Photo by: Honeyfish.org

Fnatic's Chief Gaming Officer and eSports legend Patrik "cArn" Sättermon talks to ESFI about where his team failed and succeeded in 2012 and what are they aiming at currently.

2012 was a year of rapid expansion for Fnatic as the team embarked on a costly enterprise that involved a gaming house in Korea and signing a multitude of StarCraft 2 players. As of this January, however, the Korean gaming house is no more and Sättermon explains how did this come to be.

“The plan was quite simple: to set up the coolest training facility for our growing lineup of StarCraft 2 players in order to prepare them for local and international events. I do think we [we were able to run] one of the nicest and most comfortable gaming houses, even [though] we could have used maid service a couple more times per week.

When it comes to a long-term plan, it was as simple as maintaining the house and developing talent from it, as well as utilizing the house for content and in-house events along with our partners. Eventually, we came to the conclusion that we can no longer justify the ROI, and add to that the fact that our main partner pulled out from Korea at the same time and was no longer interested in Korean exposure.”

According to cArn, Fnatic's eyes are now set on the European scene and this is where their focus will lie without biting more that they can chew.

“I think we went a little bit too crazy on the amount of StarCraft players we roomed last year, so I think focusing on less players will improve the players’ experience and confidence representing Fnatic.

By focusing on more local players (Europeans), we hope to be able to reach out more in the community and create interesting content with utilizing our athletes. This was somewhat of a failure in 2012, and the reasons for this were lack of proper local management and the enormous language barrier between our staff and Korean players.”

To close out the interview, Sättermon and ESFI dabble into a topic much discussed withing the eSports community: the one about the bigger importance of showmanship compared to actual results. In Sättermon's words, eSports must be pushed towards a direction where achievements push personality aside, like regular sports are.

“success, the community tend to refer to players that are popular, i.e. players with distinct personalities that reach out wide in the community via media such as live streaming – not necessarily as accomplished players.

It’s my hope that we should all strive [for e-sports] to become more as a sport, where athletes are recognized for their achievements as sportsmen are, and fame comes from success on the field and not from dropping one-liners on live streams.”

Links
ESFI World - Full Interview