Com2Us on the Esports Scene for Summoners War

You might know Com2Us as the developer behind Summoners War, a game with an esports scene that's constantly growing, including the upcoming World Championship, and recently we talked with David Mohr, general manager at Gamevil Com2Us Europe, about various aspects of the scene and what's happening with the game right now.

GR: Where is Summoners War esports at right now. Are you happy with it?

We've been hosting major Summoners War tournaments for three years now, starting shortly after we introduced the real-time arena feature to the game. Over these three years we've learned a lot about hosting online and offline tournaments. We've built a strong connection to our top players and we also managed to massively increase the global viewership for our events.

We've seen how people are taking the Summoners War World Arena Championship (SWC) more seriously, this year we had some very dramatic moments during our qualifiers, both on stage and behind the scenes, which is good because it shows that what we're doing actually matters to our players. Overall, I think we're in a good place, but there is definitely much that we want to improve upon for next year and beyond.

GR: What's in store for the 2019 finals?

We'll have a fantastic venue in the heart of Paris filled with 1,500 enthusiastic Summoners War players and fans, and a lot of exciting matches. The opening sequence will be spectacular, we'll have awesome cosplay, the top SW players and influencers from all around the world, live-streams in seven languages and a truckload of goodies for the audience. I'm very happy to be hosting this year since we've had to travel to Los Angeles and Seoul in the past, and I'm excited that we have a British and French player representing Europe at the finals.

GR: Is there a growing interest in mobile esports in general?

People like to compete and play with and against each other, they like to watch the top players and learn from their strategies or just be entertained by their personalities. I think this is an obvious trend across all gaming platforms and genres. We're happy that this gives us a chance to create interesting content together with our top players for the wider Summoners War community.

GR: The game released in 2014, but how has the esports scene grown? What's changed?

Summoners War started out as a relatively traditional turn-based RPG. We introduced live PvP battles in early 2017 through the Real Time Arena feature. RTA took off very quickly and we immediately saw a lot of interest, especially from high level players. Now it's turned into a showcase of how our game can be played at the highest level.

Through hosting the first Summoners War tournaments we've grown much closer to our player-base around the world. We've seen in person how great it is to meet other players, discuss strategies, compare monster decks and watch the game being played by top strategists. This has reinforced our belief in connecting with the community, which has led to us organising all kinds of community events through a Tour of Europe and Tour of the Americas, as well as attending major events like San Diego Comic Con, New York Comic Con and Gamescom in Cologne, Germany. RTA has enabled us to reach out to a wide variety of our players, not just those focused on competing at the highest level.

GR: What are your long term plans for the esports space?

There's a lot of things we are looking at and we hope to become more concrete after the finals on October 26. We're looking into special game modes to make RTA accessible to more players, we well as how to involve guilds. We're thinking about how to create more interesting content on a regular basis, how to have a regular league-structure in different territories, and we definitely want to surprise and delight our players for 2020 and beyond.

GR: How popular is the esports scene in the West?

Summoners War is very unique in that the player-base is very evenly split across the United States, Europe and Asia. Our viewership and player involvement is strong across all regions.

GR: What is audience engagement like?

In Europe, for the tournaments we've done so far, the audience has always been great, very passionate, knowledgeable about the game and very committed. We've had people travel from all over Europe and even Asia to attend regional cups in Berlin and Paris. It's so great to see that and to read the player's feedback on social media.

GR: Do you develop updates with esports in mind?

We're constantly looking at how we can improve the experience for all our players and that includes both PvP and PvE aspects of the game.