Dublin-based Estars has announced the launch of its interactive esports engagement platform, Estars Outlast.
Estars hopes to combine the best elements of competitive gaming with a social gaming platform to create an ‘innovative and enhanced viewing experience designed to spur active engagement’ for the biggest esports competitions around the world. Their first product Estars Outlast, is a free-to-play competition for fans to test their knowledge of various esports events and predict the performance of their favourite competitions.
Bart Barden, chief product and revenue officer at Estars, had this to say: “Estars is a platform created with the esports fan in mind. We plan on providing an entirely new way for fans to play, compete, and win by offering exciting and engaging experiences, starting with prediction games that were designed with a gamer’s competitive spirit at their core. In addition, we look forward to providing a safe and secure environment while setting the industry standard for trust and integrity as a member of the Esports Integrity Coalition.”
Outlast will launch with a pre-register promotion which will give users the chance to win $25,000 (£19,500) and 25,000 Stars, Estars’ virtual currency.
The platform will also give game developers the opportunity to directly connect and engage their fans through social competitions alongside the games esports events. The platform also gives developers ways to monetize with branded content. Alongside this, the platform will feature offering prizes through ad viewing, a VIP program, data analytics and live content tracking. No specific details about this features have been shared as yet.
Jeff Liboon, president of Estars, added: “We wanted to create a parallel esports experience that provides top game developers with the opportunity to engage with the millions of people who watch their esports content in a very unique and active way. We’ve all witnessed how successful social platforms can enhance live events and think Estars is the next evolution of that for competitive gaming, whether fans are casual players interested in experiencing esports for the first time or a hardcore gamer. Estars has tremendous capability to increase developers’ market potential. We have the goal of being the largest and most effective esports engagement platform for both consumers and B2B content providers in the world.”
Esports Insider says: We’ve seen a number of platforms looking to add more social interaction into esports, and while the idea is certainly great, none of these ideas are yet to break into a large mainstream appeal. Especially with most fans choosing to use Twitter or Reddit to share their instant opinions esports events.