Hurrah’s Angela Natividad made time on the Fourth of July to chat with Adam about how esports are blowing up, and what outsiders misunderstand. This is easily one of our favorite conversations of the season.
We skipped over some of the basics. Here’s an article on E-sports written by Angela. This interview, referenced below, serves as a great backgrounder.
Transcript by Otter.ai
Welcome back to another episode of The Strategy Inside Everything. We’ve already been talking for 15 minutes and we at one point, I forgot to record but we started recording and then we got off topic. So this this should be a long and winding road with our guests today. Angela Natividad, who is the co founder at Hurrah, and also the chief operating officer, I should say, Angela, how are you?
Angela Natividad 0:52
I’m well, thank you for asking for inviting me and for incorporating a Beatles reference.
Adam Pierno 0:58
I do what I can for the kids, the kids love the Beatles are important education. I’m already glad that I did invite you because you’ve made me take a lot of notes of things I’m going to be researching when we hang up. S
Adam Pierno 1:19
we’re going to touch on. But actually, before we jumped in, would you please give people a little bit of a career rundown or I don’t care if it’s about your career, but tell people who you are and what you do.
Angela Natividad 1:30
Like my human trajectory, or the her trajectory, or human trajectory,
Adam Pierno 1:35
I’m interested in you, but if if that ties in with Hurrah, then that’s great, too.
Angela Natividad 1:40
Okay, so in terms of the hard metrics, I’ve been working in advertising, mixed with a little bit of tech and mix it a little bit of startups for about 15 years, sometimes as a journalist, even still now. Sometimes as a strategist and now as a founder. Me and my business partner actually met at our previous agency there when which was an entertainment agency. And we launched Hurrah, when we left about like something close to four years ago, when we realized that esports It was really strange because people in advertising tend to think of themselves as the ultimate actionable anthropologists and and we tend not to be aware of our own blind spots. But esports was a huge blind spot just because of how massive the sector was, how much I don’t like to talk about money, but I guess we have to because things, how much money it was bringing in, how little advertisers actually cared, and how you know, all these people would be watching these huge matches all over the world because it’s totally untethered from space time, if you like and like in the you know, in the way that you know, sports actually is totally tethered to space time. And, and there were As sometimes there were just timers between matches, you know, just counting down to 15 minutes, which was really shocking. It’s kind of like the Super Bowl without ads. But Isn’t that fantastic was great. Yeah, it was it was kind of nuts. We were just like a I don’t get why nobody’s here. And then we realized when we first launched the agency that there are a lot of stereotypes that people have about gamers generally. And no matter. It was a really good case study in this, you know, notion that I think we all know that no matter how many facts you throw in front of people, you know, the average age of an esports fan is like 2530. They have discretionary income. They’re not in the basement of their parents. They’re making really long term branding decisions, whatever.
Adam Pierno 3:43
I think people jumped to the the comic book guy from the Simpsons as the whenever you don’t have to look too far to see that the athletes who participate in in esports are they look like NASCAR drivers. I mean, they look people that take care themselves and our you can see that they’re actually exercising more than you can see that they are doing things to get better at their sport.
Angela Natividad 4:07
Exactly. And they have to, but it’s cool that you bring up the appearance of athletes because at the time, like, we launched the agency, we kind of we prepared this pitch deck. And we invited a bunch of friends over and pitched it in front of them. People in business advertising brands who’d been there a long time, they got really excited about the data and stats. And then we got to like a full size image of what at that time was a really strong French team. And any know that they’re, they’re young, and and all of a sudden, they just switched off. They were like, Oh, fuck it, these are kids. Like this is not worth my time. Like, everything just vanished. super weird. It was it was nuts.
Adam Pierno 4:54
Let me ask, I want to lock into a few things that you said. When you say at that time, this team was really good. What is life span for a team? How long does a team stay good and in other sports and pro sports here in the US? and and you know, you’re you’re in France. So in football, you see dynasties that kind of rise and fall and they have a roughly Is it is it the same.
