Esports franchise Complexity Gaming, which traces its roots back to its founding in 2003, has returned to the forefront with a renewed focus on web3 following the recent return of original founder and CEO Jason Lake to the helm.
The historic esports giant made headlines in 2017 for selling a majority stake in Lake to Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and real estate investor John Goff, a deal that marked one of the first major partnerships between traditional sports and competitive gaming, and in March 2024, Lake bought back the organization he founded more than 20 years ago from its publicly traded parent company, GameSquare Holdings.
Now, with Lake fully at the helm and in control of the company, Complexity is taking its first steps toward participating in the web3 ecosystem and exploring its first products.
“We’ve gotten out of the way and are going to actively pursue web3 opportunities in Complexity,” Lake recently told OpenSea.
Complexity's long tradition in esports
Lake gave up a successful career as a real estate attorney and running a five-branch law firm to explore the new field of e-sports, a term few people understood at the time, and in 2003 he used his own money to start Complexity Gaming, a professional gaming company.
Since then, the company has changed hands several times: initially acquired by DirecTV in 2006, it was bought back by Lake in 2009, then taken over by Goff and Jones, with ownership eventually being folded into Toronto, Canada-based gaming and media brand Gamesquare for $27 million, and finally, the gaming group recently merged with esports brand FaZe Clan.
Seeing the potential conflicts that would come from having these two esports giants under the same parent company, and sensing the potential of web3, Lake successfully made a $10 million offer to take Complexity private and allow it to operate independently again.
“We try to be at the forefront of gaming every step of the way, and we’ve been doing that since we started over twenty years ago,” Lake said. “We’ve evolved with gaming, starting before Twitch, and now we’re moving into new areas again with a focus on web3.”
Gaming teams, tournaments, missions, and live streaming - Complexity's planned web3 strategy
The world of web3 is familiar territory for Lake, who has been involved in blockchain projects since 2017 and has been a featured speaker at major industry conferences such as Axiecon in Barcelona and Consensus in Austin, Texas.
“It’s challenging to keep up with the fast pace of development in this space,” he admitted. “You can’t work on web3 part-time, and even working on web3 full-time is often not enough. If we are to implement our approach effectively, we need to focus on leveraging technologies and trends as much as possible.”
To advance Complexity’s web3 capabilities, Lake has hired content creator Spike and his web3 gaming organization Waypoint to help guide Complexity’s web3 strategy. The company’s focus will be on carefully transitioning Complexity’s massive web2 gaming fan base into an emerging web3 ecosystem and community.
“There’s a real lack of expertise when it comes to Web3 game developers who understand how to build vibrant gaming communities,” Lake explained. “Many of them are good at building token-oriented communities, but they don’t understand how to engage and entertain gamers, and we want to bridge that gap and create a connection between the two worlds.”
Complexity’s legacy strengths include unparalleled expertise in training top professional gamers, organizing high-stakes tournaments and events, and managing teams of elite players across dozens of gaming disciplines.
“We will explore forming a professional web3 game team, hosting competitions and live broadcasts for these games, and acting as consultants for web3 transformation,” Lake said. “We also envision weekly or monthly tasks and challenges for fans to earn rewards.”
Perhaps Complexity’s most ambitious plan is to develop a gamified fan engagement platform built on a yet-to-be-determined partner blockchain. “We’re already in talks with a few groups to help us build this platform, and we’re exploring which blockchain ecosystems are best suited to build this platform,” Lake said.
Complexity’s vision for the future of Web3 gaming
Complexity’s existing audience base is not to be underestimated, with over 11 million direct fans, and even larger if broadcast exposure is included, and the fan base is predominantly male (70% to 80%), highly educated, and computer literate.
Lake acknowledged that the team is still “working on expanding the female user base, but young male users still dominate, which seems to be largely consistent with the web3 population, but it may still change in the next few years and become more balanced.”
Now that the acquisition has been completed, Lake believes that as higher-quality web3 games enter the market and become mainstream, gamers will be willing to embrace the value proposition of blockchain technology and true digital ownership of in-game items.
Lake believes the shift to player-owned gaming economies will happen in the next five to 10 years, saying "there will be no going back, gamers will ask themselves why they spent so much money on Fortnite V-bucks and skins they never actually own, and the top games on the market will offer players more options."
To achieve this goal, Lake stressed that game developers in the web3 space need to start providing the right experience based on the existing mass gaming audience.
"The practice of NFT has caused disgust among many players because there is too much money-making, vote-pulling and other evil behaviors. It will take time to overcome this negative sentiment," Lake said.
His advice: “What Web3 game operators need to understand is that you can’t charge players if you don’t provide some value upfront, you have to earn their trust before you can earn their money.”
Lake recognizes that it’s still early days in the web3 gaming space, with only a handful of projects set to succeed amid what he calls immature and over-hyped projects.
In Lake's view, "There are some promising games out there, but the reality is that 98% of promising betas fail and never make it past the initial stage."
Despite this, Complexity is still optimistic about blockchain games as a new frontier. He likes to be at the forefront and "takes his hat off" to game studios willing to innovate. "The early adopters entering the web3 game field now are very similar to me. They are pioneers who are eager to be at the forefront." He said: "Being one step ahead will pay off."
In Lake’s view, the combination of elite competitive gaming and blockchain technology’s concept of decentralized digital ownership is a match made in heaven, and with Complexity’s focus on this area, esports fans will have an ambitious and experienced gaming veteran helping to lead the industry into a bright web3 future.
#Web3 #GameFi #NFT #OpenSea #Complexity
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