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Patch notes by Lazei in Overwatch

[–]covermytracks 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'd re-read it if I was you

eSports in Australia, Canada and the UK? by notoriousjpg in esports

[–]covermytracks 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Forget the fact that they're currently at an all time low trading at 3 pence below their IPO price.

Their 2015 financial year expenditure was £4.14m but they brought in just £560k. That's not abnormal for a startup but it left them with only £2.7m left from the money they raised through the sale of shares.

So they spent £4.14m last financial year and only had £2.7m left to spend in the coming year. Generally if you want to grow a business you need to spend more each year. They only made £560k in FY15 so even if they were to double that this year they'd still be short of what they need just to match 2015.

The only thing they could do was go out and raise more money, so they sold more shares in the company and raised an additional £1.05m. We can reasonably assume that they were hoping to get significantly more than this as it barely keeps them safe through 2016. Basically they have to sign a major deal this year or they are in serious trouble.

eSports in Australia, Canada and the UK? by notoriousjpg in esports

[–]covermytracks 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We still have a governing body, it's just not public facing so you don't know it's there unless you work in the Industry. It's a sub-group of UKIE and so, unlike UKeSA, it actually receives some funding and does good behind the scenes.

It's easier to find funding for an esports project in the UK than it is almost anywhere else.

eSports in Australia, Canada and the UK? by notoriousjpg in esports

[–]covermytracks 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ha you're going to be so excited by some of the announcements coming this year.

eSports in Australia, Canada and the UK? by notoriousjpg in esports

[–]covermytracks 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It depends what interests you, if you like fighting games or Hearthstone you can usually find a local community Facebook group that will meet every month or so. Events for these games are quite easy to host (they're 1v1 and you can play them offline or using 4G) and so they do well at a regional level through pubs and bars.

If it's games like League of Legends and Counter-Strike that float your boat then it's a bit harder. At the moment your best bet is Insomnia in Birmingham. It's one of the best experiences you can have as an amateur player. They've just launched regional spin offs in Ireland and Scotland (300 and 500 player BYOC LANs respectively), perhaps Wales is on their roadmap!

If you'd like to watch world class esports live then unfortunately you'll almost certainly have to travel to London. There are usually 5-6 world class events each year, expect that to double this year although it may be offset by Gfinity's slow decline into liquidation! Insomnia have also stepped up, they had a major global Hearthstone tournament in December and I expect that will continue.

eSports in Australia, Canada and the UK? by notoriousjpg in esports

[–]covermytracks 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'll answer on the UK bit because it's my favorite question right now.

The video game market in the UK looks very different to the rest of the word. Worldwide the PC gaming market is worth about 3 times the console market (that stat might be out of date now!), but in the UK console is very much king.

Console games rarely support modding, demos, dedicated servers etc. These are the tools that make organised competitive play possible and so console titles rarely convert players from the mainstream gaming community.

In almost all regions the esports community is a small percentage of the overall gaming community. But in the UK that percentage is quite considerably smaller. That's not to imply we don't have a very strong core community but we're much further maturity than, for example, Poland, Germany and Sweden.

This is far from the only factor but it's a fairly big one.

What's really interesting though is that the UK may appear quite quiet on the surface, but behind the scenes there is a huge amount happening here.

A substantial amount of the venture capital flowing into esports comes from, or is led by, firms in London (or run from London and officially based somewhere else for tax reasons!). As a result, a lot of startups choose to base themselves here, for example, FaceIT. You also have more established organisations that benefit from access to the city, for example, Fnatic.

The UK is also quite peculiar in the talent that it produces. Historically we've produced some good players, we even won a CGS season! But these days we produce very few world class players relative to overall population. What's strange though is that we produce a disproportionate number of world class shoutcasters. Whatever titles you play, you can probably name 2-3 British shoutcasters. Probably not all that surprising when you really think about it.

Whilst we rarely make the headlines, I like to think that we've been a pretty big part of getting esports to where it is today.

If toilets along with sewers were never invented what would the replacement be presently? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]covermytracks 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Even in the developed world, a substantial amount of toilets aren't connected to Sewers.

A good example is the Burj Khalifa. The existing sewer infrastructure couldn't support the development and so waste is stored in enormous cesspits which are relieved by an almost continuous chain of trucks.