Angela Natividad 5:17
So one of the really cool and interesting things about esports teams is that, um, teams with a lot of a lot of longevity, they tend to, they tend to be multi gaming teams, because esports I mean, to be fair at sports is changing all the time, people are inventing new sports all the time, but footballs probably still going to be popular and probably look the same 100 years from now. esports is basically on a video game marketing schedule. So you know, it needs to blockbuster. And it needs to do really well. And maybe a year from now, it’s not going to matter, like the big esports that are killing it right now didn’t even exist two years ago. So a lot of the teams that are really strong, have really strong marketing, in addition to making really smart, you know, sort of you know, who’s on their team kind of decisions. But they’re also they also tend to be multi game teams. So they will be strong or weak, depending on the specific people and the games that you’re talking about. That the team collectively, you know, like will have a certain value, depending on you know, what moment in time and what game you’re talking about, is it.
Adam Pierno 6:30
So this is perfect. I’m an outsider to esports. So if you’re listening to this, I’m your guide to ask them questions, if you don’t know. And we have an expert here, which is fantastic.
Angela Natividad 6:40
I’m not actually an expert, but I’ll try.
Adam Pierno 6:42
Well, you know more than I do, which I’ll I will take. Angela did an episode of the fantastic Marketing Over Coffee show as well, which has a good primer for what we’re going to go into. And I’m going to try to go a little bit deeper and talk more philosophically as an outsider trying to understand it. Right now, I know Overwatch is one of the big sports. That’s one of the big games that teams are playing.
Angela Natividad 7:07
Yeah, but what makes a kind of an exception’s what I just said, but we can talk about.
Adam Pierno 7:11
Yeah, that’s why I’m that’s why I’m asking because I know that it’s an exception. But what makes esports impenetrable to me as a as what might be a potential fan or as a marketer. I can’t figure out when you say football choices, right? But if I say baseball, I know what game are going to play football. I know what that’s going to look like when someone says esports I roughly understand the stadiums. I understand what the what that feels like. But I don’t even know what god damn game they’re going to be playing. And sometimes I picture a game like Overwatch where I go, Okay, I can get my head around this. I know what it is? How does how does that tide rise and fall? And how is it the games that are so good? Or is there something that makes a good esports game?
Angela Natividad 7:59
It’s actually it’s really cool that you say this because, um, I think esports is fairly young, and it’s just kind of arriving into mainstream consciousness. So people do a thing that they when something is new, you know, they tend to talk about it like it’s a it’s a monolith. But I’m talking about esports as a monolith is kind of like talking about sports in generalities like you can ask Serena Williams, how she feels about sports, and maybe she’ll say like a couple of maybe useful things that you should really ask her about tennis, right? Um, esports is the same. And it’s really hard for people to grasp the degree to which is Protea forum. So so one of the issues that you encounter in esports, for example, in addition to what I was talking about earlier, which is that, you know, new games are coming up all the time, in their respective categories, is that often when people think about esports, they’ll think about simulations of existing sports. So don’t think about FIFA,
Adam Pierno 8:58
or Madden or something like that.
Angela Natividad 8:59
Exactly, or NBA 2K, whatever. And definitely, that is part of the esports universe that is a super tiny part of the esports universe that’s less than less symmetric, the figures that’s less than 8%. In a massive universe, like in practical terms, and esports is any kind of video game that you plan a platform where you can have a person competing against another person. And this is also even within the sector, kind of a contentious discussion. So for example, we can all generally agree that I’m Sysco, League of Legends Overwatch are esports, we kind of like have the model, okay, you’ve got teams, people playing against each other, you’ve got tournament standards know, whatever. Their bigger points of contention about games, like, you know, just stands, for example, technically, it’s an esports. Sometimes people don’t feel that way. fighting games like Street Fighter, or Texan, these are also esports. But fighting games don’t like to be considered eSports, because they don’t like the baggage, which is a really interesting point of discussion. fortnight, is also technically in its own way and esports. But um, people don’t like to think of it that way. And there are a million reasons why people might not like to think of it that way. Like, they don’t like the way that it’s marketed. They don’t like that. It’s very entertainment and you know, less focused on, you know, the super competitive side. But that’s also, you know, entertainment is also really important, because when you
Adam Pierno 10:37
But it is a game. And again, it’s okay, that a game is entertaining. I mean, my kids play Roblox with there’s 100 games in there, but they play one particular game and robots with people from around the country. Yeah, not an esports. Yeah, why not?
