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Riad Chikhani created his first website at just 12 years old and by 14, he’d founded his first company. Now, as the chief executive of media network GAMURS group, he’s a major player in Australia’s growing esports industry.
Established by Chikhani in 2014, GAMURS group says it reaches more than 100 million gamers per month and owns online gaming and esports publishers Dot Esports and Gamepur.
GAMURS group founder Riad Chikhani started his own company at 14.
Gaming and esports are far from underground markets. Accenture estimates the gaming industry generates $US300 billion ($412 billion) in revenue a year. Last year, gaming revenue eclipsed that of world’s television and music industries combined and is still growing rapidly. Esports alone is a billion dollar industry.
And while parts of traditional media have been hurt by the coronavirus pandemic, interest in gaming has soared with millions of young people locked at home.
Chikhani had been waiting for this moment for a very long time, and while he’s sad it took such a devastating event for mainstream society to take note of the gaming world, he welcomes the paradigm shift COVID-19 initiated.
“Gaming is so much more than game play, it taps into narrative storytelling, community engagement and subculture integration in a way other entertainment can’t”, he tells The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
Ariana Grande recently held five a virtual “Rift Tour” tour with popular game Fortnite. The number of people streaming Grande’s songs increased dramatically after the concert concluded with streams of her track Be Alright growing by more than 100 per cent according to MRC data.
The concert featured other artists as well, with bands such as Australia’s own Wolfmother reaping a streaming gain of 663 per cent after their song Victorious was played. Last year, Marshmello and Travis Scott collaborated with Fortnite for their own concerts where more than 10 million players and 12 million concurrent players tuned in respectively.
Last month, GAMURS says it had just under 40 million readers across its publications, an enviable audience for any media outlet. The group’s social media pages have about 25 million followers. Part of the GAMURS business model is building and acquiring web based publishers or social media platforms, and investing resources so that they grow accordingly.