“Loco introduced the ‘Quest’ feature, which makes the user journey more interactive, ” says Ashwin Suresh, Founder, Loco, an Esports and game streaming platform – Loco, world’s leading independent esports and live-streaming platform, celebrated its three-year anniversary with a week-long Loco Level 3 campaign. During this campaign, the platform hosted a jam-packed week of exciting product releases and exhilarating content. After a successful celebration of its third Anniversary, Loco Founder Ashwin Suresh exclusively sat down with InsideSport.IN, mentioning its journey over the past three years and things to expect from Loco in the coming months and years.
Here are the excerpts from the Interview.
1.What inspired Loco’s transformation from a Trivia app to an Esports and Gaming Streaming platform, and what challenges did the company face during this journey?
The transformation of Loco from a Trivia app to an Esports and game streaming platform was led by the realization of the evolution in the Indian consumer’s entertainment preferences. We were cognizant of the effect of increasing smartphone penetration and the affordable data prices which enabled consumers to step into the world of highly immersive and socially-connected gaming. 2020 was a crucial year when live-streaming took a center stage virtually in everyone’s life. With lockdown underway, we all witnessed life unfolding on live streams – from marriages to birthdays, every moment was being streamed live.
We started our journey as a live streaming platform in 2020, nurturing the small but growing community of Indian gamers at the time. Our focus was to equip gamers with top-notch tools and services that could help them grow quickly. We facilitated community events and provided streamers with the necessary support to increase their popularity. Today, we are proud to be India’s premier game streaming platform, with the largest market share in the country.
In March 2022, we raised a $42mm Series A round, which was the largest ever series A fundraise for an Indian gaming company, and we were recently named on the global “Next Hottest Products” list by Amplitude, a leading global product analytics company, in its Product Report 2022. Loco was the only Indian gaming company included in the report. We believe that we are building a category-defining product that distinguishes itself with the seamless entertainment experience it delivers. Our aim is to serve the 400 million gamers who will roam the virtual worlds of India in the next few years.
2. Can you share some specific examples of significant milestones that Loco has achieved in the past three years, and how do these accomplishments align with the company’s goals and targets for the future?
Since its inception, Loco has achieved multiple milestones alongside its tremendous growth. In the last 3 years, Loco has seen a 7x increase in DAU, a 3x increase in active streamers, and a 47x growth in live watch hours. According to data from Sensortower, last year, Loco achieved a 65% market share (by DAU) in the game streaming sector, coupled with industry-leading engagement levels, with users spending upwards of 50 minutes a day watching live content on the platform.
2022 was an especially exciting year for Loco. As India’s leading esports and live streaming platform, we broadcasted the country’s biggest LAN tournaments: India’s first Battlegrounds Mobile India LAN – All Stars Invitational with Nodwin Gaming, Krafton’s first official Battlegrounds Mobile India LAN Tournament – Showdown 2022, and the first Valorant LAN in India open for the audience in partnership with Loco.
During this period, The Battleground India Masters Series (BGMS) 2022 recorded 258,000 concurrent live views for a single esports broadcast stream on Loco. It was not only the most watched esports tournament of all time in India but also the first esports tournament to be broadcasted on Indian television. The event saw higher viewership on Loco than even the TV broadcast.
2022 also saw a more diverse and inclusive side of gaming with a higher number of women gamers and streamers. The strong 13x growth of our top women gamers is evidence of just that. We have also seen a 7x growth in the amount of content produced by these creators. For instance, one of our top female streamers, KaashPlays, has clocked over 6.8 million views and has over 215K followers.
3. In your opinion, what sets Loco apart from other esports platforms, and how does the company approach innovation and unique user experiences?
Loco has best in class infrastructure when it comes to live streaming. From one-click streaming for beginner streamers, to a full-fledged studio and analytics product for advanced streamers, we offer streamers the features to broadcast themselves with ease. We have supported and invested in the gaming community like no other platform in the last year, helping pave the way for the development of the game streaming and esports value chain in India.
Streamers on our platform benefit from the audience and monetization opportunities we provide them with. Furthermore, for new streamers we provide an unmatched training experience, including personal attention through our creator relations team, and masterclasses from experienced streamers. We organize daily practice matches and monthly professional league tournaments, where players apply from across the country. The professional league tournaments adhere to global standards of infrastructure, professionalism and skill-level. We have organised and broadcasted some of the largest open tournaments in the country, providing a platform for young gamers to showcase their skills and be recognised.
