Page 22 - Aruba Today

A22
technologyFriday 11 December 2015
Vainglory:
A new touch-screen approach to e-sports
DERRIK J. LANG
AP Entertainment Writer
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) —
Kristian Segerstrale, chief
operating officer of Super
Evil Megacorp, the com-
pany behind the mobile
game “Vainglory,” be-
lieves freeing competitive
gaming from old-school
inputs — namely, all those
keyboards and controllers
— is key to expanding e-
sports, the genre of gam-
ing that attracts millions
of spectators online and
in person, but has yet to
achieve mainstream cul-
tural awareness.
“If you want to play soc-
cer, all you need is a ball,”
said Segerstrale during a
break at the company’s
first-ever North Ameri-
can tournament. “If you
want to play ‘Vainglory,’
all you need is a touch-
screen device. We’re at
the very early stages. We
only introduced a spec-
tator mode in the game
six months ago, but we
believe ‘Vainglory’ can
be the most accessible e-
sport.”
Unlike most e-sports titles, a smartphone or tablet,
which are played using
souped-up computers or
game consoles, the multi-
player online battle arena
game plays out exclusively
on smartphones and tab-
lets. Instead of looking at
a monitor and clicking a
mouse or controller, “Vain-
glory” players tap touch
screens to control char-
acters during matches,
which generally last about
20 minutes.
As with other MOBAs, such
as “League of Legends”
and “Dota 2,” it’s simple
to play, but difficult to
master. The game’s fiery
bouts between pairs of
three-person squads offer
a competitive experience
that cannot be found in
other mobile titles, such
as “Angry Birds” or “Kim
Kardashian: Hollywood.”
It also means everything
e-athletes require is in their
hands.
“The biggest difference is
that our competitors aren’t
hidden behind monitors,”
said Segerstrale. “You
can actually see them. It
makes for more of a hu-
man connection. They’re
Music-streaming giant Spotify mulls
a ‘paid only’ option for new releases

RYAN NAKASHIMA
This photo shows COO and Executive Director, Kristian AP Business Writer
Segerstrale in San Mateo, Calif. Segerstrale believes freeing LOS ANGELES (AP) — Music-streaming giant Spo-
competitive gaming from old-school inputs is key to tify is toying with the idea of allowing musicians to
expanding e-sports, the genre of gaming that attracts millions reserve new releases for paying subscribers, although
of spectators online and in person. it balked at doing so for Coldplay’s latest album, ac-
cording to a person familiar with the matter.
(Super Evil Megacorp via AP) Such a move might push some users of Spoti-
fy’s free version to upgrade to a $10-a-month subscrip-
playing on the same com- the captain of the second tion. Artists and record labels have pressured Spoti-
mercially available touch- highest-ranked team is a fy to pay more for the music it streams.
screen devices we have in female from China, and A “paid-only” window might also increase album
our pockets. If you go be- that several successful sales if it led more music fans to purchase music rath-
hind the scenes of most e- squads are comprised of er than wait months or years for it to become avail-
sports tournaments, every- unknown amateurs. able via cumbersome free options involving ads or
one is playing on $8,000 “We love the qualify- the use of computers instead of phones or tablets. It’s
computers.” ing tournament format,” also possible it could tempt more people to seek out
After launching last year, said Segerstrale. “We had pirated music.
“Vainglory” is attracting more than 650 teams en- The person familiar with the discussions wasn’t autho-
millions of players and ter thistournament in North rized to speak publicly about the matter and spoke
spectators. An invitational America and Europe. You on condition of anonymity. Spotify’s deliberations
held in Seoul, South Ko- can come from nowhere were reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.
rea, earlier this year was and win. This group that Spotify has argued its “freemium” model has been
watched by more than just crushed the highest- a highly effective tool for gaining new paying sub-
1 million viewers, and ranked team was formed scribers. The company is the global leader in music
Segerstrale said 1 mil- right before the tourna- streaming, with 20 million paying customers and 75
lion watched “Vainglory” ment. We had never heard million total active users.
bouts in November on of them.” But artists like Taylor Swift have said the free ser-
Twitch. When the game The contest was held Fri- vice devalues their work. Last year, after failing to
launched in China, it shot day to Sunday at the eS- win an exception to have her music only on Spoti-
to the top of the most- ports Arena, a new venue fy’s paid tier, she pulled all her music from the service,
downloaded apps for Ap- dedicated to competi- instead distributing it to paid-only streaming services
ple devices. tive gaming in downtown such as Apple Music. Similarly, Adele withheld her
Segerstrale noted that be- Santa Ana, California. The latest album “25” from all streaming services, which
cause the only gear need- 15,000-square-foot space may have helped it achieve 4.5 million album sales in
ed to play “Vainglory” is inside a brick-lined build- its first two weeks in release.
ing constructed in 1922 Spotify spokesman Jonathan Prince said in a state-
the player pool is often was recently transformed ment that “we explored a wide range of promotional
more diverse than oth- into a three-level hub for options for the new Coldplay album and ultimately
er e-sports, which are pre- hosting and streaming decided, together with management, that Coldplay
dominantly dominated by competitive games — no and its fans would best be served with the full album
young Asian men. He said matter the platform.q on both free and premium this Friday.”
The album was released for sale last week.
Spotify is “100 percent committed to our model be-
cause we believe that a free, ad-supported tier com-
bined with a more robust premium tier is the best way
to deliver music to fans,” Prince said.
While it publicly has taken the line that
its free and paid services must have the same music
to attract new users, in negotiations, Spotify has ex-
pressed a willingness to test out different ways of re-
leasing music, according to two people familiar with
such talks. However, with few new big releases com-
ing up this year, it’s unclear when Spotify might start
those tests. Spotify’s free service is unusually gener-
ous, allowing users who are willing to tolerate a few
ads to select an entire album for free playback on
computers, or on mobile devices so long as the tracks
are shuffled out of order. Other services like Internet
radio giant Pandora randomize playback, making it
impossible to listen to a single album all at once.
Spotify has already experimented in smaller ways with
reserving music for paying customers. Earlier this year,
the company didn’t initially make the 10-minute track
“The Globalist” from Muse’s June release “Drones”
freely available, one of the people said. That track is
currently on both Spotify’s free and paid tiers.
A stream from a paying subscriber earns artists and
labels roughly 10 times what they’d receive from a
non-paying user, one person said.q