The final week of the esports scene’s richest tournament ever is kicking off today, and one of the biggest news apps covering this space is expanding to do even more with it.
Above: The new map feature to help you track what is happening in a match.
TheScore Esports, an iOS and Android app that has editors covering competitive gaming, released an update today that will enable it to provide even more info to diehard fans of the multiplayer online arena battler Dota 2. GamesBeat spoke with TheScore president and chief operating officer Benjie Levy over email, and he explained that people will most notice the “increased speed and depth of coverage.” The top teams in the world have congregated in Seattle to compete over a prize pool worth more than $18 million (which is the largest purse in esports history), and that should attract millions of viewers online.
By beefing up its editorial, TheScore Esports is trying to further separate itself from its competition. On mobile, it is primarily fending off smaller news aggregators like Esports News. And on the Web, it is trying to outdo editorial outfits like Red Bull Esports.
But TheScore isn’t only working on improving its esports editorial. The company has also included a number of new capabilities to its app.
“We’ve also added more detail to match pages including minimaps and items,” said Levy. “This update takes fans closer to the action from their mobile device than ever before.”
The map is key for people who cannot watch a livestream while working or taking care of other responsibilities. But just like with TheScore’s app for traditional sports, it can provide fans with a quick way of understanding what is happening through a graphical interpretation of the match.
“This approach transfers perfectly to the world of esports — particularly for MOBA games like Dota 2,” said Levy. “We’ve built our app to meet the user behavior of fans on mobile devices — the need to get up to speed as quickly as possible, making the most of those ‘found moments’ in our lives. We want to give fans as much contextual information about a game as quickly and easily as possible, and the minimap is another feature that delivers on this.”
And improved features like these is another way that TheScore is keeping esports fans using its gaming app. The company claims it has excellent retention numbers, which means that once a someone starts using the app, they keep coming back to it. They turn it into part of their routine. Although TheScore declined to share any numbers since its esports app is still in its first quarter.
“We can say that we’re very happy with the way things are going both in terms of user growth and engagement,” said Levy. “As an example, during The International group stages last week, the average user in our Dota 2 section checked the app multiple times per day and consumed over 50 pages of content. That’s testament to the experience we’ve built — an app you open every day and can’t put down.”