Month: March 2012

Attracting Gaming Sponsorships

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Update: I wrote this post initially in 2012. Seven years later, I’ve decided to update it to include player sponsorships since I’m partially involved in that space with regards to esports.

If you’re reading this, you have a blog, a podcast, or an event that you’re looking to drum up some kind of resources for. Or maybe you’re an aspiring competitive player or an up and coming streamer.

Maybe you’re an esports organization looking for some help or a guild that’s looking to ease a few financial burdens. I know how costly and expensive it can be.

One of the questions that often get asked is how do I attract and get sponsors for <something>? I can’t offer you a definitive step-by-step guide or formula on how to get sponsorship. But having been on both sides of the sponsorship question (both reviewing sponsorship requests and negotiating with companies for sponsors for events/organizations), there are a few things you really need to keep in mind to make yourself more attractive to them.

Not all sponsorship arrangements have to involve money. Instead, consider things like:

  • Gaming peripherals
  • Hardware
  • Voice servers
  • Guild hosting websites
  • Web hosting services (For your blog or podcast)
  • Discount agreements
  • Other product

Know your audience

If you write a blog, do you know what the demographics of your readers are?

  • How many of them are male vs female?
  • How many of them are between the ages of 16 – 25?
  • How many listeners does your podcast get?
  • What your RSS subscriber count is?
  • How many page views you get per month?
  • What your top 5 most popular articles are?

Having this data is extremely important. The question you need to keep in the back of your mind is how does sponsoring you help them with their brand message?

Provide evidence and data. Interested potential sponsors will ask for data about traffic and page views. If you’re a streamer, be prepared with views and subscribers. If you’re a competitive player, have a history of events you’ve attended, the number of players and viewers that event had, and your resulting finishes.

If you stream, do you know what kind of viewers you’re attracting to watch?

If you compete at live tournaments, do you know the general makeup of those in attendance?

Case Study: World of Matticus

Not many of you may remember this, but years ago I came really close to shutting down WoM. Hosting bills were gradually climbing up. It got to the point where I almost had to pay $300 a month to keep the site going. Luckily, I was able to negotiate a web hosting sponsorship. Having traffic information allowed the two of us to come to an agreement because they were able to allocate the necessary resources needed as the audience (in other words, you guys) continued to scale and grow.

Know your sponsors

What is the goal of the company you want to partner with? Are they trying to raise subscriptions? Are they gunning for increased awareness and exposure? Do you know what kind of players are interested in their products? If you have an idea of what their sales goals are, you can help factor that in with your proposal in how you can help them with their challenges.

Companies have a bottom line they need to adhere to. Hardware companies are looking for conversions from visibility to sales (that’s why you’ll see streamers offer discount codes). Subscription-based companies are looking for people to sign up for long term offers. While it would be great if businesses could sponsor every potential up-and-coming player to help with their growth and development, it simply isn’t going to be financially feasible.

The company I’m involved with sponsors a number of local players that attend major events like Dreamhack and EVO throughout the year. We’re not always in a position where we can fly out every local player who shows promise. At the end of the day, results do matter. One of our measurable goals is eyeballs and exposure. In order to raise the odds of our players appearing on stream, they need to be competitive and they have to consistently perform at a high level.

For Hearthstone, we cover the flights and accommodation of a few of our local players when they made the Americas playoffs or when they attended certain HCT Points earnings events because we believed they had what it took to play at the level expected. If those players hadn’t made high finishes, then we might scale back on the number of events that they get sent out to throughout the year. While we would love to send everyone locally to major events, we can’t afford to. Like it or not, we’re a business, and we don’t have a limitless supply of resources.

What can you offer?

Business is still business. You need to be able to exchange value for value. How can you ensure that your sponsor’s message reaches the desired audience? There are a few ways you can do that.

One of the easiest methods is to place a logo and a link to your sponsors anyone on your site. Graphical banners do the job. Logos can be placed in the site header. Another good spot is to place them on the background image of the site (and it’ll appear prominently to anyone on widescreen monitors).

