can govern with three main tournament modes: uHost, uHost with AI-Assistant, and AI-Host. The simplest, uHost, allows players to set up a tournament template and publish, which Tourney will then use to create channels and send messages. In AI-assist mode, Tourney helps moderate the tournament and provides guidance for each player between matches. Finally, the AI-Host function will have Tourney choose the game, matches, set up times and brackets, and operate the tournament completely from beginning to end.
Right now, Tourney can cover 48 different games including Brawl Stars, PUBG Mobile, Hearthstone, Clash of Clans, Fortnite, Call of Duty: Mobile, Dr. Mario World, and many more.
“AI is the key. In esports today it is difficult to make money unless you are running large professional tournaments and events,” Rosen Sharma, chief executive of Game.tv, said. “Most tournaments run and make money from sponsorships, which exist only for the big events. AI doesn’t need to make money in order to host an event, thus enabling tournaments in communities at any scale so long as people are willing to participate.”
The esports industry exploded with the launch of Twitch in 2012 and has been growing rapidly over the past decade. Although most of the industry is focused on major league tournaments and follows the most popular games – such as Fortnite, Hearthstone, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, and League of Legends – numerous smaller tournaments exist for gaming communities.
According to market analyst Newzoo, the esports industry has grown to $1.1 billion in revenue this year, up 27% since last year. The global audience is estimated to reach 454 million viewers. As an industry, esports continues to snowball with both dedicated hardcore fans and casual viewers joining to watch live-streamed tournaments across numerous games.
Game.tv created Tourney to integrate directly and easily with already existing communities, giving them the framework to produce and operate their own tournaments. For example, Animal Tower Battle, a game with a growing Discord community in Japan, uses Tourney to run weekly tournaments and dole out prizes on a schedule.
Using an AI means that the system learns about each individual community and how to best serve them and set up appropriate bracketed matches.
Hundreds of streamers and content creators with Discord servers have also put Tourney to use to run thousands of tournaments directly within their communities. Similarly, those communities that use Facebook and Twitter can natively run tournaments within their own social media spaces with the web app and use its functions to assist or host.
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