Where do you see your role in eSports, do you see yourself taking an active role in pushing video games to a sport or do you or are you taking a more of the role of the passive bystander?

Sheryl - The gaming community is about more than just one game. And NVIDIA’s support of the gaming community extends far beyond just tournaments and pro teams. We work with thousands of developers, helping them build a better experience for their games. When we see a game with potential and a development team behind it that’s committed to making it a stellar competitive title for eSports, we will suggest it to organizations like the CPL to see if the community will embrace it. That being said, organizations like the CPL ultimately make their own decisions based on what they believe is best for the community.

Jennifer - We definitely see ourselves as an active player in pushing professional video game competition to a sport, especially as our technology evolves to improve the physics and artificial intelligence of games. We have invested an extensive amount of money and time in the gaming community. If we didn’t believe gaming could be considered a serious sport we wouldn’t be involved with organizations like The CPL, TsN, SK, Team Fnatic, 4Kings, etc. This doesn’t even begin to touch all of our involvement in Asia and developer organizations.

We definitely see Intel as being an active and integral player in the continued evolution of the sport of professional video game competition. This audience remains an important part of Intel’s business and as technology evangelists, the demographic remains important to Intel and our future product launches and programming.

Is name recognition or showing your hardware performing with the latest games the top priority?

Sheryl - Our top priority is definitely to show off our hardware performance on the latest games from our “NVIDIA: The way it’s meant to be played” program. Name recognition can only get you so far. The experience we deliver behind the brand name “NVIDIA” is definitely paramount.

Jennifer - Both are important to us, but we really put a strong emphasis on showing how our hardware provides great game play for all types of gamers as well as the entire gaming community. Intel works with game developers to ensure that gamers, hard-core and casual, get the best possible experience on Intel hardware. We are currently working with game developers so their games will take advantage of dual core processing and multiple threads.

Sponsorships serve as a signaling device to a brand’s consumers and customers alike since it infers a more personal form of marketing. For many consumers, their relationship with the specific games is a very personal and emotional experience. Intel wants to provide these consumers with the best possible experience so they fully realize their game passions. Intel develops our event plans to properly position our products with these consumers.

Do you view yourself as the Nike or Gatorade of the eSports industry?

Sheryl - LOL. We certainly have a great brand in the gaming community. At last year’s QuakeCon, someone offered me $250 for one of our green chairs. I told him he can get it at Ikea for $15, but he wanted ours because we had a giant NVIDIA sticker on it. We don’t claim to be the Nike or Gatorade, but we put so much blood, sweat and tears into the community that I guess you can say we are striving to be…

Jennifer - No, eSports marketing vehicles can generate awareness of the Intel brand and its products, but they cannot by themselves generate eSports “authenticity”, lifestyle relevance, or leadership qualities. To accomplish this, Intel will continue to develop strong on-site impact and “viral” word-of-mouth endorsement among the target eSport consumers by associating our products with focused and relevant eSports lifestyles experiences.