PRIOR to the M3 World Championship, Na’Vi Chief Operating Officer Aleksey Kucherov hinted that Team Secret may possibly join the MLBB scene.
However, in an interview with Yahoo Esports, Team Secret CEO John Yao explained that his organization has no interest in being involved in the Land of Dawn.
He had three reasons why.
“When we look at games, we first look at playerbase. It has to have an exciting playerbase, it has to be a growing game,” said Yao.
“It has to be large enough to sustain viewership because everybody who plays the game is not necessarily going to be a viewer in esports so you need to have a bigger base to sustain the viewership of esports.”
Besides the playerbase, he also takes note of the game’s overall features and entertainment value.
“Second, the game has to be fun that we think [it] can be a significant esports,” said the CEO. “There are some games where it’s extremely fun to play but really terrible to watch and then there are some games that are really terrible to play but really fun to watch and so we want to make sure that the esport is actually fun to watch and engaging.”
And lastly, the game’s overall reach should be considered as well.
“And the third thing is we look for global games, so for PUBG with Tencent backing and everything, the world championship has been in Dubai, it has been in Southeast Asia, like they move tournaments across different regions in the world. There are teams from all over that are participating,” said Yao.
Why Team Secret has no MLBB team
Considering all three factors above, Yao gave his thoughts on the MLBB esports scene.
“A lot of the Tencent games, a lot of the Riot Games were very high on (that) and that’s actually one of the reasons why we haven’t chosen MLBB yet,” he recounted.
Some of his previous posts in his personal social media pages might lead some to believe that he has some sort of beef with the popular mobile MOBA from Moonton, but Yao assured that this was never the case.
“A lot of people think that I have something against MLBB which is not true. I mean I made a statement before and I think it’s actually a fair statement, right? Which is if you are an organization that is focused on Southeast Asia and in particular in the Philippines and Indonesia, then you need to have an MLBB team. There’s just no way around it, it’s like the biggest esport in those two countries,” said the Team Secret CEO.
But since Team Secret was built as a global brand, which is why venturing into the scene isn’t yet in the company’s plans. This doesn’t mean that he’ll never pursue an MLBB project.
“But if you’re in one of the other countries or if you’re more a global brand then it may not make sense for you at this time given the MLBB demographics, but that doesn’t mean that we will never get into it, it just means that for right now it’s not a good fit for what we want to do.”
Though he acknowledges that the viewership of MLBB esports is massive, he mentioned that the fanbase isn’t as worldwide as other esports titles as the game’s popularity has been centered on the Philippines and Indonesia.
“The viewership is tremendous, it gets very strong the viewership, but its strong peak viewership, but very narrow base. It's focused in specific countries, like 80% of viewership comes from these two countries (Philippines and Indonesia). Viewership is great but we’re ok with lower peak viewership but wider base,” explained Yao.
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