If you have a podcast, mention here and there (“We’d like to thank our sponsors …”).

If you run a livestream, place their logo on the stream itself somewhere out of the way or change the background image of the page your stream is on to reflect them. You could even run video ads during a break while you step away.

Work with videos? Place their logo at the front or at the end of your productions.

Attending events in person? Have any custom gear? See if you can get their brand embedded on your shirts or jerseys. If you get selected to go on stream, this provides tremendous value.

Does your guild run a ton of pickup raids or organized PvP? If your group gets a ton of pickup or cross realm traffic, create a message of the day in Ventrilo (or Discord) that mentions them. Consider changing the name of the waiting room channel. Think of different methods to help your sponsors with their message.

Case study: Fnatic and Team 3D

A long time ago, Fnatic.RaidCall changed the name of their organization to help draw awareness to Raidcall. Almost a decade ago, when Counterstrike Source was at its height, I believe Team 3D changed their in-game tags from 3D.KSharp to 3D.nVidia :: Ksharp. This was during the finals of one of the CPL events where thousands of players were watching the game live. Can you imagine the exposure nVidia received?

The ability to change gamer tags to incorporate your sponsor is huge.

Image matters

Sponsors will associate with organizations that project a certain image that they are trying to appeal to. Be mindful of the targeted demographic that they are trying to reach. Be mindful of any negative or abusive language. Adjust your tone so that it falls in line with what your ideal sponsors are looking for.

Case study: Capcom and Tekken

There was an incident several years ago when rampant trash talking between two competitors during a match resulted in one of them dropping out. Miranda forfeited due to mental distress from the verbal abuse that Aris was delivering. Penny Arcade had an excellent editorial piece (post since removed) about some of that verbal abuse. I pulled off a double take when that same individual then said that “The sexual harassment is part of the culture [and] if you remove that from the fighting game community, it’s not the fighting game community”. While I don’t know if there was any fallout after those comments were made, I’m pretty sure potential sponsors would be wary of associating with any organizations with that type of mentality.

Measure it

Make sure you have a way to help your sponsors measure any positive benefits. Can’t attract any sponsors unless they can determine how well the exposure is doing them for them. One such example would be a customized link which tracks how many referrals came from your site and how many of those referrals signed up for a product or service.

If you were on stream, take a snapshot of the number of people that happened to watch you live or make a note of the number of views a video that featured you had. You need quantifiable information in order to justify having a productive relationship with your sponsors. When we send a player to attend a tournament, we need to evaluate the event in question and see if it makes sense for us. Sending a player to a tournament with 50 competitors doesn’t make sense, but sending a player to one with 500 players matters because we have the potential to attract more eyeballs for roughly the same amount of investment (the travel costs).

When you work on a contractual agreement with yourself and a sponsor, make sure you list everything measurable that you can do for them. Examples could include:

  • 5 tweets per week
  • 2 shoutouts per stream
  • 3 mentions on Instagram within 4 weeks
  • A video talking about your experience with their product or event

Look out for them

Your job is to ensure that your sponsors are taken care of. Help them out with whatever they need. Make sure you deliver on the terms that you have agreed upon. Cultivate those long term relationships. Get and provide feedback on what worked and what didn’t. If you’re running an event such as a tournament, invite them out again next year while the whole ordeal remains in the front of their minds.

Most importantly, remember to thank them!

Good luck in your efforts!

Beta Rage and Mists of Pandaria Links!

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This week:

  • Monk Talents Revealed
  • Where’s the Integrity?
  • Where’s my Beta Invite?

