This is a guest contribution by Jacob Rozen, Writer for CoinGeek. This article first appeared on CoinGeek.com.
In a new interview with CoinGeek, Kronoverse CEO and founder Adam Kling expressed his views regarding Kronoverse plan to build a competitive battle league. Kling also sheds light on the reason behind their decision to become a member of the Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC) and work with Electronic Sports League (ESL).
The decision to go the esports route was the logical continuation of the competitive community they are building. Several companies are looking to tap into the competitive skill-based cash tournament market, but they are not connected to the game. Industry leaders in this sector, such as Riot and Activision Blizzard, can host huge tournaments. Still, most people will never have the chance to become a professional gamer and compete in those events. For Kling, this is a proof of concept to show that Kronoverse can integrate all these different parts of the industry into one infrastructure, one platform. The Bitcoin SV backend is what makes this all possible. Thus, the move was a natural evolution into the esports space.
Why Kronoverse joined forces with ESL
While talking about the origins of the deal with the ESL, Kling alluded to earlier talks he had with a colleague who had a connection with members of ESL. Their discussions centered on Kronoverse, its recent CryptoFights initiative, and, more importantly, on the issues of game integrity. The esports industry continues to face these problems, which resonated with ESL. During subsequent conversations with ESL discussing how to make the environment fairer either offline or online, the talks veered towards both wanting to join forces to market and build a community around the Kronoverse game CryptoFights, which shows the benefits of their platform.
Kling calls the game “something special,” which undoubtedly helped encourages ESL into wanting to partner. He pointed out that ESL is actively assisting in the beta-testing of CryptoFights. Kling expects their insight will prove valuable based on the feedback they offer as Kronoverse continues to develop the platform and build out features such as tournament organization. He predicts that the new games that adopt the Kronoverse platform will implement these tournament structures.
ESL will enjoy the rich database of player data Kronoverse collects, which will help them with game integrity. ESL is assisting in the modeling of player profiling tools. Kling states that companies like ESL at present still “does not have any way to profile or do highlights of a team or profile unless they have saved the video from something.” Kronoverse provides ESL a way to view the player’s lifecycle and maturation within the game. Kling indicates the goal is:
To provide a system where players would possess an identity showing everything that they have done with any game they have played. This provides them with an amazing database to go back on and say, okay, they were a really low skill level last year, so let’s watch them as they get better up to where they compete in the tournament.
How ESL partnership can spur CryptoFights’ growth
Kling plans to tap into ESL’s extensive partnership network and fan community to spur growth of the CryptoFights player base. They are already planning several community-building initiatives ranging from social media contests, potentially tournaments, and more. Similar to Valve’s Steam platform, players who play CryptoFights will have to register for a Kronoverse ID. On the topic of other sponsorship, Kling went only as far as to say that the League will have more sponsors, but details beyond that are still in discussion and are undisclosed.
Kling recognizes the challenging road ahead CryptoFights faces when competing for attention with AAA games against industry stalwarts League of Legends, CS: GO, and DOTA2. They are exploring adding multi-player aspects to the game. The initial goal of CryptoFights is to showcase Kronoverse’s revolutionary platform to game developers and publishers to get them beyond the status quo into a new way of thinking and demonstrate a better way for how games can operate. The data Kronoverse stores will create new opportunities for the industry and create new revenue models.
CryptoFights open beta coming in spring
The response from the community has so far been “really positive,” Kling told us. They noticed several improvements in their KPIs during the second beta test. The feedback received led them to add more features to the game. The team is planning an open beta this spring that has even more new game modes such as dice rolls. It will be available to Android users on the Google Play store.
Speaking on the Kronoverse ESIC membership, Kling emphasized the many challenges the industry faced, particularly on game integrity such as doping, ethics, and match-fixing, which he says was a real “concern” to solve for the founder of ESIC. His decision to join ESIC stems from recognizing Kronoverse is talking the lead in trying to solve these problems. ESIC’s initiatives, such as their code of ethics, anti-doping, and its many rules involved in competitive play, are naturally within their vision as well.
Bitcoin SV and esports integrity
Kling also mentions the rampant cheating taking place in esports, although it is difficult to prove. He says that as an industry, we must figure out ways to create more risk to deter cheating, similar to the penalties and repercussions they have in the Olympics. One of the primary aims of Kronoverse is to help solve these problems by linking all the player information together, even for betting operators.
When it comes to how Bitcoin fits into their vision of integrity in esports, Kling explains how the Bitcoin SV ledger provides that confidence that they need because no one can change the data. He says Bitcoin is a way to “centralize truths on what happened.” Bitcoin SV is secure, has identity attached, and all updates are immutable tracked. The Bitcoin SV blockchain has been critical in solving many technical issues, unlocking their vision, and giving them a path forward to grow.
