[Gstar2013] ‘LoL The Champions will be with 300 million people around the world with PandoraTV!’ Winter Season Media Day Q&A
PandoraTV and Ongamenet held a media day with the opening day of Champions Winter to come on the 15th.
PandoraTV’s CEO Chae Hyung-Woo said in greeting, “After starting as a VOD platform in 2004, we promised to our users that we would provide unique and different contents to them, and we feel that we can finally fulfill it now. Especially with 300 million people using our KMPlayer abroad, we expect to play a part in globalizing Korean Esports.”
Ongamenet COO Kang Hun-Joo said after, “we were able to come this far thanks to the fervent supports and fans of LoL Esports. We have partnered with PandoraTV to bring this tournament to a level not seen before.”
Below is the complete text of the Q&A.
Q: When did KMplayer garner 300 million users around the world, and are you planning on streaming other games in the future?
PandoraTV CEO Chae Hyung-Woo: Not many people know that the KMPlayer is distributed by PandoraTV. We focused more on marketing abroad rather than in Korea, and 550,000 people use KMPlayer daily. Korea, China, and Russia take up very similar percentage of the userbase, and including SEA, Europe, even South America, 35 countries use it in their own language.
PandoraTV only officially supports Korean and English, but many users used translated versions developed voluntarily by people in other countries. Thus, KMPlayer has come this far through the model of ‘Collective Intelligence,’ which has users actively participating in the improvement of the platform.
Recently, KMPlayer got upgraded to not just be a VOD player, but also a platform to distribute media from Korea and abroad. Especially in preparation for sponsoring LoL Champions Winter, we have prepared to distribute VODs and paid media content and even publish.
In the future, we will expand KMPlayer so that users will be able to download VODs, chat, and connect to social networks. I think it’s a good business model.
Q: What advantages will users have with PandoraTV coming in?
PandoraTV CEO: PandoraTV’s foundation as a company is multimedia. There has always been problems with picture quality when encoding HD/High-Quality streams and VODs, and we are aware that users were not happy when watching LoL The Champions because of such problems. Therefore, we plan to pour all our knowledge to improve the quality of the broadcasts for our users.
Q: After the sponsorship is over, what direction will your company take?
PandoraTV CEO: We are a global media company. We don’t want to remain just a sponsor, but be a long-term distributing partner with our player, KMPlayer. So right now, we are discussing different kinds of agreements and contracts.
Q: Are you confident that this tournament will be a hit?
Ongamenet COO Kang Hun-Joo: Of course, we have no doubts at all about that. As we said in our introduction, we expect this to be even bigger than before. There are many MOBAs and tournaments entering the market right now, but LoL the Champions is ahead of them with partners like Riot Games and PandoraTV. LoL is played over 45% of the time in PC Bangs. As a broadcaster handling such a hot game, we will do our best, and I know that the fans will support us in turn.
Q: Will Ongamenet play the leading role in the next World Championships, which is to be held in Korea?
OGN COO: First, we need to consult with Riot about it. Riot, of course, has its own broadcasting team. Even at the World Championships in LA, we played a part. We need to discuss in detail with Riot headquarters, but we expect to play a central part since it will be held in Korea.
Q: What kind of results are you expecting as PandoraTV?
PandoraTV: As a media company, we sponsored this tournament to increase user traffic. We expect the traffic to go up by 30-40% compared to now.
We are even looking at how much to charge our 300 million users for downloads. We also will track and calculate our ARPU (average revenue per user). To be honest, to be able to watch LoL the Champions through KMPlayer is a good marketing tool, and we are considering what global payment systems would be appropriate with KMPlayer.
Q: Any final words?
PandoraTV: Before, people used KMPlayer mainly as a video player, but now with the addition of a multimedia content platform to it, we can distribute Esports-related content to our 300 million users worldwide. We have big expectations, and you should too.
OGN: Even though PandoraTV will only sponsor this season, we will not stop working together afterwards. From now on, we will target a global market through PandoraTV, and work in tandem through LoL the Champions. Right now, TwitchTV is the big Esports content distributor worldwide, but we hope that with the base of 300 million users, we expect to expand and grow.
-김화경(Cyia@inven.co.kr)-
Translated by jpak