Guilded: Creating Centralized Hubs For Esports Information
Guilded wants to create centralized hubs for esports information and team management. (Photo courtesy of Guilded)
Traditional sports fans can find all the information on their teams that they want. ESPN, Yahoo, Fox Sports and a host of other outlets provide everything from stats, to schedules, to analysis and opinion. For an esports fan, that information is often scattered around many sources and there is no guarantee any info is reputable.
Guilded has two main goals: for smaller organizations, it is a resource to advertise a team and find qualified players. For large organizations — including name brands like Team Liquid, Cloud 9 and LGD Gaming — it serves as a centralized hub where fans can stay informed. A Guilded page contains much of the same info that ESPN.com does for traditional sports.
Esports stats are out there, but they are not yet to the level of advanced statistics and metrics that have been developed and mastered in traditional sports. They are still in the “HR, Wins, Hits” phase instead of the “WHIP, WAR, and OBP” era of stats now omnipresent in baseball — at least as far as the general public knows.
There is no doubt that analysts and coaches for esports teams are breaking down advanced stats with their players. The difference is that those stats aren’t always public knowledge and armchair analysts — the ones who abound in traditional sports — are fairly rare in esports. Having a place like Guilded where prospective journalists can get lost in the stats may be the first step to creating an esports version of Zach Lowe.
A representation of Guilded’s stat page for fictitious meme team Steamed Hams.
In addition to being a place for information about large organizations, Guilded is used as a recruitment tool for smaller organizations. It works like Match.com, connecting teams with players. Players can sort by region, game choice and skill level to find a team that suits them. Once a team is using Guilded, it also doubles as a management tool, a feature founder Eli Brown originally set out to fill.
“A year ago, we launched Guilded to help players organize their gaming teams,” wrote Brown on Medium. “At the time, teams would use a combination of Google Calendar, Google Docs, custom bulletin boards, and clunky website builders, but none of them worked very well. They were even worse when used together. The growth of esports seemed inevitable, but somehow the fundamental entity around which esports revolves — the team — had no home.”
SportTechie Takeaway:
Between fighting games, sports games, shooters, MOBAs and more there are over thirty esports with active competitive scenes, many with multiple leagues/divisions. Navigating the wild west and separating organizations on the rise from flashes in the pan has been a constant challenge in esports. Teams often are created and disbanded within months as players get picked up by other organizations or money runs dry. Guilded’s efforts are a step in the right direction.
