Online gaming company Esports Mogul (ASX:ESH) has signed a commercial partnership with Microsoft.
The global tech giant is launching a tournament series for its licensed game Age of Empires II — Definitive Edition.
The rollout will take place across eight markets in the Asia-Pacific. And Esports Mogul has been commissioned to provide the platform for the tournament series, along with a Branded Hub to support the initiative.
For local tech stocks, partnering up with a global giant in the sector is often a recipe for strong investor sentiment.
And that was the case for Esports Mogul this morning, which ticked higher to 0.7c.
While the Microsoft news helped provide a boost, shares in Esports Mogul have been struggling for traction over the past 12 months.
The stock slipped yesterday after the company released its preliminary final report just before market-close on Friday.
The numbers showed annual revenues of $86,991, resulting in a preliminary net loss of $5.9m — an increase of 43.95 per cent from the prior year.
Microsoft’s tournament series — the AoE II Asia Cup — is scheduled to run over the course of 12 months, starting before the end of March.
The Branded Hub supporting the tournament will be “a centralised place for Microsoft to engage with Age of Empires fans, and will offer exclusive content and paid subscriptions”, Esports Mogul said.
The company said it would receive $70,000 in fees for the establishment of the Hub, along with “a share of any ad sponsor revenue that may be earned from the Branded Hub or the AoE Asia Cup”.
Localised versions of the tournament will be rolled out across Australia and New Zealand, Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Japan, and Korea.
“Mogul’s competition platform provides us with the ability to deliver engaging, interactive competition events for fans across Asia region, bringing this classic PC game into the online eSports age,” Microsoft director Jeremy Hinton said.
In other ASX tech news today:
Smart-lighting company Buddy Technologies (ASX:BUD) has signed a new vendor agreement with US retailer Best Buy. The company said the deal would reduce promotional and merchandising costs by more than $US1.1m ($1.7m) over the next 12 months, while LIFX (BUD’s US trading name) will also provide Best Buy staff with specialised training.
And engage:BDR (ASX:EN1) confirmed a strong month of February trade, after booking revenues of $1.72m, up $170,000 from the previous month. The company said it expected that to flow through to an underlying monthly earnings profit. Shares in engage:BDR rose 5.26 per cent in morning trade to 2c.