With a trailblazing history going all the way back to its founding in 2003, esports franchise Complexity Gaming is back at the forefront with its new focus on web3 under the recently re-established ownership of original founder and CEO Jason Lake.

The longstanding esports powerhouse made headlines in 2017 by selling Lake’s majority stake to Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and real estate investor John Goff. This deal marked one of the first major partnerships between traditional sports and competitive gaming. In March 2024, Lake bought back the organization he started over 20 years ago from its publicly traded parent company, GameSquare Holdings.

Now with Lake fully at the helm and in control of the company, Complexity is taking its first steps to engage with the web3 ecosystem and explore its first offerings.

“The handcuffs are off and we’re going to be aggressive in our pursuit of web3 opportunities for Complexity,” Lake recently told OpenSea.

Complexity’s long esports legacy

Lake walked away from a successful career in real estate law, running a bustling law firm with five branches, to chart out a new frontier in esports at a time when few even understood what the term meant. He founded Complexity Gaming as a professional outfit in 2003 with money from his own pocket.

Since then, the company has changed hands quite a bit: it was initially acquired by DirecTV in 2006 and bought back by Lake in 2009 before Goff and Jones took over. Ownership eventually rolled into Gamesquare, a gaming and media brand based in Toronto, Canada, in a $27 million deal, and finally, the gaming conglomerate recently merged with the esports brand FaZe Clan.

Seeing potential conflicts in the two esports heavyweights being owned by the same parent company and feeling the draw of web3’s potential, Lake successfully put together a $10 million bid to take Complexity private and make it an independent operation once again.

“Every step of the way, we’re trying to operate on the bleeding edge of gaming, which we’ve been doing since we started out over twenty years ago,” said Lake. “We’ve evolved with gaming, starting out before Twitch was ever a thing and now we’re pushing forward into new territory again with our new focus on web3.”

Gaming teams, tournaments, quests and livestreams—Complexity’s planned web3 strategies

For Lake, the web3 world is familiar territory. He has been involved in blockchain projects since 2017 and was a featured speaker at major industry conferences, including Axiecon in Barcelona and Consensus in Austin, Texas.

"It's challenging to keep up with the fast pace of this space," he admits. ”You can’t really be part-time in web3. Even being full-time in web3 is often not enough. If we’re going to be effective in our approach, we need to be as focused as we can be on leveraging the technology and trends.”

To level up Complexity’s web3 chops, Lake has recruited content creator Spike and his web3 gaming organization Waypoint to help guide Complexity's web3 strategy. A key focus for the company will be carefully transitioning Complexity's enormous web2 gaming fanbase into emerging web3 ecosystems and communities. 

"There is a lack of real expertise when it comes to web3 game developers who understand how to build vibrant gaming communities," explains Lake. "Many of them are skilled at building token-oriented communities, but they aren’t nearly as well-versed in what it takes to corral and entertain gamers. We're hoping to bridge that gap and create a link between the two worlds."

Complexity's legacy strengths include an unparalleled expertise in training top-tier professional gamers, organizing high-stakes tournaments and events, and managing elite teams of players across dozens of titles.

"We're going to explore fielding professional web3 gaming teams, hosting tournaments and live streams for these games, and serving as advisers for navigating the web3 transition," said Lake. “We also envision weekly or monthly quests and challenges where fans can earn rewards.”

Perhaps most ambitiously, Complexity is pursuing development of a gamified fan engagement platform built with an as-yet undetermined partner blockchain. “We're already in negotiations with some groups to help build this out and we’re exploring which blockchain ecosystems make the most sense to build with,” says Lake.

Complexity’s vision of a web3 gaming future

Complexity's existing audience is one to be reckoned with, boasting over 11 million direct followers and an even larger footprint when accounting for broadcast exposure. The fanbase skews heavily male (70 to 80 percent) with a higher education and computer literacy.

Lake acknowledged the team is still “working on growing the female demographic more, but the young male audience remains the dominant force. That seems largely consistent with the web3 crowd, yet it can still change to be more balanced in the coming years.”

Now that he’s on the other side of his acquisition, Lake is confident that, as higher quality web3 games hit the market and cross over into the mainstream, gamers will be willing to embrace blockchain technology and the value proposition of true digital ownership of in-game items.

Lake posits that the transition to player-owned game economies will land in the next 5 to 10 years, saying “There will be no going back. Gamers will ask themselves why they spent so much money on Fortnite V-bucks and skins that they never actually owned when the top games on the market will give players far more options."

To get there, Lake stresses that game developers in the web3 space need to start catering their experiences to the existing mass-market gaming audience.

"The NFT approach has created revulsion among many gamers due to too many cash grabs, rug pulls, and other nefarious activities. It will take time to overcome that negative sentiment," said Lake.

His advice: "What web3 gaming operators need to understand is you can’t ask for gamers’ money without offering some value upfront. You have to earn their trust before you earn their dollars."

Lake recognizes that the current web3 gaming landscape is still premature, with very few hits amidst a sea of projects he might label undercooked and overhyped. 

In Lake’s view, “there are a few promising games out there already, but the reality is that 98% of promising betas end up as flops that never escape that initial stage."

Still, Complexity remains bullish on blockchain-enabled gaming as the new frontier. He likes being at the vanguard and “tips his hat” to game studios willing to innovate. "The early adopters getting into web3 gaming now are very much like myself, pioneers eager to be on the cutting edge," he says. “There will be rewards for being early."

In Lake's eyes, the marriage between elite competitive gaming and blockchain technology's ethos of decentralized digital ownership is a natural fit. With Complexity's focused charge into the space, esports fans have an ambitious and proven gaming veteran helping lead the way into the industry’s bright web3 future.