All Things Video

Ari Evans is the Founder & CEO of Maestro, an engagement and analytics platform for enterprise live streamers. Prior to launching Maestro, Ari worked as an analyst at Goldman Sachs, a product manager at Zynga, and a developer team lead for Ultra Music Festival. More recently, he served as Founder & CEO of LessThan3, which created virtual venues for live music events to be experienced online.

In this episode, Ari and I discuss the future of gaming, esports, and live streaming. Ari explains that he initially set out to build live streaming software for the music industry but ultimately pivoted to the gaming space because it offered a larger addressable market and more recurring revenue opportunities than one-off music festivals. He argues that game publishers capture the majority of value in esports today because they control the underlying IP. Meanwhile, platform aggregators Google and Facebook capture most of the value in the gaming space more broadly by controlling online advertising and taking a percentage of subscriptions and in-app purchases. As a result, he predicts more experimentation around pricing and monetization models, such as offering VIP streaming experiences and driving in-game transactions from within a live stream.

Host: James Creech

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ABOUT THE SHOW

All Things Video is a podcast dedicated to uncovering the past and charting the future of the online video ecosystem. Listen to interviews with founders, executives, and thought leaders from the world’s leading media companies and engage in thought-provoking debates about the issues shaping the next generation of entertainment. From the short-form content revolution to the fragmentation of video viewership in an always-on world, All Things Video reveals the key trends and insights from the world of digital media.

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ABOUT THE HOST

James Creech is an entrepreneur focused on technology, online video, and digital media. He is the Co-Founder & CEO of Paladin, the essential influencer marketing platform for media companies, agencies, and brands.