Our goal is to deliver a unique experience for our viewers and an opportunity for creators to grow their online community. Below are some unique features and initiatives that we have brought forth on the platform to create an immersive experience for our users –
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- Quests, is a new feature recently rolled out that makes the user journey more interactive. ‘Quests’ will serve as an educational tool for new users and become a loyalty club for power users. The feature will be customised over time for every individual content creator so that they can run loyalty programs for their own audiences in the way they see fit. This will begin with better recognition in stream through badges for ‘Fan’, ‘Top Fan’, or ‘Super Fan’, and result in users getting custom meet and greet, personalised shout outs and customized merchandise
- #Shegotgame campaign, under this new initiative, in addition to its existing discovery tab, Loco also provides a high visibility spot in its trending feed to budding female streamers, encouraging them to showcase their content and find new viewership. On one Wednesday of each month starting March 2023, Loco has been dedicating a space on the platform just for up-and-coming female streamers.
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- Dream Karo, Stream Karo is Loco’s Streamer Incentive Program. It allows Loco partnered streams to monetise their content, basis key streaming metrics which are calculated over a month i.e. Unique Live Viewers (ULV), Live Watch Hours (LWH) and diamonds they receive in stream.
- Fan Leaderboard is a tool for users to engage and spend more time with their favourite stream. The leaderboard is linked to a Streamer Profile and users are able to maintain their standing for each individual streamer, basis their engagement with them – watching the live stream, interacting with other engagement features like chat, stickers, follow and share.
- Chat Moderation is to make the chat safe, positive & engaging for our users by helping streamers with the functionality to add moderators for their streams. Streamers find it very difficult to read and reply when some viewers bring the quality of chat down by using inappropriate phrases and dialogues. A chat moderator keeps the chat positive and clean, encouraging streamers to engage in conversation with his viewers.
- Enhancing forms of expression for viewers by giving them custom stickers which no other game streaming platform has
- Trending on Loco tab features top streamers on the homepage with highest live viewers. This dynamic tab on the app gives streamers a chance to increase live concurrent viewers
- Through the Discover feature on Loco, streamers who have just started their journey can gain visibility by being featured on the Discover tab
- Loco also helps beginner creators through various initiatives including its one-click mobile streaming studio, Loco Studio app which helps gamers from across the country stream through mobile without an expensive streaming setup, building one more bridge for gamers to step into the creator economy
- Rewarding Loco viewers for engaging with their favourite gamers with discount codes, in-game items that serve as reactivation tools for game publishers. Along with that, the platform also offers rewards including discounts on eCommerce sites and recharge codes
Furthermore, while most other platforms stress on a static VOD-first experience, Loco provides a live, vibrant, interactive experience to our users, who come to the platform for ‘in the moment’ entertainment and a genuine connection. Loco offers the biggest and most engaging publisher campaigns, tournaments, and esports entertainment to its users. For instance, the ability to rewind a live esports game is not offered by any other major platform in the industry. Additionally, Loco delivers the perfect diversity of content for viewers across geographies and age groups.
4. How does Loco ensure that its platform is welcoming and inclusive for all users, regardless of their background, gender, or ethnicity?
Loco’s mission statement is to ‘Democratize Gaming,’ with a strong focus on promoting inclusivity and diversity. In gaming, a person’s background, gender, ethnicity, and religion don’t matter; it’s the skill, hard work, and the grind that count. This central thought constantly inspires us to create new products, features, and experiences for our users. Our goal is to ensure that even a young person located in the remotest parts of the world with minimal resources can entertain global viewers or get entertained, with just their phone.
For instance, while gaming is considered to be male-dominated, we have witnessed a 10X (YoY) growth in the viewership of female streamers on Loco. Female gamers have been finding their groove in online gaming, consistently ranking amongst the most popular streamers and building their own audience. This has attracted more female viewership to the platform, encouraging more female creators and leading towards more inclusivity in the online gaming ecosystem. In our recent user research, we found that one of the most critical items for retaining female viewership and streamers was the quality of comments and safety on the platform. With this key consumer insight in mind, Loco rolled out its ML-driven moderation suite and also provided a layer of manual moderation tools to streamers, which enable female creators to maintain a safe stream environment and build a clean community around their content.
5. Could you provide more details about Loco’s new interactive feature ‘Quest’ and how it differs from other features on the platform?
In April 2023, on our 3-year anniversary, we introduced the ‘Quest’ feature, which makes the user journey more interactive. ‘Quests’ will serve as an educational tool for new users and become a loyalty club for power users. The feature will be customized over time for every individual content creator, so they can run loyalty programs for their audiences in the way they see fit. This can begin with better recognition in the stream with badges for ‘Fan’, ‘Top Fan’, or ‘Super Fan’, and result in users getting custom meet-and-greets, personalized shoutouts, and customized merchandise.
This feature will enable super fans to enhance their fandom and get rewarded by their favorite streamer. From the streamer’s perspective, it provides a new way of managing and growing their communities. This feature is not available on any other platform in the market and underlines Loco’s commitment to improving interactivity and turbocharging the fan experience.
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