Wanyoo UK, an esports studio and gaming café chain, has undergone a rebrand and will now be known as SideQuest.
The company said the change was made ‘to align further with the company’s mission to provide high-quality services to the gaming and esports community’ as it looks to become an ‘internationally recognised universal brand’.
The chain – which was founded in 1998 in China and is well-established across Asia – first announced plans to open Wanyoo esports cafes in the UK back in late 2018.
Esports News UK did a behind-the-scenes look at Wanyoo’s Charing Cross cafe in April 2019, and Wanyoo opened a Westfield Stratford premises last year. It now has six Sidequest Hubs – in Coventry, Charing Cross, Canary Wharf, Westfield Stratford, Leicester and Elephant & Castle.
“Our goal is to be able to provide a social experience for gamers all over the UK, opening new locations and growing brand new communities around their favourite games.”
Michael Mulholland, SideQuest
SideQuest has also unveiled a new logo, slogan (‘Play your way’), Sidequest Hub website and app.
The new website will allow members to check their accounts, make direct bookings online, view and register for events and tournaments, as well as shop for gaming peripherals. The domain will also feature SideQuest news and supported games.
When checking accounts, members will be able to see their Side coins (credits), available gaming time, vouchers, orders, bookings and other membership details. They can also top up their credits via SideQuest’s app.
As usual, visitors can pay to rent PCs and access multiple games, and buy food and drink in a SideQuest cafe.
A new membership programme has also been unveiled. Designed to reward members of the community, members will gain a variety of rewards including free gaming sessions, complimentary drinks, reduced game time prices, as well as discounts on events, talks and member nights.
The membership programme will feature five tiers, ranging from Free to Corporate. The free membership allows SideQuest guests to top up SideCoins (credits) and gain 30 minutes of free game time when you sign up.
The Corporate pass provides multiple benefits for SideQuest customers, including 10 free hours of gaming (in any area), priority access to battle and private rooms along with five free visits, as well as free access to SideQuest events. Corporate members will have the chance to attend events with SideQuest sponsored teams and SideQuest’s board of directors to learn about the business.
Michael Mulholland, SideQuest marketing manager, said: “This membership platform allows us to provide an experience of being part of a community and rewarding those members. We hope that with the benefits and discounts available in the different membership tiers that people will keep coming back to our hubs to experience what we have for them.”
On the rebrand, he added: “We felt it was important that our name was something that speaks to people that enjoy gaming and going from Wanyoo UK to SideQuest made sense to us. Our slogan, ‘Play your way’, is about making sure that anyone that enjoys gaming has a place.
“For us, rebranding is just the beginning of our quest and we want to take our members on that journey with us. Our goal is to be able to provide a social experience for gamers all over the UK, opening new locations and growing brand new communities around their favourite games.”
Tundra Esports partners with SideQuest
London-based esports organisation Tundra have signed SideQuest as their premium partner and official esports venue partner, as part of a global deal.
The partnership will offer SideQuest visibility across all Tundra channels and will provide Tundra with bootcamp venues and spaces to create community events.
The partnership will also offer the new brand visibility across Tundra’s social media channels and content, and promotion across the Dota 2 team’s jersey and in-game assets.
Tundra content creators LukeDutch and Jorhdys went up against SebFUT and Motor to race to the flagship SideQuest Charing Cross store. Streamed live, creators were met at the store by Tundra’s ambassador, British Grime artist P Money, who hosted a viewing party on Tundra’s Twitch channel.
Tomi Tikkala, head of business development for Tundra, said: “Wanyoo is a globally recognised gaming venue offering a fantastic network of players around the world. Our players, and therefore our fans, are not focused in one destination so having hubs that we can tap into for training or to connect with our community is incredibly important.”
Elsewhere, other orgs are getting involved. MNM Gaming are hosting a meet and greet with some of their players and management at the Westfield Stratford Sidequest store on June 2nd:
To celebrate the rebrand, SideQuest will be hosting a press event on Wednesday June 1st 2022 at the SideQuest Gamers Hub in London (WC2H 0NE). The event will feature a tour of the store and its facilities as well as a talk from SideQuest’s CEO Zhaorong Chen. For anybody interested in attending the event, they can register using the link above.
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.
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