media update’s Adam Wakefield spoke to Logan Broadley, co-founder and contributor to
GLHF, about creating content for the esports sector, and why brands are missing a trick by not getting involved in the local esports market.
When was GLHF started, by who and for what market?GLHF started two years ago with the intention of telling the stories of South African esports players. We always say we are giving them a platform for their voices to be heard. When we started, esports was exploding internationally and the players had transformed into celebrities. We wanted to start something that would help our players feel the same.
The three of us who started
GLHF – myself, Nick Krige and Jono Cox – are all writers by profession and thought our skillset would offer esports fans in South Africa something a bit more interesting than match reports and summaries of weeks of esports news. We try dig deeper into the stories we tell and provide some insight into the local scene. And we try to be entertaining.
How big is the esports market in South Africa from both a players and revenue point of view?It’s difficult to tell exactly how big the local market is, but it is definitely on the smaller side when compared to the more established scenes in Europe, North America and Asia. However, the players and fans here are super dedicated and passionate, so the events that we throw are of a very high standard.
There is a stat that is often thrown around: South Africa has over 200 000 people who watch Twitch on a regular basis. But local esports events struggle to get 2 000 viewers on their streams. That’s 1% of the people watching Twitch, which is probably a tiny percentage of the people playing video games in South Africa – people who might be interested in esports, but don’t know anything about it yet. That’s another huge part of what we are trying to do: Get more South Africans excited about and watching local esports.
How do you see esports evolving in South Africa in the next couple of years, including your coverage of it?As
GLHF grows we’d like to start doing more than just weekly stories. We want to get to a point where we’re releasing an article every day and, the thing we always talk about but never have time to do, we want to create quality video content. South African esports is crying out for a daily esports news hub that focuses on the local scene and a well-produced local esports show. Hopefully we get there, because we think we’d do the scene justice.
As for the future of the local scene, it’s in an interesting place at the moment. We put on world-class events, but they are few and far between. That’s not anyone’s fault. The local tournament organisers are trying their best to get investors into the scene, but it’s tough going trying to convince brands that aren’t endemic to gaming that people playing video games is something they can use to sell their products or services.
To get to the point, we need brands that are willing to take a risk and invest in the local scene. Gamers are a large audience that are notoriously hard to reach with advertising. Esports is a great way to communicate with them.
From a content creation perspective, what has informed GLHF's style?We try our best not to bore people. There is a lot of esports content out there that is just not that interesting. Either the right questions aren’t being asked or the way the answers are being presented is just dull. Having said that, there is a lot of good esports content in South Africa.
As writers and gamers we consume a lot of content. So, more than anything, we knew what we didn’t want. After we wrote the very first
GLHF article, we all read it – everything at
GLHF is a collaboration between the three founders – and it was dull. It was a long article too. To go back and have to rewrite that whole thing was tough. It’s not something you want to do between a regular nine-to-five job. But we did it and the end product actually made us laugh out loud a couple of times.
Right then we knew that we’d found the style and tone we wanted. And we were excited to share it with people.
For more information, visit
goodluckhavefun.co.za.
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