Daily fantasy sports giants DraftKings and FanDuel recently diversified their selections by entering the realm of eSports, further staking the point that the burgeoning industry can no longer be looked at as just gaming. Vulcun, holders of the largest prize pools in fantasy eSports, is one of the many companies that will have to find creative ways to stay afloat in the face of major competition. Ed Chang, VP of Business Development at Vulcun, believes that the company is positioned for continued relevancy.
“I think it would be foolish to say we aren’t somewhat worried or that we aren’t cognizant of it. We’ve known about those companies coming in for months now and we’ve prepared as adequately for that as we can. We know what we’re good at and we know what their strong points are. We’re not going to pick a battle with them at something they’re better at. Our priority is making eSports 100 times more fun and we think users will come as long as we continue to focus on that goal.”
Vulcun, although relatively new to daily fantasy, has been involved with eSports for years and even owned a League of Legends team that served as the US representative at the 2013 World Championship. The company went through several different iterations before finally settling on its current version and raising a Series A round earlier this year.
The website supports popular games such as League of Legends, Dota 2, Counter-Strike, Hearthstone, and Call of Duty, with all matches available for live streaming. What differentiates Vulcun from its competitors is the lengths that the company goes to in order to stay true to its mission of making eSports 100 times more fun for everyone.
“Its great that there are a lot of people who spend a lot of money on the website, but we want to engage all of our fans. We have this secondary economy that allows users even more volume in terms of getting involved in the action. There are people that might not want to pay money or bet on something, and we want to give them avenues of entertainment in ways to enjoy the game just like everybody else on Vulcun.”
The secondary economy, called Vulcun Gold, can be used to purchase various in-game skins or stickers and is another example of engagement that keeps Vulcun’s brand loyalty high.
“We’re focused on building more product that caters to the casual fan. We want people who are in town to come see us, we want to include all of our fans and engage them and we want them to be more excited about eSports as a whole.”
Vulcun’s approach to their consumer base is the type of mindset that will be instrumental for longevity in this time of rapid growth in the eSports industry. With DraftKings and FanDuel now entering the fold, these deep community roots are going to be more important than ever for the company.
