How To Maximize The ROI For Your esports Investment?

Interested in how to maximize your ROI for your esports investment?

This is an important question that needs to be answered. Let’s explore the answer in detail.

Are esports a good investment?

Some may wonder whether it makes sense to invest in the esports space. The answer is a resounding “Yes”!

The global eSports market is expected to continue on its upward trajectory. According to a study by Research and Markets, “The Global Esports market is expected to cross $3 billion by the end of 2025 due to the growing popularity of esports gaming industry worldwide and the growing support of game publishers for Esports.”

According to Business of Esports, the global esports betting industry will reach a revenue of 20.7 billion US dollars in 2027.

Leading game development companies like Electronic Arts, Activision Blizzard, Riot Games, etc. are available as esports stocks for investors in the video gaming market.

Such a growth projection of the esports industry should convince you that esports investment is indeed a good option!

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Where are the esports investment opportunities?

Where in the esports investing space can you invest? In other words, where are the investment opportunities in this space?

The good news is that you have several choices! Your options are the following:

• Create an appealing game and compete with the popular esports games for a market share;
• Build an esports management software and facilitate esports video game companies, esports players, teams, and audiences;
• Launch a new game as well as esports management software.

While your strategy may vary depending on your option, you need to consider the following:

• Create a vision for your esports business.
• Form a competent team covering the business as well as software development aspects.
• If you are launching a game, then determine how you will differentiate it using appropriate content.
• If you plan to build an esports management software, then decide how will it differ from the competition.
• Work on the legal aspects of your business.
• Find partners and sponsors.
• Build an operating model with an organizational structure supporting it.
• Plan your infrastructure, and remember to include IT infrastructure too.
• Strategize on how will you onboard esports teams on your platform.
• Plan to acquire talent as you grow your business.

How do you strategize to exploit various esports investment opportunities? Our guide “esports companies: How to grow your business” can help.

How can you gain the maximum RoI from your esports investment? I will now explain the steps you need to take

1. Think through your offering carefully before investing in esports

What are you offering to your customers? Think through this meticulously since it’s the key to maximizing your RoI in the video game industry. You need to first onboard a competent project manager (PM), an IT architect, and a team of business analysts.

Esports companies offer competitive gaming apps and websites to esports enthusiasts. Esports competitions are held between professional players and offer huge prize money. Esports league websites offer multiple features to esports fans like live streaming of esports tournaments, live leaderboards, social networking channels, etc.

Read more on esports apps in our article here.

Are you offering a new game to esports players? You should consider the following questions:

• Are you building a game that can compete against a popular video game, e.g. “League of Legends”, “duty league” or “Dota 2”?
• What differentiating features are you offering?
• Have you designed your content so that it stands out?
• Are you building a “user interface” (UI) that’s intuitive enough?

If you are offering esports management software to esports businesses, then you need to consider a different set of questions. These are as follows:

• Have you planned to offer a UI that’s helpful enough to all your stakeholders? I have earlier explained its importance in “How to create an esports app user interface?”.
• Does your proposed app make it easy for players and teams to participate and earn in the gaming market?
• Are you offering enough features for team managers to manage their teams effectively?
• Have you planned to include features that the tournament organizers need?
• Are you catering to the requirements of advertisers and sponsors in the esports sector?
• Did you plan to include analytics and esports statistics in your app?
• Are you including collaboration/messaging features so that stakeholders can communicate?
• Have you planned to include the streaming of live or recorded events?
• Did you think of the payment-related functions?
• Are you taking care of information security in your app?

You will most likely launch a “Minimum Viable Product” for your game and/or esports management software, won’t you? It helps to learn how the market is receiving your idea, and you can enhance the product based on market feedback.

You need to plan the features for the overall game/app, moreover, you need to prioritize the features for your MVP. I recommend that you read our guide “5 tips to create a sleek MVP” to learn more.

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2. Plan your software development project carefully before you invest in esports

You do see how important software development is for your esports investment, don’t you? If you want to maximize your RoI, then you need to plan your software development project meticulously.

Consider the following when you plan this project:

• What kind of apps are you developing for the game and/or esports management software? You should develop web and mobile apps, and I recommend that you develop native mobile apps. Native apps deliver the best “user experience” (UX) and performance.
• Plan the development tools you will use. This depends on your requirements, e.g., if you plan to include “Augmented Reality” (AR) in your game, then you could use Amazon Sumerian. It’s a robust AR engine.
• IT infrastructure management can take a lot of your time and effort, therefore, I recommend that you take advantage of cloud computing. Use appropriate cloud platforms so that you can focus on development instead of IT infrastructure management.
• You will process sensitive information including payment information in your esports management software, therefore, plan to secure it.
• You don’t want to reinvent the wheel for every feature, do you? For a few non-core features, consider using market-leading 3^rd party APIs. Remember that you need to limit external dependencies, therefore, make judicious use of such APIs. Build your APIs for your core features.
• Onboard a competent team and organize it for productivity.

Need help planning your esports software development project? Check out our guide “What is the best development approach to guarantee the success of your app?”.

