- 4/17/2025
Michele Attisani of FACEIT sit down with Norris and Joe again and focus on current and future plans of FACEIT.
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00:00Welcome to Checkpoint XP eSports and Gaming Radio. I'm here with Michele Atasani of Faceit,
00:12co-founder of Faceit. You guys have heard of Faceit, you've used it, I mean it's a huge huge
00:17platform. Michele welcome to the show. Thank you, thanks for having me. Yeah so Faceit like as I
00:21said is a name that we've seen all over the place when it comes to eSports. So explain what Faceit
00:27is to those who are uninitiated and how you guys got involved with the eSports infrastructure.
00:32Yeah for sure so Faceit is first of all like a platform, a competitive gaming platform, eSports
00:38platform where we strive to get all the players who come together and socialize and have a good
00:46time and play games together and play competitions together as well. So we're really aiming to make
00:52it as accessible as possible to really help the development of the grassroots and the gaming
00:58communities. Then on top of that obviously we have a number of competitions that have
01:05higher prices and more prestige and so on all the way up to the super professional level, right? So
01:12that's where our media division kicks in and what we do effectively is organize this competition and
01:21produce the content and live events around some of these tournaments all the way up to, you know,
01:27very large-scale competitions like the ECS Counter-Strike, the Faceit London Major last year, our
01:36Universal Open with NBC Sports, you know, most recently with Apex Legends, next week with the Faceit Global
01:45Summit for PUBG. So yeah, a lot going on. So speaking of some of the games that you guys
01:50are involved in obviously CSGO, you mentioned Apex, Rocket League, PUBG, what goes into the decision-making
01:57in terms of what games to actually have on the platform? Yeah, I think it's, yeah, that's an excellent
02:02question. Obviously we tend to focus on games that have, you know, competitive aspect built into
02:09the game themselves. So that's a big factor. And then obviously we look at a number of other things.
02:17What's very important for us is the, you know, the level of community that the game has and, you know, how much we feel like we can, we can bring something to that community, right?
02:31So is there a lack of, you know, opportunity at grassroots level, for example, and in tournaments and competitions and so on? Is there a lack of, you know, communication, community level? So where we see that there's a, there's a need and we can come in and fulfill that need.
02:49We will actually do that. And then obviously last but not least, we're trying to keep up with what was popular, right? So we want to make sure that we can, you know, we can be associated and we can, you know, support the games that the community wants to play at that specific time.
03:07Well, and on top of that, you've got a personal relationship with Counter-Strike as well as we've talked about. And, you know, so I will forgive you for a little personal sort of affinity for it goes into the decision-making as well.
03:23But you're talking about what's popular and the future, you know, what's different sort of now in esports and how the presentations and the competitions are run as opposed to, you know, when Face It was in its infancy?
03:34Yeah, well, a lot has changed. I would say almost everything has changed. From, you know, the games are way more polished and sophisticated now. They actually have esports tools, which is, which is incredible.
03:50Like, you know, looking at what we're doing back in the days of trying and competing in some games. Now, like the publishers actually do care about having esports and building a community for their games, which is fantastic.
04:04There's a lot of, a lot of really good games coming out at all times, it seems like lately. So that's obviously very exciting for the players. Maybe even a bit overwhelming sometimes, right?
04:20Yeah, definitely.
04:21You know, back in the days when I was playing, we had a one big title every couple of years.
04:28Yeah.
04:28And now it feels like, you know, we have a one big title every other month, right?
04:32Yeah.
04:32Yeah, well, speaking of that, I mean, you guys got the National PUBG League and stuff that's coming up and Face It Global Summit is coming up next.
04:42Tell us a little bit about Face It Global Summit and PUBG and its own ecosystem going around that game.
04:48Yeah, I'm glad you asked. Like, we're really excited about this event. You know, PUBG has been obviously like a phenomenal success in terms of adoption and the growth rate.
04:59Closer? Okay.
05:01Growth rate of the game has been phenomenal since the launch, but obviously it took some time to really start building that infrastructure that was needed for e-sports.
05:14And, you know, PUBG's core business has been working a lot on that. We obviously have been working really closely with them through, you know, the integration of the game on our platform to support all the competitions at every level.
05:28And then, you know, ultimately now leading to the Face It Global Summit.
05:34Now, 2019 is the first year for the official, you know, PUBG e-sports.
05:40Yeah.
05:40And it's been like already launched with all these different regional leagues that are being like, you know, really, really interesting to watch and follow with some amazing talent.
05:52Yeah. And, like, where does, you know, Face It sort of fit into that ecosystem as we're beginning to see sort of more regionalization, more, you know, franchise model, you know, where do you guys fit in that ecosystem?
06:05I mean, we definitely, you know, at the grassroots level, what we have is pretty unique with our platform.
