Competitive mobile gaming leaders, Skillz, launched a cross-platform multiplayer system earlier this month which will allow players from iOS and Android devices to compete against each other in over 150,000 of the company’s daily eSports competitions.
By merging the player pools of the world’s leading mobile operating systems, the Skillz Tournament Management System will look to empower present and future game developers to make the next generation of electronic sports.
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In a press release, Skillz explained as to what they attribute as the “first ever cross-platform multiplayer system for mobile games,” and Skillz’s latest gaming venue will be a way to remedy the lack of cross platform competition as well as unifying what has been a “fragmented mobile player base.”
Skillz founder and CEO Andrew Paradise sees the opportunity to propel the industry’s popularity across wide audiences by combining playability across Android and iOS devices.
“As eSports achieves mainstream adoption, multiplayer competitions should be accessible to all 2.1 billion mobile gamers worldwide,” Paradise said. “Just like the AFL – NFL merger in 1966, or the ABA – NBA merger in 1976, we are unifying the competitive ecosystems of the two most popular mobile eSports platforms. This is a seminal moment in the future of sports.”
Skillz has steadily grown, securing $28 million since its launch, with $15 million coming at the heels of 2015 in Series B funding. Since it began in 2012, the Boston and San Francisco-based company has provided over 40 million mobile eSport tournaments across 180 countries.
Mobile gaming is on the rise. According to Digi-Capital’s latest report on the gaming market, mobile games commanded well more than a fourth of all games revenue share in 2015. That trend looks to hold, as it’s five-year projection sees it earning $35 billion in 2016 to $48 billion in 2020.
The past year saw eSports surge in popularity. During the 2015 World Championship, an annual tournament centered on Riot Games hit MOBA League of Legends, had 36 million unique viewers tuned in to watch the final between SKT and the Koo Tigers in Berlin’s Mercedes-Benz Arena. That viewership doubles what the final game of the 2015 MLB World Series was able to attract.
However, the competitive games that attract those crowds demand hours of commitment and persistence to compete at high levels. Skillz aims to make a wide variety of eSports readily accessible to a larger audience.
“When you look at games, whether it’s Blizzard titles like Hearthstone or Riot with League of Legends, without having the tournament system in a given game, there isn’t really an opportunity for people to compete, or an opportunity for a game to become a widely-played eSport. Skillz is really changing that because we’re delivering this vision of eSports for everyone,” Paradise said to Polygon.
In the past four years, Skillz has worked with over a thousand developer partners to bring gaming competitions to millions of mobile devices. With more than seven million registered players in its system and over $16 million awarded across all eSports in 2015, Skillz has established mobile gaming as a major drive for the industry’s growth.
“In Skillz, we’re broadening it so everyone can compete,” Paradise said. “It’s definitely all about broadening eSports to something that’s in every game and everyone can participate.”