In recent years, when it comes to e-sports clubs in North America, players may first think of FaZe Clan, which is rumored to be worth $1 billion in the world; or TSM, which has been talked about by the team members and many fanatical fans, who are ridiculed as "North American cult",
As for 100 Thieves? (hereinafter referred to as 100T) I'm really not familiar with it.
I think you have heard of this team more or less, but I don’t have much memory, so I have to say 100 As a North American e-sports giant, T's performance has been mediocre: the last time that attracted the attention of domestic players was the joining of the legendary BANG SKTh player a few years ago. The closer "deeds" would be to mention the background board of the S12 group stage by RNG, plus the super god Kasha...
The North American team's defeat in succession, so that netizens talked about the European and American teams of LOL that all joked about "European and American comparisons"..
This often makes us see many netizens asking: What are the clubs in the North American competition zone doing after these tragedies? Is it really because people are stupid and have more money?
Legend BANG before going to North America someone gave him a note like this (laughs)
Maybe, a new video released by 100T two days ago helped us solve the case - as a club with e-sports as the "main career", they are actually researching and developing a "3A" shooting masterpiece.
In fact, as early as May, 100 T issued an announcement in May, confirming that it was developing its own game. The game was called "Project X", but the game is obviously still in its early stages of development, and the R&D personnel of 100 T still haven't figured out what kind of game it needs to become.
A few days ago, the official game social platform finally released the first gameplay video of the game. This time, the 100T said that this is a game inspired by "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare", " Gears of War " and "Hao Series". The official also made a very sincere commitment: the game will listen to the opinions of professional players, anchors and the 100T community as much as possible.
In the video, there are also scenes of 100 T members shooting in the game prototype, standing on a gray, bright multi-story building in a seemingly arena first-person shooting map.
When a character is damaged, the number will be displayed on the character's head, which is a feature of cartoon shooting games and battle royale gameplay; another video shows that you can see the character glide and then get help because of sliding down, just like the sports system in "Apex".
For Project X designers, they also talked about what functions they imagined. From " Call of Duty " to the game's "destructive effect" borrowed from "Varolant" and Battle Royale games, there are many ways to learn and adopt.
It seems that 100T is full of confidence in this project and is very optimistic in its words. "Make it a very bright, colorful and dynamic animation game." Such a confident attitude makes such a seemingly unreliable thing seem to have some signs of success out of thin air.
In fact, "e-sports team developing games" sounds like a very risky and bold decision, but if this team is called 100T, it may not be a very outrageous thing.
is probably a bit different from the image of the 100T team in everyone's mind. From a business perspective, 100T is even an ever-winner who can constantly gain the favor of capital.
Obviously, team performance is not the only reason to attract investment. Under the difficult trend of club profitability, 100 T found a good way to increase revenue in the past few years, that is, to actively solicit "side jobs" in addition to e-sports.
Let's start with Matthew Haag, the founder of 100 T.
Readers who are familiar with the Call of Duty event may be more familiar with it. Hager was once a professional player in the Call of Duty project. His outstanding competitive level has enabled him to win many event honors and a huge number of fans. Soon, e-sports transformed him from an ordinary person to a star e-sports player and anchor with an annual income of at least $1 million.
Despite this, Hager was not overwhelmed by wealth. In 2014, 22-year-old Hager said in an interview that he was worried that viewers would be tired of their live broadcast content in the future, and were afraid that their competitive state would decline and that they would not win the championship again, etc. This mentality of being prepared for danger in times of peace prompted his transformation and naturally prompted the birth of 100T.
Hag’s former live broadcast room
In 2017,Hag successfully convinced the business giant Dan Gilber (that is, the owner of the NBA Cavaliers), and 100T received a $10 million seed round of financing . After
received the first financing, 100T began to develop according to Hager's idea. In 2019, 100T raised $35 million in Series B, with a valuation of $160 million at that time; in 2021, 100T received another $60 million in Series C financing, and its valuation soared to $460 million.
Until recently, in the 2022 World's Most Valuable Esports Club List released by Forbes not long ago, the valuation of 100T soared by 142% in the past two years, ranking second.
In Hager's vision, in addition to playing games, e-sports clubs should actively develop other businesses. Therefore, when the e-sports business was booming, 100T began to build its business around the three core pillars of competitive games, content and clothing.
Yes, in addition to e-sports events, "content" and even "clothing" are not related to e-sports. It was once the focus of the 100T business and was also the place where they attracted investment later.
100T signed a contract with a group of internet celebrity anchors and purchased a luxury house in Los Angeles for the club's anchors and content teams. Jackson Dal, one of the company's veterans, is responsible for three major contents: YouTube, twitch and podcast . As the influence gradually expands, in October 2018, Canadian rapper Drake acquired a stake in and became the company's most famous co-owner.
If the live broadcast part is still related to e-sports clubs, then 100T's development of the "garment" business can be said to be "deviant" among the e-sports clubs at that time.
In this regard, 100 T general manager Robinson revealed Hager's idea in an interview and also used some well-known brands to make an analogy: "The JORDAN brand was born in the basketball field, and Supreme was born in the skateboard field. Why is there no such brand in the e-sports field?"
. His deputy said that the club's goal is to build a truly trendy brand, not just to use clothing to support the e-sports business. "I think this is the difference between 100 T and other e-sports companies."
In order to achieve this goal, the club, from anchors, content creators to executives and founders, will wear 100T's clothing in daily work without exception; in addition, 100T also jointly sold a series of limited edition clothing with Gucci, of which the co-branded backpack was sold for US$2,500 (the domestic price is 19,000 yuan); and in the gaming field, 100T even cooperated with " Animal Crossing " and "Pokemon GO" to launch virtual clothing in-game.
's cooperation with big brands and big IPs proves the recognition of the 100T brand by all walks of life.
When the new clothing brand Foundations series was launched, the official homepage of 100T was very "de-esports" and looked like a clothing brand.
Now, 100T has once again set its sights on things other than e-sports, but for others' whimsical attempts, they may just be "returning back". However, Matt Hager also said that game development is the way the 100 T continues to move forward and makes significant progress, and he himself regards the game as the next challenge, from professional players to content creators, from entrepreneurs to game developers.
In recent years, the e-sports market has changed unpredictably, and more and more e-sports companies are thinking about allowing themselves to survive better. Apart from the championship trophy, are there any other areas in the esports field worth exploring?
I think 100T may be the forerunner.
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