LiveXLive, a livestream platform that has found success during the pandemic with its virtual concerts, is expanding into the booming gaming industry with a particular audience in mind: women.
The Beverly Hills-based company announced Thursday it has partnered with Queens Gaming Collective, a media management company for women gamers, on a content and distribution deal that will include a slate of long- and short-form original shows and events.
Queens Gaming Collective CEO and co-founder Alisa Jacobs said the collaboration will help expand visibility for the 20 video game influencers — known as "Queens" — it represents through LiveXLive's global distribution platform. Among them is L.A.-based actress, model, influencer and gamer Carrington Durham, who has 2.4 million followers on TikTok and more than 1.2 million on Instagram. Other Queens are active on Twitch and other social media and gaming platforms.
Andy Vick, head of programming at LiveXLive, said bringing gaming content to the platform was an easy extension of what LiveXLive already does in the music and pop culture spaces. In fiscal year 2021, which ended on March 31, LiveXLive reported it had livestreamed over 140 music events, generating over 150 million livestream views. Compare that to the 42 events and 69 million livestream views in the same time period a year ago.
"We absolutely believe in gaming and music as events," Vick said. "We see a lot of that in our future."
veXLive Head of Programming Andy Vick and Queens Gaming Collective CEO Alisa Jacobs.
Vick added that his own interest in video games sparked the partnership with Queens.
"We want to be aligned with talent and with brands and companies that are saying what they mean and standing by it," he said. "I can't imagine another gaming brand that does that better than Queens."
Women represent 46% of video game enthusiasts, according to a 2019 report from industry analyst Newzoo. But women are underserved by popular platforms, and sometimes the games themselves.
"It's important for the younger women and the girls who are growing up who are playing more games than ever to feel like it's not just a guy-fest and there's a place for me to play games," Vick said.
Queens represents a diverse group of women, from casual players to gritty gamer gamers, athletes, DJs, musicians and artists.
"[LiveXLive has] built something that can really bring audience and reach and scale for these women that deserve such an incredible amount of attention," Jacobs said. "They deserve to have their stories told. They deserve to have their gameplay watched," especially BIPOC women.
The video game industry has grown during the pandemic. Global video game revenue was expected to surge 20% to $179.7 billion in 2020, according to IDC data, MarketWatch reported in January.
The collaboration between LiveXLive and Queens will produce content that includes game shows, programs that address wellness and mental health and being a woman in gaming as well as comedy. It will be distributed across LiveXLive's portfolio, including podcasting, audio content, VOD, pay-per-view events and via Twitch and YouTube and LiveXLive's owned and operated platforms.
The Queens are set to appear at a LiveXLive event called Social Gloves: Battle of the Platforms where TikTok and YouTubers will face off in a boxing match.
Jacobs said women gamers differ from the typical stereotype of a "bro-y" gamer, not to say that there aren't some women who fit into that culture. Many women gamers are focused on lifting each other up and robust storytelling as well as competition, Jacobs said.
"It's really passionate, bad-ass women," Jacobs said. "They are unapologetic, they are feminine, but not girly, per se. They can hold it down with the boys, but they are also really collaborative and thoughtful and creative and strategic."
Queens is creating a live-work space for their team that will have a membership club vibe, Jacobs said. But don't expect the frat house vibe that comes with similar, male-dominated gaming collectives.
Another such consortium of gaming and influencers, FaZe Clan, is known for its pranks and raucous parties. Founded in 2016, It recently moved out of its 12,000-square-foot Hollywood Hills mansion to a 36,000-square-foot compound in Burbank, where members shoot videos for TikTok and YouTube and livestream on Twitch. FaZe Clan's first female member joined the group in 2019.
Vick said the new events and content will be aligned with the passion points of the Queens' fanbase and performers.
"We're thinking about the end user and the end audience and the way that really rings true is by being true to the talent," Vick said. "We want to maximize that relationship between talent and their audience."
