From World of Warcraft to ESG Law: Talking esports law with Harris Peskin

What started out as a passion for World of Warcraft evolved into a career at the world's first esports-specific law firm. Harris Peskin, an attorney at ESG Law, sat down with esports.gg for an exclusive interview about his gaming journey, the impact of ESG Law, and the future of the esports industry. Read on for details!

Like many individuals within the esports industry, Peskin got introduced to it through gaming. When he moved to a new town in high school, word got out that he played World of Warcraft. He soon became a source of information for other players of the game. Peskin ended up leading a guild of fellow high school students and remained close with them over the years. Many of them are still his best friends to this day.

"We still have the same guild. It's the same people playing the same game," Peskin said. He also referred to a commissioned poster of his guild members in a hot tub situated in front of the Castle Nathria raid.

When one of his friends' fathers wanted to invest in an esports team, Peskin's own interest and writing about esports in law school caught the former's attention.

"So over the years, we put together an investor group and ultimately acquired one of the esports teams in the European LCS, which was known as H2k-Gaming at the time," Peskin recalled. "That is my intro into esports on a professional level. But really, the genesis of it is in my love of World of Warcraft with all my friends."

On top of his work as an attorney at ESG Law, Peskin has teaching experience in terms of giving lectures on legal topics related to the gaming industry. At one point, he wrote about topics such as unionization and esports, player rights, and gambling for the Esports Bar Association.

He told esports.gg about how ESG Law represents several teams, including Team Liquid, TSM, 100 Thieves, Evil Geniuses, and NRG. The law firm handles sponsorship contracts and various other forms of agreements.

"We review the sponsorship contracts, the player contracts, the business-to-business agreements," Peskin explained. "That means that ESG gets to draft sponsorship agreements with every potential sponsor that might want to have a team sponsor them or sponsor a team. Every time a player does a deal, every contract that a player will execute, the amount of money that we pay a player — that's all coming through ESG. "

In terms of a big challenge within the esports industry, Peskin explained that the copyright law gives game developers exclusive rights over their games, which makes it difficult for teams to make money from broadcasting rights. Legal reforms could be one solution to address this issue, and as an ESG representative, Peskin has a unique view of the industry's financial situation and can make proposals to improve it.

Peskin also told esports.gg that there is an audience for video game consumption that can be monetized. However, the esports ecosystem needs to be shaped properly to reflect that. He noted how esports took the foundation set by professional sports without going through any of the hardships that those leagues went through. This contributed to the lack of player unionization.

"A lot of what the league operators have done is they've given the players these amazing quality of life things," he said. "But the players didn't need to do it themselves. These were handed to them by the operator. So the result is that the players never entered into a union. Esports never went through this process of collectively bargaining with the player and with the teams. Those rights to those players have actually been passed through, in many instances, by a developer."

Peskin then discussed the evolution of monetization in esports. He mentioned the increase in revenue share programs and cooperation from developers and league operators as well. The importance of teams presenting themselves as attractive partners to sponsors cannot go unnoticed, either. Successful teams, for example, have integrated themselves with content creators to generate fanbases. Riot's successful skin sales related to esports programs is another path to monetization.

"If the teams are to survive, there will need to be increased brand awareness to content creators probably getting involved at the brand level, or some bit of originality kind of playing a role in terms of how you build a fan base," he said.

As for parting words, Peskin reflected on his experience within the esports industry and thought about what he would tell his younger self.

"I would tell my younger self that this industry will eat you alive," he said. "And it has been an absolute whirlwind being involved in the esports space because you're working ridiculous amounts of hours trying to produce something that you're passionate about."

Despite the long hours, Peskins knows that his work involves building a structure that could potentially exist for decades to come.

That's all for now. To learn more about ESG Law, visit the firm's official website.

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