Kozminski Techblog

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From time immemorial, transport has evolved and turned away from its primary function, we can take the example of the boat which today is democratised as a particular holiday experience with the famous cruises. However, the aeroplane has never been outside its primary function: travel. However, recently a concept of aeroplane hotel was born.

The Sky Cruise concept is a “plane” the size of a residential area, piloted by artificial intelligence, a biplane equipped with 20 electric motors powered by a nuclear reactor, and capable of carrying some 5,000 guests – brought on board by a Boeing 747 strapped to its back, like the space shuttle of yesteryear. Passengers will have access to restaurants, a shopping centre, a gym, cinema and theatre facilities – and of course a swimming pool.
Let’s dream a little of this nuclear-powered flying hotel that could carry 5,000 passengers without ever having to land…
The “nuclear” autonomy of the Sky Cruise would allow it to land almost never, according to its designer Hashem Alghaili, who modestly sees it as “the future of transport”. We won’t even think about the mundane things like maintenance or the number of people on board who are supposed to cater for the passengers’ desires – or the possibility of a crash of this flying Titanic. But who knows, the concept might attract the cruiser.

Which begs the question, will air travel be the new unusual holiday activity, will companies invest in it? Will air cruising be the new unusual holiday activity in 20 – 30 years time?

https://interestingengineering.com/nuclear-powered-flying-hotel

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Over the last few years, video games have experienced a constant growth in the market, as shown by the number of competitions and the E3 (Electronics Entertainment Expo), which bring together many video game enthusiasts every year.
This growth has intensified with the Covid-19 pandemic and the numerous containments. In 2020, the video game industry is estimated to have reached a turnover of nearly $180 billion, roughly equivalent to all the wealth created in New Zealand during the year.
But behind this market there are two main categories P2P (Pay to Play), which are most games, especially on consoles. The business model is based on a payment at purchase, then a content generally free where you just have to play to unlock it. The second category is F2P (Free to Play), which arrived on the market in the early 2010s, and are based on a free-to-play business model, so there is no cost of entry. However, there is a monetisation of in-game elements, i.e. optional purchases to enhance the player’s experience, which are presented in the form of micro-transactions rarely exceeding €20 but it is their numbers that allow the company to be profitable. The phenomenon started with mobile games such as Angry Bird and Clash of Clan, but has since developed into the best examples being Fortnite and League Legends, which are behemoths in this market.

Analysis of mobile F2P:

More and more players are using their mobile devices to access video games. In France, the mobile ecosystem has increased its revenue by 16% compared to 2019, this means that more and more users have access to free video games without having to invest in a console and can pay for the items that give them more satisfaction thanks to micro-transactions.
Titles such as Candy Crush, Clash of Clans or Angry Birds are some of the most popular free download games on the mobile and tablet market. Mobile F2P games reinforce their economic profitability through numerous advertisements. This is perfectly profitable because, given the free nature of the game, the number of users is naturally higher than P2P, and therefore more interesting for the companies generating the ads.
We can see that currently on the mobile market, there is a majority of F2P, for a limited number of P2P, should we worry for the future of P2P?

Analysis of F2P on PC/Console

To analyse F2P, we will take the example of the game Fortnite which is the caricature of a successful F2P. Indeed, this new game has had the effect of a bomb on the video game market, with, since November 2017, about 45 million players and a turnover reaching 285 million USD during the month of April. The game is free to play, although the purchase of special items or “season passes” is possible once the game is downloaded. The business model and popularity of the game Fortnite is surprisingly exponential. In less than 6 months, Fortnite’s fan base has surpassed that of many pay-to-play games, reinvigorating discussions about the viability of traditional P2P games. However, we observe that this game has not been detrimental to P2P, on the contrary, Blake Jorgensen, EA’s vice president of finance, mentions in an interview that in the first quarter of 2018, revenues from P2P games have even increased. He explains that “the arrival of Fortnite on the different platforms has even helped our business. The game brings new players who will and can be interested in other games, other companies, like ours. So we have benefited from this game. EA even saw its share price recently (April 2018) close up 16% compared to the beginning of 2018

In conclusion we can say that the F2P strategy is very viable. In the global games industry it will become dominant and crush P2P, where in console/PC games a balance will be formed

https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/best-free-strategy-games-for-pc/

https://hbr.org/1997/09/strategy-and-the-new-economics-of-information

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In our world where the Internet is growing more and more, that the audiences of television are migrating to streaming platforms and especially Twitch, our new concepts, projects appear. This is the case of the Z-Event, if you do not know what the Z-Event is this article is for you.

The Z-Event is a charity event, on the streaming platform Twitch. Created by Adrien Nougaret called “Zerator”, a French Twitch streamer. The concept is to invite many important French Internet personalities, such as youtubers, influencers, French streamers, to stream during a whole weekend with all the benefits going to an association. For example, during the 2021 edition, the funds collected were donated to the association “Fight against Hunger”. This event reached records last year with more than 10 million euros collected. In France, it is a national event for Internet users.

Before addressing the monetary aspect, I will first show you some figures representing this event on the 2021 edition.

