Ep. 312 — Laura Levy & Emma Varjo on the Rise of Esports and how Consumer Insights can Help

This episode is in collaboration with IIEX’s podcast series. Our guests today are Laura Levy and Emma Varjo.  Laura is a human factors psychologist, specializing in how people interact and engage with technology. She works at the Institute for People and Technology and she is Research Director of Gaming and Esports Applied Research at Georgia Tech, where she specializes in esports research, games user research, AR/VR, and human-computer interactions.  Laura received her BS in Zoology from the University of Florida, a MS in Biology and a MS in Psychology from Georgia Tech and is expected to earn her PhD in Psychology this Spring 2021 from Georgia Tech. Emma Varjo is the UX Lead for Frozenbyte Oy.  Frozenbyte was founded in 2001 and headquartered in Helsinki, Finland. Now, with over 110 employees, Frozenbyte has 11 published titles. Most recently:  * Boreal Blade which is a team-based melee fighting game with a focus on player vs player combat, * The Trine series which is a best-selling game in the adventure genre* And, Frozenbyte is scheduled to launch Starbase, a space MMO with a fully destructible and infinitely expanding universe, focused on building and designing spaceships and stations, exploration, resource gathering, crafting, trading, and combat. Prior to joining Frozenbyte, Emma has served as both a software developer and software designer.  Find Laura Online: Website: www.lauralevy.science LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauramlevy  Twitter: https://twitter.com/sciencelaura Find Emma Online: Website: https://www.frozenbyte.com  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmavarjo  Twitter: https://twitter.com/eevarjo  Find Jamin Online: Email: [email protected]  LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jaminbrazil Twitter: www.twitter.com/jaminbrazil  Find Us Online:  Twitter: www.twitter.com/happymrxp  LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/happymarketresearch  Facebook: www.facebook.com/happymrxp  Website: www.happymr.com  Watch this episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5FqExXM4rg Music:  “Clap Along” by Auditionauti: https://audionautix.com  [00:00:00]Jamin Brazil: Hi. I’m Jamin. You're listening to the Happy Market Research Podcast. Actually you're seeing the Happy Market Research Podcas...