S.F.-based e-sports firm Vulcun "may have have been caught in the fallout" of legal actions taken against daily fantasy sites like DraftKings and FanDuel, as the company on Monday "laid off 14 people" from its 55-member staff, or about 25%, according to Casey Newton of THE VERGE. Vulcun last spring raised $12M to "build a product for a small but growing aspect of online gaming called fantasy e-sports," allowing players to "bet on competitions for video games like League of Legends and Dota 2 in a manner similar to sites like DraftKings and FanDuel." But Vulcun co-Founder Ali Moiz in an email wrote that the company "plans to transition into new, unspecified product areas." He added, "We'll have more announcements about our new direction coming shortly in the next few weeks." Newton noted Vulcun, founded in '11, "has paid out" more than $10M to players in the past year, and about 16,000 people "had participated in one of its contests" in a recent 24-hour window. A source said that the company "had recently made a pair of acquisitions related to e-sports streaming" (THEVERGE.com, 1/11).
RACKING UP THE REVENUE: The CP's David Paddon cited analysts as saying that e-sports are "expected to generate" more than C$500M in global revenue this year. Deloitte Canada Dir of Research Duncan Stewart said, "That’s not counting all the people who go to these events and then go out and buy upgraded computers and software and gaming peripherals. That’s a knock-on effect." Deloitte’s annual tech trend forecast for '16, released yesterday, "estimates global eSports revenue this year will be" $500M, up 25% from '14. About one-quarter of that money "will be generated in North America" in an industry "largely dominated by South Korean professional players." Meanwhile, Cineplex on Monday announced that it "will offer $50,000 in prizes" after a series of "online, regional and national one-on-one matchups." Cineplex is "just one of a number of theatre chains in the U.K., the U.S. and Germany that are getting into eSports as they diversify their offerings to become less dependent on movie ticket sales" (CP, 1/13).
