Each esports title has its own audience, and we keep lumping them all together under one banner and user profile..
I’ve already covered that we don’t build products for what the audience actually wants, and that each region has a different audience. But to add to complexities: we lump esports into one thing, while each game has its own culture, its own fanbase, its own economy. A Counter-Strike fan in Europe doesn’t look like a Valorant fan in NA. A MLBB fan in SEA doesn’t necessarily behave like a Dota fan in the same country.
Yes, they’re all “esports fans.” But treating them as the same is like saying F1, NBA and WWE fans are one group. Or that horror, romcom and thriller audiences are identical. Or that RnB, classical and rock listeners are all the same. They might be the same umbrella, but completely different audiences.
Until we start building for the game-specific cultures and communities, we’ll keep selling esports short. Esports is a collection of lots of different scenes/niches. And niches are where the real value and opportunities lie.
(This is Part 3 of 3 on esports audiences. Part 1 speaks about a misidentification of the esports audience and Part 2 on the differences between geographical audiences. I have a ton more content coming related to all these topics so stay tuned :)