Gen.G Is Leading the Highly Competitive Esports Arms Race

Fans of traditional sports will be familiar with the concepts of facility wars. This is where a college or pro team will invest in the best-of-the-best facilities and equipment in order to attract the top talent, as well as keep that talent performing at their best.

Thanks to some big recent developments, this movement may be spreading across esports. One of the organizations leading the way for this is Gen.G — a global organization with offices and facilities in Seoul, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Shanghai.

For those unfamiliar, Gen.G owns and fields teams across many of the world’s biggest competitions in the most recognizable gaming franchises — including “Overwatch,” “Overwatch Contenders,” “League of Legends,” “Fortnite,” “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds,” “Heroes of the Storm” and “Clash Royale.”

While Gen.G has a presence in several cities, eyes around the industry for the last month have been focused on its operations in Seoul, South Korea. Gen.G recently unveiled a new seven-floor facility in the Gangnam area of the city that is one of the most impressive ever seen in the space.

Within the new facility, players have access to a training room, a lounge, a gym, a sports psychologist, a streaming room and more. In contrast to what has become the usual esports setup where players live and train in the same building, Gen.G players in Seoul live off-site and commute to this facility. This is done in an effort to allow players time to mentally recuperate in between training sessions. As Gen.G Chief Growth Officer Arnold Hur can attest, player welfare is a top priority for the organization.

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“I really don’t understand it when I see other organizations that aren’t as focused on player welfare,” Hur said. “It’s our top priority to make sure that a player can be more successful with us than with any other organization. In any sport, your number-one cost is going to be your talent, your players. Making sure that they’re able to perform at their best should be your biggest investment.

“For us, we feel like we’ve done things that, I think, are pretty innovative and ahead of the curve — whether it’s providing streamer opportunities, providing physical training and a nutritionist, or a sports psychologist on staff, we want them to be the best player they can be.”

Another aspect of Gen.G’s growth can be attributed to its partnerships strategy. Now working with brands like SIDIZ and Razer to give their teams the best equipment, the organization takes the quality over quantity approach with sponsorships and partnerships.

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This makes it easier both in terms of activating in meaningful ways and in terms of the players getting acquainted with companies, which, in turn, helps with meaningful relationship building.

“Generally, in the esports market, you have a lot of teams out there that try to fill up as many patches on their jerseys as possible,” Hur stated. “We have to take a bit of a different approach. We try to grab some key partners that really believe in esports that are strategic for us and that we know we do a great job for them in terms of activations.”

With SIDIZ specifically, Gen.G found the partnership attractive because of SIDIZ’s desire to grow with the company on top of the quality of its product.

“We’re great at bringing non-endemic brands into the space. And for SIDIZ, what’s really exciting is that they’re going to make their move into gaming and esports, and we’re going to be a partner that helps them right from the beginning. They want a partner to grow with them. And I think that’s what was really meaningful for us.”

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“The importance of the player’s chair in esports is significantly underestimated from a health and comfort perspective because they spend so much time sitting down. As one of the most advanced chair brands, SIDIZ is the right partner for us,” added Edward Choi, head of marketing, Gen.G Esports. “Together with SIDIZ, we are aiming to supply our teams with the ergonomically designed chairs and create diverse marketing content that promotes both Gen.G and SIDIZ to consumers and gamers alike.”

With another new facility in Los Angeles set to open soon, Gen.G is setting the pace for esports to grow at an even faster rate. Look for more organizations to follow suit soon if they are hoping to compete.

“I think less about ‘are we behind, or are we ahead?’ — and more about moving faster, growing faster, and doing better. In the startup world and entrepreneurship, every single big company will look at a startup’s innovation and think, ‘we’ve got to go copy that.’ They’re better off just focusing on ways that they can make gradual improvements. With the L.A. facility, we’re definitely going to improve on what we’ve seen in the Korea facility side. We take all of these things and continuously and constantly improve on them.”