Sabina Hemmi – Elo Entertainment – The commercial opportunity of data #ESINYC

Tracking game data is becoming increasingly popular amongst not only professional players and teams but your standard gamer too. Knowing win-rates for characters and maps has become key to character selection in games such as Overwatch and games such as Dota are inundated with exceptional data. Knowing the overall pick-rate for certain characters not only gives players valuable information but gives them ammunition to fire back at developers if a certain character, item or ability is clearly stronger than the rest. 

At the front of in-game data for several years has been Sabina Hemmi, CEO and Co-founder of ELO Entertainment. Currently, ELO has the likes of OverBuff, FortBuff and DotaBuff on its project list – sites used by casual and professional gamers on a daily basis.

Sabina will be speaking at ESI New York on April 23rd. Joining her on the ‘Data, date, data: The commercial opportunity‘ roundtable to discuss the opportunities surrounding the power of data – as well as the repeal of PASPA and what’s possible with esports betting – is Ian Smith, Commissioner of Esports Integrity Coalition.

You can secure your ticket here for ESI New York and joining some of the biggest brands and industry leaders in the world at the Tribeca Rooftop on April 23. Over 200+ delegates and 40+ speakers will be joining us for an action-packed day followed by an after-party at Jay-Z’s iconic 40-40 club.

Ahead of #ESINYC, we spoke to Hemmi about why she got involved with ESI New York, how data fits into the esports ecosystem, and publishers potentially stealing ideas.

Esports Insider: Why did you decide to speak at #ESINYC?

Sabina Hemmi: #ESINYC is a great one-day event and provides the opportunity for a lot of great minds to come together in a relatively small setting.

“With the growing number of technologies that make data and analytics more accessible, the possibilities are endless”

ESI: How do you see data fitting into the overall esports ecosystem?

SH: Data will drive innovation across esports in so many ways. From understanding the competitive strategies in a game to scouting the best players, to understanding the audience data will be everywhere. With the growing number of technologies that make data and analytics more accessible the possibilities are endless.

ESI: Through providing B2C data visualisation tools and tools for improvement such as Dotabuff, do you see publishers stealing your ideas as a risk?

SH: It’s absolutely a risk that the publisher will copy our data visualisations and tools. As a company, we prioritise the strengths of the game and community and think that developers will never fully serve their audience needs. There will always be things we can add to improve the community tools and game understanding.

 “It’s absolutely a risk that the publisher will copy our data visualisations and tools”

ESI: Do you think publishers overall need to wake up and start embracing the true data potential from esports? With APIs not available for the majority of games, do you think this is something that will change?

SH: I think developers with time will embrace data more openly. Often data is not the priority when building a game, and gets left behind. Technology is helping to solve this problem with more opportunities to gather data more easily.

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