Mercy - The Man Behind the Makers

Quake and Rainbow Six, and someone said to me  “you met your maker” and then somehow it became Meet Your Makers at a later stage, but initially the name I had for the team was D2E (Discursed To Eternity), but that was in 1999/2000 and luckily it was changed to something more meaningful in the end. The concept has from the beginning bee to make a business out of it and believing in Esports and that it someday will be big. The concept was to keep on going based on organic growth as long as possible and then look at investors at some point. Personally, my dream was to create what we have today, so I can without bragging say that we reached most of the milestones, but we have not crossed the finishing line yet.

Would you describe yourself as a hands-on manager? Are you in contact with all your players often and do you attend some events that they are playing in?

I don’t consider myself a hands-on manager anymore, though I am still an important reachable contact for some of the players that have been with us for a long time. I do attend some events, mainly WC3L, NGL and WCG, where I can blend in my time there for other purposes like meetings with MYM sponsors and or G7 meetings. One of the reasons I don’t spend time with the players anymore is that I don’t have the time and as much I would like to I can’t fit it in my working schedule, so its down to casual talks here and there. But they all have my phone number and they know they can call me anytime for anything.

How much say do you have in the additions of new teams, do you leave it to the managers for the specific game, or is it a group decision from the entire board?

I am more or less the one that decides which new teams we take on and in what direction game-wise we are going. But I am not the only one with anything to say on that part, I also listen to Markus (Army) and Henrik (Kepler), two guys that have helped me build what we have today, on what they have to say about it. But I tend to have the last saying on that part, maybe it’s because I am a Alpha-male or maybe it’s because I am the one shouting the loudest.

  
               Mark with other members of the MYM crew, including Army (Center)

When looking at new games to branch out to, or a new team to add, how much thought goes towards their marketability? Do you run some numbers beforehand to make sure that the addition will be financially beneficial for the organisation?

We always look at the sales of the game, which markets it covers, how much marketing the developer puts into the game and the overall potential of a game and if it’s a community based game we dig deep into it and evaluate its potential (Like we did with DotA). We never open up anything just for the sake of opening it up. We have though 4-5 years ago open and closed down some games just to try them out, but that was a “learning by doing” process which we don’t need any more today. Overall it’s about how big the potential fan-base for the game is and or can be developed into, because there more fans and community, the more we can earn on the division if marketed in the right way.

MeetYourMakers is in the enviable position of not truly needing the backing of its sponsors due to the fact that it is heavily funded by its parent company Regroup-Esports. How much effort goes into pleasing them, would you say they need you more than you need them?

Heavy investors and venture companies entered our company to earn money, big money, so of course our daily works reflect that we know we need to fulfil certain milestones and make revenue on this and that, otherwise we might not make it through the next round of financing. Without them a lot of things wouldn’t be possible, but then again without the key-founders there would be no business as we have the key to success due to our insight in the industry and in electronic sports. So it’s a walk hand in hand and a 50/50 thing, we both need each other to reach our common goals.