First, get the players, and then bring the rest up."Įsports are built on grassroots enthusiasm, which is at the very core of Critical Force's growth strategy. You spend lots of money and you don't keep the players. "We have to take it step-by-step, and not try to push the game to the top level straight away, because we will definitely fail if we do that.
We need lots of competitive players and competitive teams, and from there you can go to the next level small money prizes, semi-pro tournaments, and you make that strong. "That's the way you begin," Piirainen added. Plunging straight into tournaments with cash prizes may attract players, he said, but they're unlikely to stay with the game for long, Two years may seem like a long time between work starting on a game and its debut as an esport, but Piirainen maintained that the kind of community upon which an esport can be built requires both time and constant attention to nurture. The first official Critical Ops tournament took place in 2016, with around 60 teams competing for little more than bragging rights. "We have to take it step-by-step, and not try to push the game to the top level straight away"
We started to think about making the game fully competitive, without the pay-to-win that other games had." We quickly realised that was the way to go also, because our game was a perfect fit for mobile esports. "But at the end of 2014 we read about Vainglory.
Speaking to at the Slush conference in Helsinki, Piirainen explained that the initial focus was simply to make a better FPS than the company's first game, Critical Strike - which was "pretty successful" in terms of downloads, if not monetisation.Īt that point, in early 2014, the current esports boom was still in its early stages, and the idea of being part of it with a mobile game hadn't occurred to Piirainen of his team. Three years later, the Finnish studio has turned Critical Ops into arguably the most credible esports FPS on mobile.Īccording to Veli-Pekka Piirainen, who founded Critical Force in 2012, the key to its growth has been patience. When Critical Force started developing its second game, esports wasn't part of the conversation.
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