VIDEO - Guy Halford-Thompson: Esports Viewing to Become Mainstream

Guy Halford-Thompson, CEO of Pepper Esports, spoke with the Investing News Network about the multibillion dollar esports industry, touching on both misconceptions and opportunities.

“Unless you’re a gamer, its very easy to miss the size of the industry,” said Halford-Thompson at the Extraordinary Future Conference, held in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Halford-Thompson also said that typical esports tournaments still face a number of challenges.

“We think of these games as … very big, modern, fancy graphics, power computers, but then when it comes to these events — that more and more players are playing — (they) are actually run in a very manual and arcane way,” said Halford-Thompson. “Things like score tracking, registration and the event management is a very manual process.”

Halford-Thompson discussed millennials and members of generation Z, who are playing games like Fortnite and want to have their own esports tournament experience. As the industry scales, Pepper Esports is providing a platform for venues and events to easily host competitive gaming tournaments.

“Ultimately we want Pepper to become the go-to place for players to discover online and local events,” Halford-Thompson said.

Pepper Esports has three primary games — Fortnite, Apex Legends and Player Unknown Battlegrounds — on its platform, with plans to launch additional games in the near future, including Overwatch, League of Legends and Counterstrike.

Despite its smaller size, Halford-Thompson said the Canadian venture market is conducive to bringing startups public. Halford-Thompson previously brought BTL Group (TSXV:IBIT) (now Interbit) public in 2015 and took cryptocurrency firm Neptune Dash (TSXV:DASH) public last year.

“One of the great things that I like about Canada is there’s this really great ecosystem for taking a company public as an avenue to growing a startup,” Halford-Thompson. “We don’t typically think of startup companies in public markets. But Canada, I think, is really one of the best places in the world to take an early stage company public.”

He added that Pepper plans to go public in March of next year.

Watch the video above for more on what Halford-Thompson had to say, and stay tuned for further Extraordinary Future coverage. Our full playlist for the event can be found on YouTube.

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Securities Disclosure: I, Dorothy Neufeld, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.

Editorial Disclosure: The Investing News Network does not guarantee the accuracy or thoroughness of the information reported in the interviews it conducts. The opinions expressed in these interviews do not reflect the opinions of the Investing News Network and do not constitute investment advice. All readers are encouraged to perform their own due diligence.