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Razer CEO and co-founder Min-Liang Tan stated that COVID-19 has changed the sports and entertainment space forever. Last week, he spoke with the South China Morning Post to discuss how the industry will look after the pandemic.
Razer on the rise of live streaming
Tan strongly believes that the shut down of traditional sports leagues will accelerate the mainstream adoption of esports. We’ve seen Nascar and the NBA experiment with esports, garnering tons of views on Twitch.
Esports and video game traffic has surged in recent weeks, and Tan believes this impact will remain long after the pandemic is over. “When traditional sports go back to normal, they are still going to have the traditional sports element, but they are going to have esports at the same time,” he remarked.
Razer sees this shift first hand as demand for their live streaming products has increased from both consumers and businesses. The company has also hinted that they are working to bring more traditional athletes into the esports space.
They are also very bullish on more businesses and athletes embracing online streaming. It looks like Razer is positioning themselves to be the go-to brand for these new entrants into the streaming space.
While Razer is carefully planning for an uncertain future, they know they have work to do today. “We’ve actually converted some of our manufacturing facilities to make surgical marks … [At any rate] whether we procure them or whether we manufacture them, we want to be able to get these masks to the people who need them,” said Tan. The company has committed to donating up to 1 million masks to global health authorities.
They join companies like Nintendo, Nvidia, Riot Games, and many more as the gaming community comes together in this fight. Nintendo has donated 9500 N95 masks to Washington state, and Riot Games has donated USD$1.5 million for COVID-19 relief in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, Nvidia’s [email protected] program gets gamers to donate their processing power to scientists working on COVID-19 research.