Angela Natividad 10:54
Yeah, but that’s the thing. Like, there’s a sort of, especially now, there’s a kind of pure ism about esports on the inside. But there’s also kind of a lack of clarity about what esports is on the outside. I think one thing that we can generally agree on, though, is that, um, when you’re talking about esports, nobody has really found kind of like the football of esports. You know, like, when you get a bunch of people together to watch the Super Bowl, even if I don’t follow football, I don’t care that much. I generally get the game, it can generally be fun for me, I’ll be okay being there. In a lot of cases, most esports are kind of way too complicated to do that like to just bring in a bunch of people who don’t care that much or don’t really get it. Personally, I think that fortnite does really good work in this regard, like kind of opening the door to you know, it’s okay to be competitive on the one hand, but also entertainment on the other. Like, I think we need both. It’s also like, sort of cartoony, and you know, it’s pleasant,
Adam Pierno 11:53
it’s accessible.
Angela Natividad 11:54
Yeah, exactly. And what made the Superman not afraid
Adam Pierno 11:57
of it? What made Super Bowls festival is not that people, like the sport better or worse or understand it is that it became a connection to culture. Yeah, a lot through advertising and through celebrity and through the athletes becoming stars. So let’s rewind and go back to when you said you, you introduced to raw and you started and nobody was there. No brands were there. But even before that, you said you don’t like to talk about money, and we know it’s generating money. So our brands showing up in that 15 minute countdown, our there is there. I know we wouldn’t call it hands, it’s probably sponsored content, or something more clever than I’m coming up with. But right, it’s a constant
Angela Natividad 12:44
motion around five
Adam Pierno 12:48
minutes of ads, are they doing packages of the different teams and this players journey to get to this championship game? Or how’s it working?
Angela Natividad 12:56
It’s actually it’s, it’s really cool. I’m going to talk about you about our journey specifically. Because now like, I think that’s, I don’t know that anybody can ever do anything different anyway. But actually, we thought that we would have a much tougher learning curve, especially with non endemic brands, you know, like consumer packaged goods, etc. Just because of, you know, people’s prejudices about esports, that was a really difficult thing to educate, like, even now, it still is. And on top of that, being an American in France, France tends to be in terms of new things a bit of a much slower adopter, then, than American brands, or the American mainstream in general. With esports, though, trans has had a huge advantage. It’s a culture that’s already nourished the ecosystem, the ecosystem of esports for over 1012, maybe even 15 years, the government is tightly involved, and brands that we thought would be kind of like wait, didn’t see for about a year. So like, you know, waiting for other brands to make a bigger splash. They were wait and see for a while. And then, uh, they gave us a surprising amount of trust. Like, for example, you know, we were able to do really cool stuff with Nestle in its first foray into esports. You know, we were actually able to organize a contest where we, where we could gather together all of the most passionate fans of League of Legends in France, and actually, you know, like, hand select 100 and then take them on the bus to law worlds in Hamburg. No, that was a it was a huge execution. And they, they trusted us, even though we were really young, small, they didn’t have to. So So it turns out that I’m in terms of brand acceptance. It’s been a it’s been a really good here.
Adam Pierno 14:51
And are there because I asked about Overwatch? And then you just brought up that legends thing? Or are there people that are just fans of one game? Yeah, of course. And what I mean, so if they play one game, only at a tournament.
Angela Natividad 15:09
So the interesting thing about a fans, it’s like a, you know, there are tons of different kinds of college universes of fans, right? Like, my husband is a really huge fan of Cisco. He watches it, he plays it. There are other games that he’s tried and given up on, but he still watches them on Twitch. So for example, he tried Hearthstone, like one time, and realize he didn’t like it. But it’s been like over a year, and he still watches it, he watches it really regularly. So so you have this sort of diversity in terms of like, what you might be playing regularly, what you might be playing casually. And also, like, you know, just things that you’re just really into watching for entertainment or strategic purposes.
Adam Pierno 15:51
How long does a game of Hearthstone go on?
Angela Natividad 15:55
Right now? Like, I guess it depends on the play, but maybe like 10 minutes. Okay. You know, it’s, it’s card games. So.
Adam Pierno 16:04
So if if you’re watching that, does that mean, you’re not watching something else? To insert something else into your media diet, you’re cutting out something else? So here, hardcore fan, your your What else? Are they giving up most frequently? Do you have any insight into that?
