We caught up with Multiplay Insomnia founder and CEO Craig “Wizzo” Fletcher at i57 last weekend to discuss event growth and what’s next from Multiplay.
While Insomnia events are always popular due to the mix of gaming personalities, expo attractions and a BYOC area, but some eSports events don’t across the UK don’t always pull in as many viewers as they could.
We asked UK LAN legend Wizzo – who has been running Insomnia shows for 22 years – whether people care enough about UK eSports and how things could improve in the future.
“Absolutely [companies can do more to market events],” he told eSports News UK.
“I guess it’s also a cultural thing in the UK as well. I remember when I was running World Cyber Games for eight years – trying to bring the Olympic team of the UK together to compete at wherever the final was. And you’d almost have to drag someone over who was good at a game.
“I remember there was a guy who was really good at Project Gotham Racing in particular. I said to him: ‘Enter the tournament, you’ve got a good chance of winning.’ And he did win – but it took a lot of convincing. He ended up flying to Korea to compete in the finals.
“Maybe that’s a cultural thing – we don’t like to be very good at something. We like to be reserved and step back, and I think that’s one of the things that’s got to change. It is changing – you’ll see that with an event like this. You’ve got tens of thousands of people competing.
“Don’t try and force it – it’ll happen anyway. 99% of eight to 15 year olds are engaging with video games. That’s one hell of a baby boomer style generation that’s going to come through and gaming is a way of life for them. That’s going to change everything.”
Wizzo added: “Minecraft has hooked an entire generation, but they’re not going to be playing that forever. They’re going to move on to League of Legends, Counter-Strike, StarCraft – whatever the next game is. And that’s what I’m very keen to foster here.
“I often get asked by people in the LAN hall: ‘What are all these kids doing here?’ And I say: ‘Who do you think is going to be sitting in your seat in five years’ time?’
“Let’s get them over, get them converted to eSports and enjoying the hobby. There’s your UK pro gamers of tomorrow. I think there’s an iceberg effect going on, you can only see 10% of the top gamers but there’s 90% underneath.
“The next few years are when that 90% is going to be revealed.”
Check out the full video interview below:
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
I would love to get into esports after winning the ukgameoff but not really sure how to