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The survey found 60% of the respondents, primarily women, were balancing increased caretaking roles with work or school responsibilities. And while caretaking responsibilities grew, 49% of respondents said their workload also increased during the pandemic.
“The pandemic threw a wrench into lots of folks' experiences both professionally and academically,” said Kathryne Cooper, a health tech investor who sits on the advisory board of WiSTEM. “So we need to acknowledge that.”
In the L.A. area, an increasing number of childcare startups are aiming to address this massive challenge that is a growing national crisis. The U.S. has long dealt with a crippling childcare infrastructure plagued by low wages and a labor shortage in preschools and daycares, but the COVID-19 crisis made it worse. During the pandemic, women left the workforce due to the lack of childcare and caretaking resources. By 2021, women made up the lowest percentage of the workforce since 1988, according to the National Women’s Law Center. Despite the pandemic forcing everyone indoors, caretaking duties fell disproportionately on women.
“I almost actually left my job because everything that I looked at was either waitlisted or the costs were so astronomical that it probably made sense for me to stay at home rather than pay someone to actually look after my child,” said Jessica Chang, the CEO of childcare startup WeeCare.
Brella's Playa Vista-based childcare center lobby.Photo courtesy of Brella
The Marina del Rey-based WeeCare, one of the startups that helps people open their own childcare facilities, announced it raised $12 million in April (to go along with an additional $5 million in bridge funding raised during the pandemic). The company helps people build daycare centers and works with employers to provide access to WeeCare centers and construct child care benefits programs.
Some of these startups strive to boost the number of daycare centers by helping operators with financial costs, licensing fees and scheduling. Wonderschool, a San Francisco-based child care startup, raised $25 million in January and assisted with hundreds of childcare facilities in L.A.-based Playground, which raised $3 million in seed funding last year per PitchBook. Playground acts as an in-house platform for childcare providers to communicate with staff and parents, track attendance, report student behavior and provide automatic invoicing services.
L.A.-based Brella, which launched in 2019, raised $5 million in seed funding in January to create a tech-enabled daycare scheduling platform that could meet the demand of flexible childcare as parents navigate a hybrid work environment, and recently opened a new location in Hollywood. The startup aims to address the labor shortage among childcare workers by paying its workers roughly $25 an hour and offering mental health benefits and career development opportunities for its educators.
“It's this huge disconnect in our society because these are really important people who are doing arguably one of the most important educational jobs,” said Melanie Wolff, co-founder of childcare startup Brella. “They often don't get benefits. They don't have a lot of job security.”
Venture capital funding has poured into the relatively new childcare sector. A slew of parent-tech companies aimed at finding flexible child care and monitoring children saw $1.4 billion worth of venture investments in 2021, according to PitchBook, largely to meet the demands of parents in a pandemic era who have more flexible work commutes and require more tech-enabled solutions.
“I think a lot of it has to do with what employers expect for workers,” said Darby Saxbe, an associate professor of psychology and family relationships expert at USC. “There's still a lot more stigma for men to build their work around caregiving responsibilities–there's a lot of evidence that men are often discouraged from taking paternity leave, even if it's available.”
WeeCare is one of several startups updating the childcare space with technology and flexibility.
Photo courtesy of WeeCare
Childcare benefits are also becoming a more attractive incentive as workers grapple with unorthodox work schedules in a hybrid setting.
“Employers, because of COVID, were having a hard time retaining and recruiting employees,” said Chang. “And they were actually incentivized to actually find a solution to help the employees.”
WeeCare primarily partners with employers of essential workers, like schools, hospitals and grocery stores, and the benefits programs account for the majority of WeeCare’s revenue.
Childcare works are part of a massive labor shortage in caretaker roles that also include nurses, and health aids for the eldery. These workers, which allow women to maintain careers in STEM and other high-paying industries, are vital, according to Saxbe.
“Women can advance in the workplace,” Saxbe said. “But if there's no support at home and there is no one who is helping take care of kids and elderly people, women can't just advance in a vacuum.”
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