Ollie swapped the abacus for Sonic on the SEGA Mega Drive at neighbor Frank's house at an early age and has never looked back. With thousands of hours in Dota 2 (and no ability to show for it), he still clings on to the hope that one day, he will replicate Natus Vincere at gamescom 14 years ago and lift the Aegis of Champions. Ollie has been at the intersection of video games, esports, and gambling for over ten years and has also worked in consultancy in the gambling industry. Ollie's work can be found on the likes of: BBC, Red Bull Gaming, Esports Insider, CasinoBeats, PC Gamer, Green Man Gaming as well as his own thought-leadership substack "Esprouts" looking at specific studies and stories where games meet gambling.
Apex Legends group stage action at the EWC. Image: Esports World Cup EA Head of Esports, Monica Dinsmore , spoke with Esports Insider (ESI) at the Esports World Cup about how EA organizes its esports operations across titles, the growing overlap between esports and real-world sports, EA’s mobile push, and what could be next for the Esports World Cup.
Over the first weekend of competition, EA had one of the broadest publisher footprints at the Esports World Cup. The Apex Legends Global Series Split 1 Playoffs saw a sold-out crowd watch a cracking spectacle as the game’s match-point format delivered an evening of drama and storylines aplenty.
In the very same expo hall, over 500 EA FC hopefuls descended on the French capital, hoping to earn their chance to compete with the world’s elite gamers for their share of a prize pool exceeding $1,000,000.
ESI: What does a genuinely cross-title EA esports team actually look like day to day?
Monica Dinsmore: We have experts who go really deep with each title that sit within functions that span across titles. For example, league operations, marketing, PR and comms, social, all of the different functions that make up an esports team have folks that can span multiple. It gives them the opportunity to share best practices and learn from each other.
Then we have people that will go really, really deep, people that have got to know the rules and the regulations by title inside and out, people that know the community of Apex or EA FC, for example, better than anyone else, so that they can create content that really speaks to the fans. So it’s kind of a mix of functional experts who go really deep within each of those titles.
“So it’s kind of a mix of functional experts who go really deep within each of those titles.”
ESI: Is an Apex fan different from a sports fan, or can you still treat them similarly, since an Apex fan can be an NFL fan too?
Monica Dinsmore: Yeah, it’s not very often, but it is really cool when it does happen. I think that fandom is very similar regardless of the game. It really reflects the passion that you have for the community. It really shows the passion that you have for the game. Sports (franchises) present a little bit differently in opportunities for fandom because you could be a fan of a real-life sport.
You could be a player of a real-life sport as well as a gamer, but similarly you would be a fan of a team or a club in Apex. Where fandom is similar, the approach is similar, but it’s really important that we listen to our communities and we give them what they want.
Most of the motivations for watching esports are very similar across games. They want to get better. They want to celebrate their comm…