As there is much to touch on about Empire Arcadia, because of it's diverse business ventures I would like to take the time and focus on how Empire environmentally manages the market it's in. The answer to how Empire Arcadia as a business shapes the environment around them with little to no worry about the social, demographic, economic, and technological factors is simple. Note, I purposely left out the political and legal factors but this effects everyone and everything in any business. The 4 factors mentioned above do as well, but I will explain why they have very little to no effect on whether Empire Arcadia will be able to shape their market.
As stated before in Empire's mission statement, their goal is to "expand the gaming community and develop players". Every market you aim for has a reputation that proceeds it, in gaming, gamer's are seen as overweight, lazy, immature and unproductive. Now, with stereotypes like that, it would seem hard to help an entity like this one expand. Luckily enough for Empire, we have social media websites, you tube and "personalities". Empire was one of the first brands to ever begin show casing its gamer's lives and personalities on camera. How is this important? The fans..............Is it not obvious? You give the fans a persona or someone to be in touch with, when they are not actually around. So how does this expand the world of gaming? The same way ESPN and sports individually has expanded into the massive million- billion dollar industry that it is today. Through use of streaming most importantly, casual, hardcore and non-gamer's alike have access to high level gaming and the players.
There is still something missing though.....Ahhhhh, yes! What does Empire continue to do to expand the market? Nothing, nothing at all. This is a competitive market where you are only as good as your last win! Empire has already planted their seed from the beginning as one of the original pioneers of what goes on today in competitive gaming. The accomplishments that Empire Arcadia have achieved are more intangible then one might think, their influence and continuity are unprecedented as far as innovation is concerned.
The idea of morals and social responsibility hardly ever use to apply to the world of professional gaming. This leaves gaming's vast communities without their own ethical standards. Gaming culture since the 80's has now evolved into a very real sub-culture, as stated in my previous blog there are 2 types of gamers in the eyes of "business", but the spoken and unspoken codes of conduct apply to the entire community in the eyes of "business". How does this relate to Empire Arcadia and being a professional gamer? Let me start by giving you 2 very watered down examples of the of responsibilities of a professional gamer.
1. First and foremost you are a competitor, a sportsman and you are expected to conduct yourself as any other competitor would in any other sports.
2. You are the product that your sponsor (s) funds.
Now, as I stated before Empire Arcadia helps develop players and they expand the gaming community, it is not a sponsorship.One of the ways Empire employs their methods is by channeling information about their brand and events through their players, use of social media sites, and most importantly live appearances at major events. Just as there are 2 types of "gamers", there are also two competitive communities, the underground and the leagues. The underground communities are more no holds bar then the leagues, the atmosphere is much less professional and you will often hear heavy use of profanity in this section of the community and less sponsors. The leagues have a completely professional atmosphere, you generally wont find any rowdy hype behavior here or any heavy use of profanity. Sponsors and other brand name companies are always present at these events. So now the burning question. Why am I mentioning the 2 different types of communities? Because as it stands now regardless of the community that you frequent, if you are a sponsored player or apart of a brand, you must conduct yourself as a professional at all events and even in your social media life regardless of the community that you are present in. Notice in this blog I do not mention Empire Arcadia often, the reason for this is because it is unnecessary, Empire itself actually has no control over their ethnic standards and codes of conduct, they have to conform to whatever the communities desires are. Now that I discussed and gave you a brief idea of how Empire is forced to operate in an ethnic sense, allow me to fill in the gaps by giving you some examples of consequences of failing to abide by just the 2 rules above.
1. In gaming the way people compete is in tournaments and sometimes 2 competitors are good friends and they make it to grand finals. So let's say they decide they will split the first and second place prize amongst themselves and not try as hard to play out their final matches. Splitting pots or intentionally throwing a match each have different but very similar consequences in each community. In the underground community, you will be immediately disqualified from the tournament and of course there are long term hindrances to your credibility as a competitor and your sponsors would also have to deal with you as well. If this was done in the leagues, you would be expelled from ever competing again in the league, which would ensure the loss of your sponsorship. At the very minimum you just might be suspended. The links I provided below will provide you with more details as to what I am referring to.
