Sony opened its wallet again; this time to buy Repeat.gg, the popular esports platform. However, at the moment we do not know how much the Japanese giant paid. What is clear is that with this gesture they want PlayStation to continue to impose itself in an ever-growing sector. A presence that has further intensified since 2021 when they acquired the Evolution Championship Series (EVO), the largest fighting game tournament in the world.
If you are not very involved in the esports scene, you may not have links to Repeat.gg. The platform was created with the aim of facilitating the organization of video game tournaments, even with the possibility of establishing financial prizes. Many modern games, despite being multiplayer and competitive, don’t offer players the tools to create their own competitions, and this is where Repeat.gg’s offering comes in.
Since its inception, Repeat.gg has run over 100,000 tournaments with over 2.3 million participants, according to data compiled by GamesIndustry.biz. These are certainly not big numbers, and they are what caught the attention of PlayStation.
“At PlayStation, our vision for esports has always been to break down barriers so players can compete at all levels. Together with the talented team at Repeat.gg, we are excited to explore new ways for gamers to participate in competitive gaming and expand our esports offerings. This is just the beginning of our journey, and we look forward to sharing more news with our community in the future,” said Stephen Roberts, Vice President of Global Competitive Games at Sony Interactive Entertainment.
Aaron Fletcher, CEO of Repeat.gg, said: “Repeat.gg was designed to create new tournament formats that millions of players can participate in easily and at scale. We’re thrilled to be joining the PlayStation team and working together to expand the variety of tournament experiences players can enjoy, regardless of skill level.”
It’s also worth noting that Repeat.gg will continue to operate on multiple platforms after the acquisition. So we won’t be limited to PlayStation games.
PlayStation would like to allow us to organize our own tournaments.
The acquisition comes a year after Sony hinted it was interested in creating a tool for players to manage their own tournaments. The patent, approved on July 8, 2021, describes a system for creating tournaments for players and developers. The idea is that the community can plan and organize competitive events without relying on external platforms like Repeat.gg.
“The integration of online tournaments can allow individuals, developers and other providers to organize tournaments. An online tournament integration may include simple tools for organizing and running a tournament. Thus, a user can use these tools to organize a small tournament with friends who are random players, and an event organizer can use these tools to organize a large tournament with a large number of participants, complex rules, and even multiple titles. »
Thus, the acquisition of the PlayStation may tell us that Sony wants to save the time it takes to develop such a platform from scratch.