Angela Natividad 16:21
So one of the Do I have a two fold answer to this folder?
Thank you. One of the cool reasons that we got into esports was that it was like I was telling you earlier, like we realized that people we’re not talking to this audience, like people in advertising. I mean, let’s be honest, we want to talk to the prom king and queen, you know, we want to talk to sexy kids, we don’t want to talk to kids. We don’t want to talk to adults, or old people, or the disabled, we really just want like the prom king and queen. And gamer geeks, like what we consider gamer geeks, like there are a lot of people that just don’t want those people. And, and what we found when we started out in esports, is that, you know, it’s quite diverse, like I told you earlier, like the average age is 25 to 30, there are a lot of different kinds of games that you can play. And, you know, like, a lot of the people that do play, they don’t resemble what you think of as the sort of like, nerds that have no life. Like, it’s a really silly idea there, there are people just like me and you, I feel like it’s really silly that I even have to say that. But one of the weird effects of the stereotype is that, um, they are like, at the time that we launched, they’re totally cut off from any other advertising and media for at least five, six hours a day. Like they’re just focused on their thing. And that leads me also to my second point, which is that, um, you know, people get really upset now about like Facebook and Twitter. And we also feel kind of trapped in these social networks, where we’re all super visible, everybody has access to us, and they’re probably manipulating us, whatever. esports is one of the few major entertainment sectors where people actually have alternative forms of social media, and they’re totally fine. You know, like, they have Twitch and discord, even steam in its own way as a type of you know, like, it is a type of social platform. Yeah, and nobody at that time was thinking about that. discord is built around the
Adam Pierno 18:31
idea of not adding all the tracking and map right. It’s it’s kind of a free form platform. That’s almost like a built in the slack model of
Angela Natividad 18:42
Yeah, I mean, we’re clean. Yeah, yeah.
Adam Pierno 18:46
That’s interesting that that those are the platforms that have risen up. But do you? Is it? Well, I don’t I don’t know if we want to get into holding on our seas, that’ll be a different show.
Angela Natividad 19:00
That’s also a totally different guests.
Adam Pierno 19:03
I have a feeling you have some opinions on it, though.
Angela Natividad 19:07
And the I have to take out the 90s version of myself, by my by my feelings?
Adam Pierno 19:14
Are there still brands that you meet that don’t want any part of it? Are you still? Are you still having to educate them? Or are they today at least under aware of it and understand? principally, this is what esports is and how it works? Or are they more like me that are coming in really cold and don’t don’t understand.
Angela Natividad 19:32
So the cool thing about brands now is that, um, they require a lot less education. They are at the very least aware, a lot of them already come in with plans and ideas about what they what they would like, even if they don’t necessarily know very much about the sector itself, because the sector is also really insular. Like, you don’t really know what you don’t know until you start talking to people. And I think I’m brands have done really good work in that room garden. I think the sector has also done good work in terms of like helping educate people, like there’s a lot that can be said about Blizzard and Overwatch, but Blizzard has tried working really hard also to get non endemic brands to understand it. I think Twitch is also working really hard to like, as it diversifies to them to get people who are outside of you know, gaming, generally to understand it. But there’s also I’m one of the co founders of sea of ESL, which was like one of the bigger tournament organizers and esports Ralph free shirts, he said something really interesting at an esports bar, which was like a sector conference. Recently, he said, um, like, there are lots of brands that are trying to get into esports. And they they succeed at varying levels, you know, depending on you know, how entrenched and how well they study, whatever. But for sure, in the future, just because of where the world is going. And the degree to which everything is becoming, you know, engaging is important. And when you’re talking about engagement, you’re also talking about the way that you’re, you’re addressing people and getting involved with people and you know, like creating activity for people and involvement for people. And he said, at the very least, every marketer is going to require a foundational gaming strategy, on top of which they can ultimately build an esports strategy. And I thought that was really interesting. That is interesting.
