Studio Hi-Rez has entered into an exclusive partnership with Facebook for its hero shooter Paladins. The new Paladins Premiere League will be exclusively broadcast on Facebook’s new streaming platform “Watch”. The Premiere League is an eSports league founded by Hi-Rez together with the “World Esports Association” (WESA). You can find out how this partnership between Hi-Rez and Facebook came about here.
Together with the eSports association WESA, Studio Hi-Rez has founded the Paladins Premiere League. This is an eSports league that supports its professional players in their careers and pays a minimum salary. All revenue generated by the Paladins Premier League will be shared with the teams. 10 of the most well-known WESA eSports teams compete in the Premiere League, including Fnatic, G2 Esports, and SK Gaming.
With the Paladins Premiere League, Hi-Rez is now entering into an exclusive partnership with Facebook.
Starting in Fall 2017, there will be a Paladins eSports show on Watch every week. Watch is Facebook’s new service for shows and series, focusing on exclusive content. The show will feature top-tier gameplay, live coverage, and community-based features. Furthermore, there will be news, insights, and analyses from the competitive Paladins scene.
The CEO was surprised by the size of the Paladins community on Facebook
At Gamescom 2017, I had the opportunity to talk to Todd Harris, the CEO of Paladins.
I asked Harris how the partnership with Facebook came about. The idea emerged from the existing Paladins community there.
Todd Harris: “Facebook hit me like a ton of bricks. I looked around a while ago to see where our Paladins community was active. I stumbled upon a Facebook group for Paladins that was not set up by Hi-Rez. The group was twice as large as our Reddit, which we focus heavily on. That surprised me. We had a Facebook group created by the community that we had not shown any love to. So many people came together globally, we had to address that.
We first looked at what they were doing in the group – mainly posting memes. But that wasn’t all. On Facebook, people arranged to play together. They were looking for other players who wanted to play a few rounds or form professional teams. We don’t have that on our Reddit.”
Facebook has a growing interest in the gaming community
Also in the conversation was Patrick Chapman. He is responsible for gaming and eSports partnerships at Facebook. Facebook is also showing a growing interest in the eSports and gaming community.
Chapman noted that it is astonishing how many communities exist on Facebook that deal with games. This is actually still uncharted territory for the social media platform. Nevertheless, Facebook has about 800 million users interested in gaming. There are games played on Facebook, gaming groups, and pages. The gaming community is there.
When Facebook and Hi-Rez realized that there was mutual interest in further developing the professional eSports scene on Facebook, the Paladins Global Series was initiated.
The Global Series is a community league where amateur players can compete against each other in a professional, digital environment. The top matches of the Global Series will be streamed *only* via Facebook Live and will receive professional broadcasting. So far, the Global Series is the largest community eSports tournament in the world.
An official Paladins Facebook group plays an important role for the players. This group was specifically set up by Hi-Rez for the Global Series to give players the opportunity to form teams, coordinate, and find other players.
This collaboration with the Global Series ultimately led to the exclusive partnership between Facebook and Hi-Rez for the Paladins Premiere League.
Who knows when Studio Hi-Rez will announce the first eSports league for its mobile shooter: Paladins Strike will be a hero shooter for mobile
