Founder and CEO of rebranded gaming cafe chain SideQuest, Zhaorong Chen, gives a talk at the media launch event (photos, video and words by Jack ‘Jackelbat’ Freeman)
Gaming and esports cafe chain SideQuest, previously known as Wanyoo, rebranded a few weeks ago. To celebrate, SideQuest held a launch event on Wednesday June 1st in its flagship UK store at Charing Cross in Central London. Esports industry guests were in attendance, including organisation partners MNM Gaming and Tundra Esports.
Here is our report from the event, including video interviews and an image gallery, put together by Jackelbat.
SideQuest’s founder and CEO Zhaorong Chen gave a speech about how excited he was to present the new brand and plans for the future.
Around 10 to 15 new stores are planned in the UK, a number much larger than its existing six locations: Coventry, Charing Cross, Canary Wharf, Westfield Stratford, Leicester and Elephant & Castle. And a handful are planned to open in multiple countries across Europe.
It’s at a time where Covid hit businesses hard, especially at the retail/high street level.
Zhaorong Chen told Esports News UK:
“A lot of issues happened in the past, people were scared of covid, but from my [perspective] it is different. There’s been a big opportunity and we’ve had new investment coming in. We can rent a space with a really low price for the next ten years.”
Zhaorong Chen, SideQuest
“We had this idea four years ago and now have a huge amount of Western customers. We have over 3,500 new customers registering each month.
“Right now we [SideQuest and Wanyoo] are individual entities, but also we have relations with Wanyoo and we are like two families.
“Maybe in the future if we can do something together, which means Wanyoo can come back to be one of the shareholders. So that’s a topic […] I don’t think I will give up, so I will try my best.”
In relation to their competitors, Zhaorong had this to say: “We are more like friends. We learn things together, for each other and that’s why I don’t think in the UK market people feel we’re big competitors with each other. The big difference between us and others, is SideQuest is fully run for esports. When you walk in [to one of our stores] it’s 100% focused on the gamers’ stuff – and we are working for the new experience and the social communities.”
‘Play Your Way’ – SideQuest’s features and offering
In terms of the store itself, not too much has changed since our behind-the-scenes look at Wanyoo’s Charing Cross cafe in April 2019. There’s new equipment, logos and designs around the place, but it’s still the same store we’ve come to know at the end of the day. The biggest change so far has been their goal to build a community, in line with their slogan, ‘Play Your Way’.
The upper area is dedicated to the public and designed to fit as many gamers as possible. It’s fairly reminiscent of an intimate PC bang, where anyone can observe and the pressure is on.
Next to this is the special public FPS area, encased in glass, much like most of the rooms in the store. One could imagine themselves at a major esports final in this room – just you and your team in an isolated bubble, but on show for the world to see, or in this case whoever is passing by at the time.
Beneath the public areas in the lower floor are private rooms for teams to hone their skills without the scrutiny of the public.
However, playing your way comes at a price. SideQuest’s new membership scheme offers a variety of perks in addition to discounts and free game time. Or there’s pay per play options, ranging from £5-10 per hour with The Board Room costing a little more at £30 per hour.
There’s also your standard variety of boba tea, instant ramen and snacks which can be ordered at the front or from your computer where a member of staff will deliver it to your desk.
Tundra Esports interview – ‘we want to build and support the gaming community with SideQuest’
Amongst the illustrious guests present was Tundra Esports’ CEO, Evgeniy Roshchupkin. Tundra Esports has recently partnered with SideQuest as their premium partner as well as global esports venue partner, and will be hosting fun community events at SideQuest.
The news comes after Tundra signed a bunch of UK talent including their first streamers and new Fortnite players, growing their reach to almost 3m.
Tundra are one of several partners with SideQuest, including MNM Gaming (who recently held a meet and greet at the cafe), Lionscreed, Invictus Gaming, with SideQuest also sponsoring the Northern Europe Valorant circuit, Promod’s Polaris tournament. You can read more about SideQuest’s esports partners on its website here.
Sponsored teams will work with SideQuest to host online and LAN events, play with the pros, meet and greet sessions, bootcamps and coaching sessions.
In regards to SideQuest and their recent partnership, Tundra CEO Evgeniy Roshchupkin said: “I think the SideQuest rebranding looks really cool and I think it speaks to Western audiences. We have a great opportunity to get UK esports communities engaged.
“Our content creators and pro players will be coming to SideQuest, bootcamping here, streaming here and producing fun content on how pro players train.
“I think that our objectives are very similar with SideQuest to some extent, with us building gamer communities and doing stuff for those gamer communities.”
Evgeniy Roshchupkin, Tundra Esports
Tundra has also seen some success in the likes of Dota 2 and Fortnite, and said they’re looking at other titles to expand their esports operations.
“It’s been very exciting [with our Dota 2 team and I think that it is about putting the right process in place, getting the right people involved and working with them so they become one unit,” Evgeniy added. “The guys enjoy each other’s company and the team spirit has been an important element for us – it sets us apart. And having the right people on board contributed to that.
“And in terms of Fortnite, it’s been a blast. I think to me it was probably a more exciting story than our Dota journey. With Fortnite, it’s been just a blast you know, it’s been a few months since Tundra signed Veno and of course he was already quite the rising star in the Fortnite space. But we worked together and, you know, his achievement has been frankly a surprise. We knew he could do well and is a top player, and it’s been amazing.
“We saw our numbers on socials going through the roof, we saw people tuning into to watch his stream. With our crowd of creators, there is this feeling of community and of a team that works together, and everybody was so happy to share this victory. And Pinq is also doing well for us.
“Rocket League is also one of the games we’re looking at in a shortlist [of games we’re looking at entering].”
It’s early days and the future is exciting, if uncertain, for the new SideQuest. However, it’ll be down to the support and encouragement from themselves, their sponsors and from the community around their events which will make or break this new SideQuest.
See more in our video at the top of this article and in our SideQuest image gallery here