Adam Pierno 21:26
I want to ask, if Have you seen you’ve been in the space now for a couple years? Have you seen changes now in the way Blizzard and other companies are developing new games for esports? Based on or maybe not for esports? But how is the interest in esports? In particular, changing the way they are cycling through and coming up with game concepts fortnite developed during the time of esports? And is I agree with you it’s not a traditionally sport in its feels like an outsider game, which is fantastic, ultimately, for esports. Because it’s interesting, you see more people into play. But are you seeing anything in terms of a focus on games that would be great for competitions? Or have you seen anything that’s shaping the way games are developed? On
Angela Natividad 22:11
the one hand, when you’re talking about esports, what you’re talking about is, is a sector that has DNA, like pretty strong DNA from the from the gaming industry, and a lot of the things that kill it in the gaming industry. I mean, it’s like, it’s like anything in social and art and creative. It’s alchemy, right? Like, when we talk about fortnite, specifically, we’re talking about Battle Royale kings, and Battle Royale kings,
Adam Pierno 22:40
the Google of the whole entire category of games.
Angela Natividad 22:46
Yeah, and we have precedent for battle royale games, they weren’t always all bad. It’s just, you know, like, it depends on how the culture feels at any given time, nobody who’s seen the fortnight was going to kill it after pub Gee, you know, like, so there’s that on the one side. On the other side. Like when you’re inside the business of esports, one of the things that you find is a lot of the people that are kind of like the tastemakers of the business of esports, like people who are high up now, in Blizzard in Twitch and ESL, they came from esports Originally there their fans originally and, and they have this, at the very least, they they they manifest the perspective that for a long time has been very true to esports, which is that even though it’s not necessarily bound by space, it is it does tend to be super grassroots, and very local, and the things that have mattered and created a larger culture of esports have come from those from those roots of you know, being really close to the user. And what we’re what we’re seeing now is there’s kind of like a, an awkward and sort of gross joke that everybody kind of bandied around in the industry, which is that a, everybody’s talking about all the money, you know, like, that’s all we talk about is all the money, where is it? We can’t fin and, and the results of this is that, um, everybody, from the biggest publishers to tournament organizers, you know, whatever is mobilizing to, to kind of shape the future esports for for better, for worse, I think we all agree that we want them a sustainable and more inclusive industry over the long term. But now we have something that we did not have before just because of all this pressure and talk about money, which is that, um, you have a corporate perspective, that is now talking to grassroots and but in a lot of ways, is shaping esports in ways that it could not before like to give an example, Overwatch Overwatch, the Overwatch league is really strange in the sense that, um, it’s organized against behaviors that we know, have existed in esports for a long time. So, so for example, like I keep saying esports is not bound by space. So there was never this idea of like, teams that were bound to a place, you know, in the same way that a team could represent different games, they can those players that are on the team could be in different places. So you know, you you won’t necessarily have like a Paris team. Right,
Adam Pierno 25:34
right, doesn’t have a space.
Angela Natividad 25:36
Exactly. So fans would have a would express loyalty and follow, you know, maybe players that they really like sometimes for cultural reasons, sometimes not. Or sometimes they would express loyalty to a brand like fanatic or G to which are both, like really strong, you know, team brands right now. And what Overwatch is doing, I think, for very clever marketing. But also, I think, you know, for for other larger reasons, is that they are creating a model that’s based on cities. And one single team focused on you know, one single for sport, which is Overwatch. You know, like, and you have Paris eternal, and you know, you have, you know, Dallas fuel, you have city based teams. And they they’re creating a model that was not endemic to the sector, a behavior that is not endemic to the sector, but that comes actually from traditional sports, right?
Adam Pierno 26:34
And so they’re doing that to make it cross cultural lines that people are familiar with and make it a little easier to get your brain around it. Even though, I mean, if you take the Dallas Mavericks, those players, none of those 12 players on the roster are from Dallas. Right? Same thing with the Overwatch team, probably some people have never been to Dallas,
Angela Natividad 26:55
right? Yeah, there were very few French people on Paris. A turtle.
Adam Pierno 27:00
Yeah, that’s the team they play for. That’s the T shirt. They were,
Angela Natividad 27:03
of course, yeah. But it’s it’s odd. Because I for a long time, I didn’t think that it was going to work. Like it’s also a very highly subsidized model. It’s a model that works well for marketers, because it’s easy to pitch to brands. And so it’s model that they understand, right? The argument they have is also that it will be easier for users because they know who to love and who to hate. Because if New York is playing Boston, and you’re from New York, well, then you know exactly what to do. Right. You start you come
Adam Pierno 27:30
in with some kind of a grounding principle. Yeah. How to cheer and how to boo.
