Today’s launch of Virgin Gaming at E3 in Los Angeles means big things for a Canadian company set to lead Sir Richard Branson back into the world of video games.
The year-old World Gaming, based in Toronto, has partnered with the multifaceted Virgin corporation, and rebranded its website as VirginGaming.com.
The web-based service already has 30,000 members, allowing them to play video games in tournaments for cash prizes across various gaming platforms (such as the Sony Playstation and Microsoft’s XBox).
Rob Segal, formerly of Segal Communications where he was involved with the Canadian launches of Virgin Mobile and the Playstation, was named CEO of World Gaming last year. He helped connect its founders Billy Levy and Zack Zeldin with Virgin’s enterprise division.
“I had a good relationship with the folks in England, as well as [Virgin mobile president] Andrew Black,” said Segal. “I told Andrew about my role at World Gaming. He thought it was amazing and said I should tell Richard [Branson] about it. A couple of weeks later, I was in London.”
With the ink dry on a partnership contract and the swooping Virgin word mark on his website–which Segal said until this morning was an “unmarketed beta”–World Gaming is now the global provider for Virgin’s videogaming tournament systems.
Branson was to unveil the new venture this morning in Los Angeles at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3).
“We expect it to be one of the biggest stories of E3 this year,” Segal said. “The media coverage will be gigantic, and that’s a great way to launch this. We’re going to follow that up with a pretty aggressive campaign,” that will include online display, search and e-mail executions, as well as promotional events.
Virgin Gaming will likely compete with Major League Gaming, a league founded in 2002.
“Certainly there’s enough room for us,” Segal said. “I think Major League Gaming is more for hard-core gamers… and is really built on terrestrial events. You go to a convention centre, pay your money and enter a tournament. Our model takes that experience and brings it back online so you can compete from the comfort of home.”
Virgin was a gaming powerhouse in the 1980s with Virgin Interactive Entertainment and its involvement in rolling out the Sega Master System console across Europe. It has been looking to re-enter the now-mature market (estimated to be worth more than $40 billion worldwide) since 2004 when it launched the similarly named VirginGames.com, a casino-style online prize site.