All this beta rage and annual pass stuff is distressing. Try not to forget there’s some logistics at play here. Illidan (US) has a combined population of around 46000 characters on the server. Actually, make that 46000 level 85 characters that have actually killed something in Tier 12. There’s about a million people that opted in for the annual pass. Even Blizzard, with all their might, is going to have a hard time squeezing in a million users onto a limited amount of test servers. During traditional PTRs, there are around 4 (A PvP, a PvE, an EU and a KR). I think they’re going to need more than 4 servers to pull it off. Try to be a little Zen about it. You’ll get it when you get it. If I remember right, Bioware pulled off something similar with pre-orders. That level of beta access only occurred over a weekend (I think). Hell, now that I think about it, I can’t remember if the terms said you’ll keep your beta access throughout the entire period. Who’s to say Blizzard won’t run rotating beta groups that have their access vary from week to week?

Does anyone else realize that over a million people paid almost 180 bucks for the ability to test Blizzard’s game for them?

Eh, I’ll get mine when I get mine. Clearly I am not press enough for access.

Follow @Matticus on Twitter if you’re looking for good reads throughout the week.

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Monk Talents Revealed

Curious about what the new Monk talent tree looks like? I drew up a post on WoW Insider with links to the current abilities. Level 90 talents look OP. How does one resist taking Chi Torpedo!?

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Where’s the Integrity?

This one isn’t WoW related. But if you’re a League of Legends player, I started a LoL blog not too long ago. Had a bitter experience with one of our scheduled matches last week which really frustrated me. Long story short, they “didn’t see the request to reschedule” and we ended up incurring a forfeit loss.

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I have the Annual Pass! Where’s my Beta Invite?

Even though many bloggers are raging, one blogger isn’t. Anafielle’s a little more disappointed than anything else (With a slight side of mad). She has the same approach as I do (Although between the two of us, I think she’s way more animated *grin*).

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The Best – And Worst – Places to Write

I find that I get some serious writing done in coffee shops. Joe here believes that coffee shops can be too distracting. I find my room to be too distracting so I’ll usually head out to Waves or something. If I plug in my headphones and load up some dubstep, it’s enough to keep me focused and on task. Your results may vary.

Lastly, this:

Glyph of Permanent Angel Wings for my priest! *jumps up and down excitedly like a baby crocolisk pretending to be in puppy form*

– Wryxian

Make it happen, Wryx!

Mists of Pandaria Priest Glyph Changes

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List is incomplete but there’s been a few glyphs that are out there already. Not too many Priest ones have been released, but here’s what’s available so far. My guess is that we’ll be seeing more glyph changes pretty soon. They’re probably in the process of either devising new ones or converting some of the existing talents into glyphs.

Glyph of Power Word Shield

20% of the absorb from your Power Word: Shield spell is converted into healing.

This change made me cringe slightly. If I read that right, it means a percentage of the absorb amount goes directly into healing. The current design of this glyph on live is that Power Word shield absorbs 100% of the amount and heals for 20% of the absorb. The upcoming design means the shield will absorb 80% of the initial value with the rest going into the heal.

Live

Absorb for 100000, heal for 20000

Proposed for Mists

Absorb for 80000, heal for 20000

Typo, you think?

Glyph of Prayer of Mending

The first charge of your Prayer of Mending heals for an additional 60% but your Prayer of Mending has 1 fewer charges.

Looks like a slight nerf to the current Prayer of Mending glyph. It retains the bonus healing to the initial charge but you lose out on the last charge so it doesn’t bounce around as much. Going to say this is a definite situational glyph. If you’re in an encounter with AoE damage or a heavy aura fight, you’ll probably want this unglyphed. If it’s a strategic encounter though where there isn’t as much damage going around or going to very limited players, then the glyph has added benefits due to the front loaded nature of it.

Glyph of Holy Fire

Your Holy Fire spell is now instant.

I’m speechless.

Glyph of Circle of Healing

Your Circle of Healing spell heals 1 additional target, but its mana cost is increased by 35%.

Not much of a change here, I don’t think. Meant for balance purposes with the increase in mana and the added target.

What Priest glyphs would you like to see designed or converted from existing talents?

Edit: Zeroes. Sigh.

Things in Mists to get Excited For

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Look at all the non-raid stuff that we can do at max level! I’m so excited for the expansion!

World of Farmcraft – Sweet! I can build my own farm! And it allows me to grow my own herbs and herb while I farm. Now I can really put that farming RP set to use.

