Interviewer: Zach Bamford
Interviewee: James Merk, Senior Director of Brand Management for Newegg
ZB: Newegg has made a few recent partnership announcements – a marketing agreement with Allied eSports for the HyperEx arena in LA, and agreement with CLG to sponsor their Fortnite teams. Can you talk about what these partnerships mean to Newegg, and how you plan to develop your working relationship with eSports entities in the future?
JM: sure, so the biggest thing is that um, that we recognize that eSports is growing faster than people can recognize that newegg has been the longstanding pc-gaming place to buy, you know? If you’ve been in gaming for any length of time you associate PC gaming with new egg – but that kind of word of mouth growth can only go so fast, and you take a look at, you know, people coming to ccsgo – last year they had 4,000 a day, this year 6,000 a day, which is representative of eSports in general – the growth is high
So when we partner with clg and they have a newegg logo on, that helps make sure we’re tied up closely with eSports teams that are onbrand and doing the right things, and playing the right games, and showing up -or Hypersports arena, if you haven’t been there, t is the elite dedicated gaming sports arena in the land, so it makes sense for uss to have our retail presence there.
As for what the future holds, these are 2 year partnerships, but you’ll see us at things like csl, herelast yer here this year, plan to be back next year, and we’re always looking for the right places and games to add on to make sure that everybody who wants to game like a pro knows to shop at newegg.
ZB: eSports and gaming are experiencing a lot of growth and attention, but can still be a kind of inaccessible and sometimes hostile space to certain groups. What does accessibility mean to Newegg, and is opening the eSports/gaming space something important to the company?
JM: oh, no question, we just did a story – so, let me back up real quick, we have two kinds of personalities on our newegg studios channel – JC and Trish – and Trish is this feisty, wonderful gamer, and we’ve had her do a story for USA Today that was completely dedicated to women and gaming and underrepresented players, and it was just so cool – she was talking about how ‘you can’t belong to PC master race cause women’ – that’s breaking down, she can kick someones ass )in game). It used to be, when she started gaming, you’re a gamer I’m a gamer, we’re gamers – thats’ all we wanted to talk about
And then that became the province of affluent young white males, but now its growing back to – you’re a gamer I’m a gamer – and we really feel strongly that’s what it should be. That nonsense of ‘you’re a girl and you shouldn’t game’ that’s as stupid as it gets, you can quote me on that, and that’s our stance at newegg. We like having Trish as our vanguard/representative – empowered women are gamers.
ZB: Kind of following up on that question, a lot of colleges, public and private, are beginning to look into developing eSports leagues and teams – DePaul has a booth here – and in that vein, is that something Newegg is looking at at all?
JM: yeah, we definitely have been, its a difficult space to get into just because the colleges run those things, NCAA, whatever, they make the rules and keep the players, so this idea of getting too much sponsorship in too quickly, its just very challenging. You know but, we uh, we have our back to school, we try to reach the collegiate kids directly during the back to school time frame, we kicked off this cool back to school – you can choose a gaming persona, 4 personas, you can go back to it and check it out, but its – the whole idea is you’re going to take this journey, the heroes journey back to school, if you’re a deal hunter, a diy builder, we have a journey written out for with you cool characters we’ve designed and this whole background – we can’t get into the collegiate leagues, they’re nascent, controlled by college leagues, but we recognize that if you’re going back to school there’s a game you want to play, we’ll try and get you that way
ZB: Is there anything you’re particularly excited to show from the Newegg team here at IEM Chicago? Alternatively, are there any upcoming partnerships or developments you’re allowed to talk about?
JM: sure! The thing we’re really excited about right now, is the growth and the rise of people who want to become influencers. One of the things we see is that if you’re truly going to stream and game, that’s a two pc setup – that can be daunting. Down in our booth, we have this great solution – a gaming laptop and next to it an Intel knock – and a capture card, so you imagine that little intel nuc and that little el gato streaming deck with powerpoints and capture card, put that together with the laptop and that’s a very low profile situation – pretty soon you’re streaming 60fps, different camera angles, and that’s an inexpensive way to up your game as an influencer/streamer.
The thunderbolt has been a big help with ours downstairs, and thunderbolt team/solutions, it’s one of those solutions people are like – what is it ? and we’re like, buy it, its the connection of the future, so you might as well future proof now and get the thunderbolt hard drive, monitor, etc. just start getting into and save some heartache in the future.
And as far as partnerships – we like to partner with as many companies, we’re a retailer, we’re agnostic, we want intel system with nvidia graphics solution, sure! You want an AMD solution, great! We’re really about empowering gamers to enjoy great gameplay, and empowering people with great technology because it makes things easier, faster, more efficient, anything in your life will be better if you add technology to it, and newegg is the place to go and get that.
ZB: Last question – Liquid versus ENTZ, who do you want to win? Who do you think is going to win?
JM: man, so, Liquid yesterday was intense – MIBR took the first leg against ENTZ, then they came back and dominated in a way I haven’t seen in a while. So I’m really curious to see how ENTZ is able to come back / put up a fight against Liquid, and Liquid is a pretty intense group, they’re the champions for a reason. So I don’t really have a stake in the game, if you will, but I’m really just looking forward to a good battle between two good teams.
ZB: Thank you so much for your time, James
JM: Of course, appreciate it Zach
Related: Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) Chicago Event Impressions
I'm a huge nerd and PC gamer. I have my own rig and recording set up, and while I'm mostly a fan of RPG's like Fallout: New Vegas and the Witcher 3, I also play RTS's, shooters, narrative games, etc.
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