We can see that these are audience records for the French-speaking market which is relatively limited. In total during this 2021 edition, 52 streamers were present. But how did they manage to collect these 10 million euros over a weekend?

The economic model is based on the donations of the “Viewers”, that is to say that each of the streamers establishes a “sub-goal”, that is to say a special event when they reach a certain amount of money fixed by each streamer which can be reached either by subscriptions to the channel or pure donations of money. The events can be diverse and varied, ranging from a boxing match to an atypical haircut. The goal is to call for donations. And it works because with 10 million euros collected in one weekend, the objective is more than reached.

If we look at the evolution of the Z-Event since its creation in 2016, we can clearly see a progression in the money collected.

This raises new questions, could it be the youth telethon? Will the Z-Event be international? And how much money will be raised? Will influencers/Streamers from other countries create an event like this?

There are many questions we don’t have answers to yet, but only time will tell.

Sources :

https://zevent.fr

https://escharts.com/tournaments/marathon/z-event-2021https://www.lavoixdunord.fr/1092550/article/2021-11-01/zevent-2021-plus-de-10-millions-d-euros-recoltes-au-profit-d-action-contre-la

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E-sports is a growing industry these days, if you don’t know what E-sports is, I refer you to my article explaining this sector: What is E-Sport ?

Many big brands sponsor E-sports events, and big teams. We also saw actors of the sport to introduce themselves in the E-sport like the PSG or the Schalke 04. If so many players are entering this sector, it’s not insignificant, it’s an opportunity to conquer a new and growing market, but is it profitable for all that? This is what we are going to see by analysing the economic model of the E-sports teams.

On a purely economic level, the teams are paid with the results of the team, the “cash-prices” of each competition, i.e. the rewards attributed to the performance of a team in the competition. Obviously, the bigger the competition, the bigger the reward. To give you an idea, the winning team of the League of Legends World Championships in 2021 received almost 500 000 USD. Other sources of revenue are, as in sports, the competition ticketing which is often shared between the organizer and the teams, sponsorship which represents the biggest revenue for the teams, and the audience mainly on the streaming platform Twitch which concludes a partnership with the organizer who pays a part of the shares to the teams. Not forgetting the advertising which generates a large part of the revenue for the teams. This graph below shows the different sources of revenue.

In terms of expenses, depending on the game, teams must pay a price to perform certain events. For example, to enter the European League of Legends you must pay around 10 million Euros. In addition to this, the entire team staff and players must be paid. On top of that you must cover the costs of the structure (gaming house) and the premises. Finally, teams must pay huge amounts of money to acquire players. Like on CS GO where a player was bought for 600,000 euros.

We can therefore conclude that yes, E-sports is viable, but it requires a large amount of start-up capital to build the team and enter certain competitions, which is why when you want to get into E-sports you need to have a long-term vision.

Le business de l’eSport pourrait représenter 1,5 milliard de dollars en 2020

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E-sports is a market that is growing steadily today, this market is expected to grow by 25% every year until 2025, a crazy explosion. The name may not be familiar to everyone, so to remind you, E-sport defines video game competitions at a professional level, but what does E-sport encompass and what are its sources of revenue ?  

E-sport arrived in the 1980s with the appearance of the first video games but then it became more democratic in the 2000s with the first offline competitions organised, and it is from the 2010s onwards that this industry has exploded in the eyes of the general public.

E-sport encompasses all video game competitions, but it is divided by each video game, we can mention the biggest franchises like League of Legends, Dota or Counter-Strike. These are the historical games of E-sport, but as said before it is a growing market, so like any profitable market there is a threat of new entrants, this is the case with Fortnite which arrived in Esport in 2019 and has established itself as a stable franchise in the world of E-sport. The graph below shows the most influential video games in the world of E-sports in 2019.

This industry has the same basis as sport at a professional level with players in teams and contracts, performance bonuses, fixed salaries… Each game as well as each sport has different ways of operating but to simplify things, most games follow the model of football with divisions and world championships at the end of the year, of course there are exceptions like Counter-Strike.

This market is extremely profitable economically and represents a major industry in the entertainment market, as the following key figures show :

– 950 million dollars in revenue per year (forecast 1.6 billion in 2023)

– Nearly 500 million Internet users are interested in eSports worldwide

– 445%: the growth of this business over the last 5 years

– According to the Syndicat des éditeurs de logiciels de loisirs (SELL), 48% of players are women

– The League of Legends World Championship is the most watched event on Twitch and Youtube with 105 million hours viewed

– Jesse Vainikka, the highest paid e-sport player in the world, earned $3.16 million in 2019

– In France, more than 7.8 million players over 15 years old watch and participate in E-sport competitions

We can see that it is a market that is attracting more and more people, especially a younger and younger audience, with a parity globally respected. For sure this industry will be a major actor of the entertainment of the new generation, we can thus ask ourselves the question, will E-sport in the next years be as popular as sport or even more popular ?

SOURCES:

Classement des jeux e-sport 2019 – Fortnite, League of Legends, Counter-Strike…

https://www.win-sport-school.com/nice/actualite/le-esport-une-industrie-en-pleine-croissance