2. Your image means everything to the sponsor or brand you work for. Again, you are a walking advertisement, what you do and say will can effect their sales and future partnerships. Streaming is now a natural process of the gaming world in both communities! You are always in the spot light and depending on your immediate audience you could accidentally offend someone, through use of profanity, how you conduct yourself before, during and after a match. This generally is not good for your image, your sponsors and always, always somehow hinders future prospects for the accused. Word gets around very fast in both communities! After you view the video below, I would like you to see how you would as a sponsor who had money invested into these players.
There are many other gaming companies that supersede Empire Arcadia's financial abilities in terms of sponsoring players, but the true power of Empire Arcadia does not lie within in its ability to financially support players.
Sustainable competitive advantage: Simply an advantage one competitor has over another that cannot be simulated.
What makes Empire Arcadia so much more unique than any other professional gaming organization that exists is there intimidating amount of accolades they have buried under one roof. As mentioned in the previous blog before, Empire Arcadia is the only gaming team in the world with Guinness world record for the most wins in tournament! To make it simple for you, they win, they have an elite set of winners, and they win when it matters the most. This inherently forces companies who are seeking to sponsor players in return to have their products or brands marketed to seek out the "best" of the "best" and because Empire is so condensed with both Pro & franchised players companies tend to flock to Empire as their first option. Empires weakness is the very market they and other companies seek to target. Gamers!
Now granted, gamer's come in all shapes, sizes and different ages, but generally speaking, most hardcore gamer's are between the ages of 14 & 24 and most casual gamer's fall within the ages of 5 and on. You might be thinking this is a large target market! How could anybody go wrong with these type of odds. Well first, lets be clear on what a hardcore gamer is and what a casual gamer is in "Industry lingo". The hardcore gamer's are the ones you see above and to the right, they are the die hard fans/players willing to dish out large percentages of their money and time in order to support and expand the communities which harbor their games. Unfortunately, most hardcore gamer's are broke and have or will reach the age in which their lives or interest might turn them into either "part-time" gamer's or they just do not compete or play anymore. The casual gamer can be anyone who owns a system and has no interest in competing and would simply like to enjoy his or her game in peace at home, spending about only a maximum of about 8 hrs a week playing games. Now lets get back to our question of how this hinders Empire, well for one as I mentioned before the life span of hardcore gamer can be a short one and even though they are willing to dish out money, as I mentioned before, it does not mean that they have it. The casual gamer is a tricky entity, as her or she can be quite fickle with how he our she wants to spend his or her money and they tend to be very black and white about their feelings towards the community. Although I said the casual gamer wants to be left alone, it does not mean they are to be ruled out. Casual gamer's will either support the community from a distance or become more intimately involved without becoming a hardcore gamer. Timing is everything! If a game is no longer popular or is "dying" due to lack of community support, well guess what? That Market is gone! Any amount of effort and time that was put in to targeting that market, gone!
Strength in diversity
Empire is highly diverse, maintaining and achieving championships / world records in multiple platforms of games. As stated before, do to the the dense population of gamer's it has under its label, Empire is able to adapt and quickly change suit to whatever the gaming community and Industry demands. Remember a companies success can also be determined by how many doors are open to them. If you view the link I provided here and you take a look at the tournament results under Super street fighter IV arcade edition 2012, you should see Emp Sanford Kelly as the winner. http://shoryuken.com/2014/01/19/apex-2014-streaming-live/ Shortly after his victory here at Apex 2014 in New Jersey, Sanford Kelly was offered the opportunity to fly out to Germany at ESGN's fight night. He trip was an all paid expense and he was paid for his appearance in Germany and the event was televised. One door can only lead to another. His interview starts at around 8:50 http://esgntv.com/tv/video/video_view.php?no=311