Angela Natividad 27:35
Yeah, but I also think that’s kind of one. I think that’s kind of a shame. Because when I went to my first when I went to my first big esports competition, which was a law competition in Paris, one of the things that really impressed me was, you know, like, one of the big problems of sports is hooliganism. And, and even when you’re the opposing team that people didn’t like, did something really cool. Everybody cheered anyway, as they were
Adam Pierno 28:03
excited by the achievement.
Angela Natividad 28:05
Exactly. They’re excited by the achievement. They recognize the level of strategy. And I thought that was really contagious and cool.
Adam Pierno 28:11
Yeah, this is interesting. This is an interesting approach. Before the the location based teams, you mentioned a couple other teams by name. And I was thinking about NASCAR that those drivers are locked to a contract that as a team. For an outsider, I don’t know many of those teams, I know probably the top two or three race teams, but I really know them by brand. I know by that the logo that is on the hood, and maybe the one that’s on the driver’s door that gets coverage, you know, during right passenger door during the races. Yeah. So it’s interesting to see esports being clever about making the teams, many brands that can be sponsored, and you can buy in LA, trying to keep those things elevated above the sponsor brands. So it doesn’t just become the m&ms to nothing. But I just said it’s sponsored by x, you know, x body spray Ts. Yeah, you’re trying to tread as you’re developing this whole system? Are you how much forethought is going into where we’re putting brands? And where we’re putting sponsorship and, and logos are that are big considerations? Or is it such a soup that we’re testing a lot of things in real time and seeing what works.
Angela Natividad 29:31
So esports, just because it’s growing so quickly, it’s started to federate really quickly. And one of the easiest things for it to do, just because it was there already is to steal a lot of stuffs stuff from the existing model of sports, right? You know, you have a sponsorship, like you have in sports, you have, you know, you have no like, yeah, like people are wearing jerseys that are, you know, really, really heavily sponsored, you can sponsor teams, you can sponsor people.
So that model definitely does exist here.
And we also know that, in the near future, if it’s not happening already, over 50% of the revenue that comes from esports is going to come from non endemic brands. So there’s an interest and there’s also there’s room for them. I would say though, one of the things that, uh, we try to get brands to think about at least at her all like, because we really try to discourage brands from doing just passive sponsorship only, because that’s not really an engagement with the community that doesn’t really express that, you know,
Adam Pierno 30:40
Slap a logo on it.
Angela Natividad 30:41
Yeah, exactly. And it’s also like, our community is special in the sense that, um, it is among the rare communities that are in addition to being excited about their game, and their people that they’re following whatever. They’re also really sensitive to changes in the industry. And they’re also very following changes to the industry pretty closely. And I think that there’s a general understanding that, um, brands are necessary to the growth of the industry, but they’re, they’re also really critical of the way in which brands engage. So you have to be thoughtful. I think two things that I would say to brands is that, you know, when they come and they’re like, we want to talk to the esports audience, the first thing that we say is like, Well, you know, they’re people like, they’re just like, not
Adam 31:27
Exactly.
Angela Natividad 31:30
Like, you know, they’re not aliens, like they do other stuff, right? Because they go to work, like, Who are you talking to, really, that’s the first thing like try to, you know, sort of disengage this idea that esports is, you know, like, the matrix like. And the second thing is that, uh, because esports is growing so quickly, and because fans care so much, um, there’s actually a lot that brands can do to solve problems in the space and to facilitate sustainable and inclusive growth that also solves problems, like one of the like, really dumb things is a, let me use a concrete example first. So like, for wildest fans, what we did for Nestle, you know, like, what I said was, like, you know, we picked like, 100 of the most passionate French fans and took them to Hamburg. Right? I’m, the reason we did that was because we knew that, generally, in the LA scene in Europe, people think that French fans are super passionate and really positive, which is like nuts, when you know, the stereotypes about the French.
Adam Pierno 32:36
It doesn’t doesn’t exactly jive with my
Angela Natividad 32:38
Yeah.
