For the past few months I’ve spent some time chatting to friends in the South African Gaming and Esports industry and tossing ideas around. My biggest frustration, personally, was that in my line of work I have the incredible opportunity to come across amazing stories and smaller scenes doing rad stuff, but I’m not always able to share it all on the platforms available to me. It is a multitude of content that sprays across all the social platforms and a host of dedicated websites and news sources. As I find new scenes, people and content I add it to my own personal lists but find a lot of people “miss” stuff, because there is just so much stuff out there.
A central spot?
Every month a new organisation pops up claiming to be the new centre of all things gaming and esports in South Africa. They take the form of tournament organisers, content creators, websites, social profiles… I can go on here but you get my point. I’m really grateful that so many people with a similar passion to mine and my friends want to try build the scene but many a time these new entities want to “own” the space. They want to control the narrative, control the content, control the brand budgets, control the stories… again, I can go on. Reinventing the wheel just seems so damn tedious.
Welcome to xyz offering. We do gaming and esports content in South Africa/host tournaments/stream games. We are the only place you need to come for news. We know all the things. We are not a cog in the wheel, we are the wheel. Look we invented it, it goes round. We are saving South African esports.
PLEASE don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying every forum, platform or organisation is spinning this yarn. I’m just saying I’ve noticed an influx of entities popping up with this idea. I think it does our South African gaming and esports scene a disservice. We have so many amazing tournament organisers, content creators, communities and news portals that do incredible work. Many a time new faces pop up and also do incredible work. But how do we share that, over and above RTing on social media.
The conversation
My friend Chani and I have been chatting about this for some time. The nature of our work requires us to follow all the folks and try find all the details, but for someone with a 9 to 5 who loves gaming and isn’t working in the scene, there’s a good chance they miss a lot of the news. We wanted to find a way to share news and keep folks up to date – without forcing our own platforms as the means to get it, because we’re well aware that on our personal spaces we have our own interests and focuses that don’t always include ALL. THE. THINGS.
South African Gaming and Esports was born
(c) Headshot Hustle 2019No social media. No website to visit. We decided to set up a weekly newsletter that shares all the news and links out to the various creators, organisers and media outlets that create it. It’s not about Chani or me. It’s simply a means to share news. We curate it, you get it in your inbox. That’s it. And so South African Gaming and Esports arrived.
I don’t know if it will work. Maybe people will hate it. But we’ve set it up and are hoping to keep it going for as long as it is needed. It’s a work in progress and we’re still ironing out the bugs, but we figured we’d give it a go.
The first newsletter went out last week and is now on the site for you to get a feel for what we’re doing. The next one will go out on Thursday afternoon.
Click here to sign up and receive one.
