Partners of gaming: SteelSeries

Company name: SteelSeries
Sphere of business: Developement of gaming equipment
Headquarters: Copenhagen, Denmark
Founded: 2001

About SteelSeries:
SteelSeries was founded in 2001 in Copenhagen as a project of 2 enthusiasts. What began with one mousepad made of glass ended up as a company with its branches in Asia, North America and Europe. SteelSeries managed to satisfy the needs of PC gamers for quality products and after 9 years became one of the top gaming accessories manufacturers. But their success was not based on quality products only -- they actually understood what players needed and gave it to them. The company decided to cooperate very closely with gamers and that is one of the reasons for their rise. Who knows what gamers need? Gamers themselves. This is just the beginning of their involvement in gaming though. SteelSeries knows that the power to the whole gaming community is FUN and where else would gamers enjoy themselves more than while playing their favorite game? That is why the company cooperates with tournament organizers or organizes tournaments itself. You will rarely find a tournament without SteelSeries supporting it. And you will find such tournaments here in the Czech Republic too! That all is still not the end of SteelSeries' involvement in gaming community. They also support gaming teams like us -- eSuba, which ensures quality products for our players and in return, SteelSeries is more than often visible during tournament finals. The feedback of professional players is also very important for future innovation.

Company policy:
Considerable percentage of company profits goes back to the community.

Company philosophy:
An opinion of a casual gamer is more valuable that countless hours spent during laboratory research.

We have introduced the company, let you know what the players think about it and it is just the right time to have a small chat with someone from SteelSeries directly. We have asked for a small interview with a SteelSeries Marketing Manager  Casper Mejlholm  -- and the answer was "no problem".



 Hello Casper, could you please introduce yourself and tell us more about your position by SteelSeries?
My name is Casper Mejlholm and my position at SteelSeries is Head of Marketing, Europe. I work out of our headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark and have done so for the past 5 years. The core of our marketing department is located here and consists mainly of people who have spent a big part of their life being involved in the gaming community, either as casual or professional gamers, designers, journalists, referees, administrators or the likes - so there's a great energy and passion to push electronic sports, and of course SteelSeries, in the right direction.

My main responsibilities on a day-to-day basis revolve around:
- Handling of our partnerships and activities with gaming teams and communities such as SK Gaming, Fnatic, Clanbase and yourselves. Among other things, this includes driving communication on product research, development and feedback with the teams, planning PR tours with select players, executing product campaigns with the players,  organizing pro-gamer happenings at retail stores and on online communities such as our Pro Nights on Xfire , executing events for the teams' online community/fanbase  and of course  making sure that the all players are equipped with their preferred products.
- General handling and planning of pan-European SteelSeries marketing projects alongside the regional marketing managers. This could for example be the launch of a new product or other PR campaigns.
- Direct handling of our marketing in the UK, France, Eastern Europe, Australia and Middle East.
- Handling of relationships with the European branches of our publisher partners such as Blizzard and NCsoft.
- Handling of our social media communities (Company blog, Facebook, Twitter, Xfire).

One of the really exciting things about working here is that we are such an aggressively growing company, so a great amount fresh opportunities and projects frequently land on my desk, engaging me in a wide variety of different tasks. At 10:00 I could be negotiating a sponsorship with an organizer of a 50-man LAN event in Czech, while at 10:30 I might have a meeting with Blizzard in Paris to discuss our strategy for promoting SteelSeries licensed products for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty at all the European midnight openings.

 Your company, by its form, is tightly connected with progamers, or gamers in general, if you want. But what really creates your relationship with gamers is your support of our gaming community. Do you feel more connected with gamers themselves the more you support them?
Definitely, yes. This company has strong roots in the community (as mentioned above) and we've always been out in the field, with the priority of having the hardcore gaming community being the first to get hands on our new products; both offline at LAN events and online via the gaming communities and forums."Support" is a very universal term in this matter, as we feel like we are supporting the gamers both obviously through prizes and sponsorships, but also by actually providing products that help gamers get better, win more matches and essentially reach their own goals - whether that's being a professional gamer, a full time event organizer or a team manager.

 What kind of feedback do you receive from gamers and gaming communities? Do you find yourself cluttered up with requests for sponsorship?
Feedback from the community comes in through all possible cracks and holes in this house. As you mentioned we receive a huge amount of team-, event- and league sponsorship applications, as well as review requests from different types of media through our website. It always puts a smile on my face when reflecting on how these application forms have helped form countless, strong partnerships with gaming leagues, community sites, events and teams over the years - and the frequency of application mails is increasing day by day. Detailed feedback on our products from the field, mostly comes through directly to us via e-mail, our support system, as well as increasingly on our Facebook page, and finally via the in-depth product reviews, both from professional media as well as community forums, which are of incredible value to us as well.

 Speaking of sponsorship requests -- what kind of measures do you apply when deciding whether to support or not?
The golden question! One of the most important things for us when forming partnerships with gaming leagues, events, communities and teams is the fact that the drive and motivation to push gaming forward is mutual. A partnership can never be of value to anyone involved in the long term, if both parties are not completely clarified with where they want to go. Therefore we put a lot of thought behind these decisions to ensure that we continue to be effective and work with determined and progressive partners.

 The most important questions comes now -- do you think that your active support of gamers pays off? What can players give you on return?
First off, yes. In fact, we don't just think it - we know it.The feedback received directly from the community, the forums, the blogs, the reviewers, and the professional players assist us in continuously developing successful gaming peripherals - if this wasn't the case we would most likely be out of business. So yes, our support pays off and we're incredibly grateful. The fact that gamers are entering tournaments to win our products or going down to their local retailer to purchase a SteelSeries product is a huge sign of support for us. Also we of course heavily appreciate the people that pop by our event booths to ask questions or provide feedback on their experience with our products. Next time you see our booth, come say hi.

 Thank you very much for your replies and time you yourself have dedicated. Last but not least one very special thank. Not just from me, not even just from eSuba. This is from the whole gaming community here in Czech and Slovak Republic. We thank SteelSeries for their never-ending support of our projects and teams. We appreciate it very much.
No problem - and thank you. Without entrepreneurs like yourself, electronic sports would not have made it to the point where we're at today.

And what do u think about SteelSeries products? Let us know below.