06:12And we feel like, you know, we can play a big role for, you know, most of the e-sports title in helping, you know, building that community and all those competitions that provide a fun, you know, content and engaging and entertainment for the players.
06:30And ultimately also for the players that have more aspiration to maybe, you know, become professional and get into bigger and bigger events, provide that opportunity and that avenue and that path, which in the past in e-sports has always been, you know, a bit, you know, hard to understand if I want to really make it into one game, how do I do that?
06:55Like, especially even now with this whole, like, you know, franchise systems and leagues and so on, it feels like you have this, you know, cool guys right at the top and you can't really, you know, reach them.
07:09So that's why we're trying to, you know, the gap that we're trying to fill.
07:12We want to, you know, give everyone an opportunity, a chance to, you know, come from the bottom and really, you know, make it to the top of gaming.
07:21And we've been hearing a lot of that from a lot of people that we've been talking to and it's great to hear somebody from definitely the infrastructural standpoint talk about the ability to make the path from amateur to professional as easy as possible and to provide that infrastructure.
07:36So speaking of that, you know, we have a lot of viewers and listeners that really love e-sports, but it's still just that sort of front end, players, coaches, stuff like that.
07:45So speak a little bit to, if you can, speak a little bit to sort of the back end.
07:49What goes into and just how important is stuff like tournament organizing and the accountability for prize pools and stuff like that?
07:59Because that's also a big issue.
08:01Yeah, it's a great question.
08:03So I think for us, you know, the way we see it is we built Faceit to be, you know, the backbone of the development of this infrastructure of, you know, communities and, you know, from a local level all the way up to the professional level.
08:19So we invested a tremendous amount of resources into building this technology and this product to really make it as seamless as possible for the players in terms of experience, make it fun for them.
08:37They don't have to do a bunch of like, you know, a million things manually and invite people and create lobbies and, you know, all sorts of things.
08:44We tend to, you know, take care of all of that automatically, which obviously provides a lot of value for the users, for the players, but ultimately provides a lot of value also for people that want to organize these competitions.
09:00Because that's really what the Faceit platform is about.
09:03Like everyone can come on Faceit.
09:05They can create their own, you know, tournaments and competitions and community.
09:09We support them with all the technology and the features that we built and that makes it a lot easier for them to really produce interesting, compelling content for their local communities and the people that gravitate to run that.
09:27So this way, effectively, we're leveraging our product and technology to bring, to make it more scalable and easy to manage for everyone to come and start the world communities.
09:41I've already seen like, you know, tremendous success with that.
09:44So it's actually working.
09:46Awesome.
09:46And so we talked about the games that you guys do cover just very quickly.
09:50You know, you're doing Apex.
09:52Apex is the new hot thing.
09:54And, you know, looking at the trajectory of Apex and looking at how many people are getting involved in it.
10:00I mean, is it something that you guys feel really has the staying power to stay around, especially when Fortnite, you know, just announces a hundred million dollar tournament and everybody's back playing Fortnite?
10:12Yeah, I think it's a different.
10:14I mean, there's maybe some overlap for sure, but ultimately it's a bit of a different audience.
10:20Like Fortnite has been doing a phenomenal job of really making the esports market bigger and attracting a lot of new people towards esports, especially like with a younger, you know, demographic, which is great.
10:36I think Apex goes into, you know, slightly different audience.
10:40And, well, the reason why I like it personally is that it's a very fast, you know, action-packed FPS game, right?
10:53And I come from Quake, so we talked about it yesterday.
10:56Yeah, so it's a game that I personally really, really enjoy, not just to play, but enjoy watching it when we played.
11:04And we produced the FACY T1 Invitational for Apex last week.
11:10We had the T1 guys playing from our studio, and I was just amazed, you know, by watching them.
11:17I also realized that, you know, I'm too old to really keep up with the skill level this, you know, younger generations have playing these games.
11:27But, you know, I have a lot of fun with it, so I think that that's the key part.
11:35Like sometimes we forget about how important that is.
11:39Ultimately, you know, we're playing games, right?
11:41So if the game is not fun and not engaging in entertainment, it's going to be really hard to build an esports out of it.
11:49That's true.
11:50So they have the right ingredients, and then, you know, I've been spending time with EA, talking with them about, you know, the plans and how to see the future and so on.
11:58And I really like the way they're approaching this, and I think they have some solid, you know, things they're working on.
12:07So, yeah, I'm definitely positive about the prospects with Apex.
12:11Awesome, awesome, awesome.
12:12Michele Atasani, co-founder of FaceIt.
12:16Guys, again, you owe a lot to a guy like this.
12:20We keep the infrastructure going.
12:22The esports can continue to grow.
12:23Michele, thank you so much for your time.
12:25Thanks for having me.
12:26Again.
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