Yeah, but um, they also that particular year, there were no international tournaments on French soil, which was a shame for them. And that was the problem that the brand was solving, it was like, okay, so tournaments don’t come to you, we can take you to them. That was a really nice thing to do. And since then, there have been times tons of tournaments for LA, specifically on French soil. So that was like, you know, that was a positive impact that was made. But like, even if you look at, you know, like, so many people that work in esports, just because they come from esports. Originally, they were fans originally, they don’t have tons of alternative job experience, often they don’t come from anywhere else. So in a lot of ways, the sector of esports in crazy ways is kind of remaking its own wheel. Like we’re one of the few major me, we might be one of the only major entertainment sectors that doesn’t have standard codes of conduct for tournaments, for example, that’s kind of like are we still discussing?
Adam Pierno 33:45
Still, it’s still being developed, because tournaments are changing and evolving and becoming what their final state might be, who knows if that’ll ever get settled in? Sure. But like, tournaments
Angela Natividad 33:55
are tournaments, you know, you don’t want people to be fucked up to each other. Like, we have like tons of precedent from everywhere else in every other sector, about what codes of conduct should look like, like we shouldn’t be beating what these things look like. So the so there’s things like this. And there’s also like, really silly things like often a big esports events, they’re hot, and they’re sweaty, and you have a lots of like hardware and machinery running. So it’s even hotter. And nobody thinks about like water, or air conditioning real life, like stupid problems.
Adam Pierno 34:32
You’re mocking it for somebody go, Hey, I have an idea. We’ll get more people here if it’s 70 degrees in here. 95.
Angela Natividad 34:42
Yeah, so I mean, like, if you’re a brands and you just like, you know, the sector enough to think about these little problems and solving these little problems, that’s already that’s a huge deal. No Carrier Air conditioners, if you’re listening, this is your spot. You guys should sponsor and pump in the
Adam Pierno 34:58
final question. I know you have to get back. Where’s my final question for you? Is it worth going? Is it our tournament’s live? Are they fun? Should I Is that something I should put on my list?
Angela Natividad 35:08
Um, depends on the tournament, obviously, like, depends on what you’re into. But yeah, I totally, I totally recommend it. Like what like I said, like, when I started, I didn’t know that much about the sector. And the vibe was just like, it’s contagious. You know, it’s like 10s of thousands of people, and they’re all just happy. And it’s beautiful. The entertainment, like the production quality is getting better and better. Like it’s getting really, really cool. Like, I think that there’s a lot to be said for that. Like, even just in terms of a from an anthropological perspective, like because esports is still trying to find its identity in terms of like lifestyle branding, like, what should communities look like from a lifestyle perspective? I think it’s definitely worth checking out and going you
Adam Pierno 36:01
put it on my list. All right. Well, Angela, thank you so much for joining me today. I appreciate you taking time out of all the work that you’ve got going on right now. Where can people find you?
Angela Natividad 36:17
That’s a really good question, because I’m starting to feel weird about the social networks. But I guess that’s where you get found. You know, I’m
I’m on Twitter. I’m like the lady obviously. Well, not obviously, because maybe people that
Adam Pierno 36:31
is not obvious.
Angela Natividad 36:32
Yeah. Yeah. Like the Sinatra song luck, be a lady. Ok. So the agency
Adam Pierno 36:46
you’re the first person to ever sing on the show. So that this goes down in history. Thank you. I’m not cutting that out. You cannot get me to.
Angela Natividad 36:56
You’re making me regret many life choices now.
What else the agency website is her Hurrah.gg, which stands for good game in the sector. And I’m still writing. So writing about advertising at Muse by Cleo, which is hosted by Clio. We talk a lot about creativity. Generally. I do cover a lot of the gaming and the esports stuff. But yeah, like that’s where I can be found. Excellent.
Adam Pierno 37:30
Excellent. Even your answer to where can I be found was thoughtful.
Angela Natividad 37:34
Thank you.
Adam Pierno 37:36
Thank you so much for
Unknown Speaker 37:53
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Unknown Speaker 38:21
Strategy inside everything produced and hosted by Adam Pierno. For information about the show, or to find out how to be a guest, you can go to Adam Pierno.com slash podcast. For information about Adams books, under thinking and specific order to find out how to invite Adam to be a speaker and an upcoming event. Please go to Adam Pierno.com slash speaker thanks for listening
Transcribed by https://otter.ai