Pet battles – Something to do in between wipes or pulls that isn’t Bejeweled. Looks like pets will be unified across all your characters, too (As in account bound). Gotta catch em’ all!

World bosses – We only get two. Not bad.

Scenarios – The more I hear about scenarios, the more I like them. Looks like they’ll fit sizes anywhere from 5 players, to 10, and to 25. It’ll offer some nice alternatives from raiding or if your group happens to be done early that week. It’s possible to score Valor Points out of them as well. Group quests that aren’t technically group quests, basically.

Challenges – Seems like these’ll be super hard to take on. Bronze seems like something achievable for everyone but Silver and Gold will be reserved for the best of the best. Reminds me of the old Star Wars: Rogue Squadron achievements on my N64.

Spirits of beer – The ones that are haunting the Stormstout Brewery? They’re called Alementals. Best name ever.

The new LFR loot rules – So if my understanding of this is correct, you’re not hitting the need roll on each item individually anymore. Rather, you hit the need roll once for just that boss. If you win the roll, the system checks to see if there’s an item for you (for me, like a caster staff). If there isn’t an item for you, tough luck. The other players in your group can no longer affect your roll. You’re also not going to get an item every time.

Female pandas – I… uh, don’t know what words I can use appropriately to describe the pleasure I get from looking at them.

Megadamage – Looks like they’re going with the 40k damage approach on the screen instead of saying 40000.

AoE looting – It’s about time.

But oi! It looks like we’re really close to beta. Probably within the next 2-3 months. There is a remarkable amount of polish and completion here. If I were to hazard a guess, most of the work is being done on the end game content along with more talent systems balance.

What additions and changes are you excited for?

Crit-icisms

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Hey team, I want to share some of the feedback and criticism I received the other day.

You are awful. You are the worst League of Legends player ever. Why do you even play this game?
What’s with the healing? You’re the reason we had that 2% wipe. Uninstall right now.
You don’t deserve that job. You’re not really that talented. Someone else out there is way better.
Just give up and tap out. Why bother? No point anyway.
You choked. Blew your chance. Screwed up. Horrible. Terrible. Get the hell out. Got destroyed.
Fail at life.

Source?

Me.

You really are your own worst critic. Ask any member of my guild. No matter what game I play, I am thee worst when it comes to self-beating up and self-rage. Healthy? Probably not by a long shot. I’m willing to bet that most of you tune out when you’re reprimanded or given harsh feedback because nothing anyone else says to you compares to what you’re saying to yourself at that moment of failure. Anyone else giving you similar words is bound to reinforce what you’re thinking anyway.

And let me guess, at the moment of failure, you’re replaying that moment over and over in your head. You’re analyzing what happened. What you did. What went wrong. Where you screwed up. You’re reliving every conversation, every discussion, every moment leading up to the critical moment where shiitake mushrooms hit the fan. You wish you did Y instead of X. A Flash Heal instead of a Greater Heal would have been the key raid saver.

Choked at a crucial life changing moment? Screwed yourself out of a potential opportunity? You made the wrong dialog choices, and unlike Mass Effect 3, it actually does matter. Sometimes there are no second chances. You goofed and you know it.

So what do you do?

Learn from it. Remove the hostility, the negativity, and the extremism. If it helps, mentally recite what you should have done, and file that fact away in the back of your mind so that when it does happen again, you can do it the right way. But you can’t do that if the primal version of yourself is busy screaming at you all the time.

People who succeed think about failure differently. It was that the strategies used didn’t work. It’s not that they should never have tried in the first place. It’s not that those people are always right. It’s not that you’re a loser. You win when you’re good at losing. The hardest part about losing is that you might reach a point where you believe you don’t deserve that victory and that you give up.

The best player at mind games is you. You’re the only person that can psych yourself up or down. Winning or losing at anything starts with your own mentality.

So the next time you start talking to yourself about how bad you are, do yourself a favour.

Tell yourself to shut up.