Xsplit hires key esports, streaming personalities to shape its video efforts

More and more gamers are turning into content creators every day, and one company is expanding its efforts to keep those consumers satisfied.

SplitmediaLabs revealed to GamesBeat that it has hired fighting game pro Victor “Spooky” Fontanez as its Xsplit Broadcaster product manager. The company has also brought on game journalist Brandon “UGR” Stennis to oversee the Xsplit community. The idea behind these hires is to more precisely target the gamer audience for Xsplit by figuring out what they want and giving it to them. Xsplit Broadcaster and Gamecaster — which are the prosumer and basic tools, respectively — enable people to cut between different video feeds, content, audio, and more on the fly. This makes it so even a one-person outfit can add a layer of production values to their content.

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In 2015, gaming-related videos was a $3.8 billion business, with half a billion people regularly tuning in on YouTube, Twitch, and other sites. Xsplit has wedged itself into that market by offering a tool that enables people to quickly produce high-quality videos for livestreams or on-demand services. Now, with these two new team members, the company is redoubling its efforts.

We caught up with Xsplit and SplitmediaLabs chief marketing officer John Howe-Marshall about bringing on Spooky and UGR, and you can read the interview below:

GamesBeat: What is the goal of bringing on Spooky and UGR?

John Howe-Marshall: There are big things to come from XSplit this year, both in terms of the technology and solutions we offer to streamers and casters and in terms of the way we interface with them and service them.

These hires help us set the table for that. UGR knows the life of a streamer and has professional experience in community management. Spooky has worked for years both streaming from home and putting on high-quality live event streams, experience that we can do a lot with.

GamesBeat: How does having leaders like these help XSplit?

Howe-Marshall: The perspective that Spooky and UGR bring to XSplit is truly invaluable. By adding Spooky to our leadership team we’re bringing in someone with intimate knowledge of the streaming and live event production experience. That perspective is huge for us as we continue to improve the XSplit platform, and I think that users will see Spooky’s influence in the next rounds of features available to them.

UGR has similar experience as a streamer and when you couple that with his professional expertise in community management and communications, he’s exactly the type of addition to our community team that we need.

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GamesBeat: Is it important for Xsplit to bring in people from the gaming communities to act as leaders and to stay connected with what gamers want?

Howe-Marshall: Absolutely. But more than connecting with gamers it’s about connecting with streamers and broadcasters, knowing how they work, what their frustrations are with current offerings, and how we can make their lives as easy as possible. It’s less about reputation for us and more about experience and expertise.

GamesBeat: For Spooky, how will his experience help guide the product team?

Howe-Marshall: We’re always working on fixes and new features, both for our XSplit Broadcaster professional-grade offering and for XSplit Gamecaster, which makes streaming incredibly easy for the everyday gamer.

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Spooky has worked on both sides of that coin and in a variety of different live streaming setups and scenarios. His breadth of experience will be hugely important to have on our product team and will ensure an even deeper understanding of areas where streamers and broadcasters need help, need specific capabilities and features, and will generally help us to provide the best and most useful streaming technology possible.

GamesBeat: What are some early ideas that he is working on?

Howe-Marshall: Currently we have Spooky looking towards future version releases of XSplit Broadcaster, implementing application wide improvements in both user experience and feature set, in a bid to further widen the scope of what can be achieved with live streaming and recording software.

Spooky will be directly influencing product development, and providing critical feedback on currently proposed features so that we can continue to iterate and improve upon our rapid release schedule. We anticipate Spooky will have a big influence on shaping the future of SplitmediaLabs product roadmap, and couldn’t be more excited.

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GamesBeat: For UGR, how does he plan to connect with the community?

Howe-Marshall: I think that one of the keys to our community communications will continue to be showing all sorts of internet casters – from professional event producers to hobbyist streamers – exactly what XSplit can do, what they can do with it, and how easy it can be to create awesome looking streams and recordings. UGR will help us to reach more of our core target audience.

With his streaming experience and his community management professionalism, he’s perfectly suited to speak the language of the streamer and effectively communicate to them what makes XSplit a very powerful and useful tool for their work.

GamesBeat: Will we see Xsplit expanding its presence at events even more than it already has?

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Howe-Marshall: Yes, we will have more of a presence at esports events. As much time as Spooky will be spending leading our product team as it implements new features and changes, he’ll also be on the road lending his expertise to our live event staff. This means more XSplit involvement in the big tournaments and competitions that matter most to gamers and eSports fans.