Kinguin might not be right up there with the household names of the videogames industry. But the retail site is certainly making its mark, and an increasing proportion of the gaming population is beginning to take notice of it. Millions of gamers, to be precise: althoughKinguin.nethas only been around since 2013, over 6.5 million people have connected with Kinguin’s impressive roster of 4,000 sellers.
Connecting gamers
That’s whyKinguinlikes to refer to itself as the Connecting Point: it connects gamers around the globe – Kinguin operates in 130 countries – to the games and items they crave, and for the best prices. But all that connecting over the web could throw up security issues, which is why Kinguin has joined Ravelin, the world’s leading fraud prevention platform. There’s no doubt Kinguin is a safe space for a vast constituency of gamers – and one that is packed with the goodies they want. But there’s more than retail toKinguin: it’s launching a bid to become one of the games industry’s big beasts.
Backing esports
Nurturing the indie games scene
Another way in which Kinguin’s grassroots passion for gaming manifests itself can be seen in the company’s backing of indie games.Kinguin’s Indie Valleyarea is simply the place to go if you like your games small, innovative and experimental. It meshes beautifully with Kinguin’s unique status as a games marketplace, since it allows indie developers and publishers to sell their games directly to gamers – with Kinguin providing the PR and marketing skills that indies find a distraction from their core business of letting their creative juices run riot.
Renowned developers who have chosen to sell their unique wares via Kinguin include Fat Dog Games, Transhuman Design, Insel Games and Bitbox.Indie Valleyrecently saw a massive retro-fest, when it celebrated 30 years of TopWare Interactive by revisiting much of its back-catalogue, temporarily bringing back much-loved games like Jagged Alliance 2, Two Worlds and Earth 2160.
Building for the esports future
Fuelled by its passion for taking e-sports to the next level, Kinguin is building the Esports Performance Centre in Warsaw. With the likes of training and analysis spaces, rooms for rest and recreation, a bar, a photographic studio and a gym across its four floors, it will also boast its own psychologist, physiotherapist and professional chef.
Plus the Esports Performance Centre will double up as a venue for live esports events along with conferences and panels. It looks destined to become East-Central Europe’s most significant permanent hub for esports, and Kinguin envisages it injecting a new level of professionalism into the esports scene.
So if you previously thoughtKinguin.netwas just another retail games website, now you know it is that and an awful lot more besides. Esports pioneer and major player, champion of indie developers, Kinguin is harnessing its passion for games and thereby becoming a major player in the industry.