3. Choose the right cloud platforms for the best return from your esports investment

Want to focus on development instead of IT infrastructure management? Choose the right cloud platforms! Your choice will depend on your project scope, however, you can check out the following:

• AWS Elastic Beanstalk: If you are developing web apps, then you will benefit from using a “Platform-as-a-Service” (PaaS) platform. PaaS platforms manage the cloud infrastructure, operating system, and runtime environment. You get more time for development, as I have explained in “10 top PaaS providers”. PaaS platforms make it easy to integrate APIs. AWS Elastic Beanstalk is a popular PaaS platform.
• AWS Amplify: AWS Amplify is a “Mobile-Backend-as-a-Service” (MBaaS) platform, and it can help you to focus on the front-end and business logic. It manages the cloud infrastructure and persistent storage, therefore, you don’t need to build and manage the mobile backend. MBaaS platforms make it easy to integrate APIs, as I have explained in “How to choose the best Mobile Backend as a Service (MBaaS)?”.

4. Invest in application security when investing in esports

How do you assure your stakeholders that your esports management app secures their personal data and payment transactions? What can you do to assure players that your new game conforms to the best security standards? The answer lies in building secure products and communicating that consistently.

Incorporate the following in your application security strategy:

• Mitigating key application security risks like injection or broken authentication;
• Using tools and techniques like multi-factor authentication, encryption, next-generation firewalls, antivirus solutions, and real-time threat intelligence;
• Including security and compliance testing in your CI/CD pipeline;
• Securing APIs;
• Using cloud computing smartly, which could include a hybrid cloud deployment.

Wondering how you can secure your apps? We at DevTeam.Space can help! Read “How to secure your Fintech app” to judge our capabilities.

5. Choose the right technology stack

Which technologies should you use in this project? Your exact requirements will influence your choice, however, I have the following general recommendations:

• js for web app development: It’s a popular open-source runtime environment, which helps to create scalable and performant web apps. Streaming is important for esports, and Node.js helps to implement this feature. I have explained its advantages in “10 great tools for Node.Js software development”.
• Swift for native iOS development: You would like to use a modern language for iOS development that helps to create a performant app, wouldn’t you? Swift is the right choice, moreover, it also helps you to avoid common coding errors. Read our guide “How to migrate your Objective-C project to Swift?” to understand its advantages better.
• Java for native Android development: Most native Android developers know Java, and it helps you to create performant and secure apps.
• PostgreSQL: When you develop APIs, you could need an RDBMS (Relational Database Management System). PostgreSQL is a great choice.
• MongoDB: You might need to use a document database when developing your APIs. MongoDB, a popular NoSQL database is an excellent choice.
• As I have already mentioned, you might use Amazon Sumerian if you want to build an AR-powered game. It helps you to create AR content, characters, scenario, etc., and you can edit and publish them.
• Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM): You could use this popular API solution from Google Firebase to implement the “push notifications” feature easily in your Android app. FCM features excellent documentation.
• Apple Push Notifications service (APNs): This is a very useful API solution to implement the “push notifications” feature in your proposed iOS app. You can consult its easy-to-use documentation.

6. Onboard competent developers to maximize the RoI on your esports investment

You absolutely need competent developers to make this project a success, don’t you? Plan to fill the following positions:

• UI designers;
• esports developers;
• Web developers;
• Native Android developers;
• Native iOS developers;
• Testers;
• DevOps engineers.

Depending on your local labor market, you could find it hard to onboard competent people. We at DevTeam.Space can help though! Read our guide “How to find a good software developer”.

Have you planned to implement a thorough code review process in this project? It’s key to your success since you can never detect all bugs by testing alone. Code review is especially important to uncover application security vulnerabilities.

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You could find it hard to onboard experienced code reviewers. Once again, we at DevTeam.Space can help, and you can judge our capabilities by reading “Why choosing DevTeam.Space to review your code can ensure your software product is a success”.

7. API development: The key to maximizing returns while investing in esports

You will offer several core features in an esports game and/or esports management software, won’t you? How would you reflect your core business capabilities in your software? Also, how do you offer a consistent framework for the front-end to access the backend?

The answers to these questions lie in developing RESTful APIs for your core features. You need to do the following:

• Use your cloud hosting account to host the APIs.
• Effectively manage API development, testing, and production environments.
• Use Postman to develop your APIs, and use Swagger to document them.
• Utilize databases like PostgreSQL and/or MongoDB.
• Secure APIs using techniques like authentication tokens, encryption, digital signature, quotas, throttling, and secure gateways.
• Design the API endpoint URLs meaningfully, and create effective rules for API requests and responses.

Need help with API development? Check out our guide “How to build RESTful API for your mobile app?”.

Final thoughts

This guide offers several tools, best practices, and guidelines to maximize the RoI for your esports investment. However, remember that this is a complex project in a highly competitive landscape.

Organizing your team and managing the project well will bring success. Using a data-driven real-time dashboard will be the key to managing this project successfully. Read “How a real-time dashboard can revolutionize your esports development process?” to judge our capabilities in this regard.

Work with a reputed software development company that has the experience of executing such esports projects from end to end. We, at DevTeam.Space, have just the right expertise you need! Contact us via this quick form and one of our technical managers will get back to you for further assistance.

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