While adolescent students traditionally choose from extracurricular activities such as debate club, music or student government, Play Versus Inc. is giving them another option: esports.
The Sawtelle-based company, which does business as PlayVS, has been collaborating with high schools since 2018 to establish competitive esports teams and leagues. About 2,500 educational institutions in the nation currently operate PlayVS programs, with more than 81,000 youth participants playing titles from PlayVS publishing partners including Nintendo Co., Santa Monica-based Activision Blizzard Inc., Epic Games Inc., Electronic Arts Inc. and Sawtelle-based Riot Games Inc.
The company’s reputation was affected detrimentally last year after reports from The Washington Post and Esports Insider claimed that PlayVS was wielding its alleged exclusivity deals with partners such as Activision and Nintendo to block competitors and was “strong-arming” schools in an effort to become the sole provider of scholastic esports leagues. Founder and former Chief Executive Delane Parnell stepped down from PlayVS in May of last year and Jon Chapman assumed the role in June. Chapman, the co-founder of digital learning company Everfi Inc., said those moments were “missteps” for PlayVS and that recent changes have helped the company move past its blunders.
The company has switched to new revenue model that does not include license or participation fees – it has discontinued a previous $80 per-student per-game title charge – and now subsidizes its costs through sponsorships from private companies, foundations and government entities. Chapman said he has also extended some olive branches to resolve issues that occurred during Parnell’s leadership. Those olive branches include a new partnership with one of its previous competitors, nonprofit Network of Academic and Scholastic Esports Federations, with which PlayVS co-ran the California Interscholastic Federation Esports Initiative in…
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