How authenticity leads to success in esports

Authenticity shines through in business. Consumers connect with products that feel genuine and messages that ring true, and it is evident when a company’s culture is embedded in its industry.

A company can achieve authenticity through the people it hires, by collaborating with experts in its field, and by staying laser-focused on its mission.

These are lessons gleaned from SteelSeries’ success in gaming and esports.

Headquartered in Copenhagen, the company was founded by Jacob Wolff-Petersen in 2001 with a solution for a problem that confronted professional gamers at LAN events: a mousepad made from highly-durable, acid-treated glass for a consistent feel, which was an advancement from the less-than-ideal surfaces mouse-tracking gamers were using.

Since then, as esports has evolved to team-based games and gamer specialization, so too has SteelSeries with development of communication hardware (microphones and headphones) and accessories designed for specific games or genre types. The company reported revenue of $306.44M USD for the 2020 fiscal year.

Living and breathing esports, SteelSeries has seen more prize money won, more than $30M USD, with its hardware than has any other brand.

Gaming is in SteelSeries’ DNA, and that shapes the company’s approach to the industry. Here’s how:

Gamers for gamers

At least 90% of SteelSeries’ employees are gamers, capable of identifying and solving issues faced by their gaming brethren.

“Everything we've done for these 20 years has been about figuring out problems that are there, making sure we understand the problems correctly and coming up with technical solutions that can help alleviate those problems,” said Tino Soelberg, SteelSeries’ CTO and VP of Products. “The only way to figure out what those problems are is by being the users as well.

“A good 90% of everybody who works for SteelSeries would consider themselves enthusiast gamers. So, a lot of these problems is just what's going on here in the office. That's what we’re talking about over lunch.”

With gamers creating products for gamers, idea generation and vetting are expedited, “and by a true and honest group,” according to Soelberg.

Collaborating with pros

While most SteelSeries employees are gaming enthusiasts, only a handful are former pros. To understand the pain points of actual professionals, the company engages with the world’s top teams including FaZe Clan, Redbull OG, Spacestation Gaming, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Esports Team, and players such as Twistzz, Karrigan, Valde and more.

The recently released Prime series of lightweight, streamlined mice and the best-in-class Arctis Prime headset were developed with insight from more than 100 pro gamers.

SteelSeries has its pro gaming consultants to thank, in fact, for every product it has ever made, Soelberg emphasized. These collaborations happen throughout the entire production process – from conceptualization to development to testing.

“We've been entrenched with the professional side since the beginning, and we've been one of the pushing forces behind (innovation) ever since we started,” Soelberg said. “We’ve had pro teams entrenched here in the office, having this as their training facilities for months at a time. That's pretty powerful – being able to every single day work with the pros in their actual training setups.”

Staying focused on the mission

There are plenty of opportunities beyond creating hardware for gaming enthusiasts that SteelSeries chooses to forgo – namely, equipment for casual gamers or office workers.

The company’s mission is clear with no wavering from it.

“When we started out, it was all about esports,” Soelberg said. “Those were the guys that we designed product for ever since.”

Expanding into products for less sophisticated users would be a distraction.

“We are all about solving our users’ problems – and so far, we haven’t run out of problems to solve in the gaming hardware categories,” explained Soelberg. “It has been key to our success that we have had a razor-sharp focus on gaming – obsessing over every detail, and we haven’t let anything distract us from that.”

From its employees to collaborations with professionals to its hyper-focus on its intended consumer, SteelSeries is gaming.

“Gaming is so deep in our DNA that it is hard to imagine what it would be like without it,” Soelberg said. “Honestly, this is why we are one of only a handful of companies that do products that actual enthusiast gamers want to use.”