Techbuyer Secures Sponsorship of esports player, Custa

We’re very excited to announce our sponsorship with Custa, a former Overwatch League professional player! Custa is well known for his video streaming and detailed match analysis, and now works for Overwatch as a Desk Analyst. Over the next few weeks, Custa’s gaming streams will be powered by one of our refurbished gaming rigs which we have configured for his specific requirements.

I caught up with our Group IT Director, Rich Kenny who dreamed up the sponsorship alongside Techbuyer’s Tom Idle and Chris Parry, and has been known to enjoy an Overwatch match or two…

So, this is exciting! Can you tell us the idea behind this campaign, and what you hope to achieve?

Prices for brand new gaming configurations and PCs are extortionate and most people either can’t afford it or have to save up for a long time. We want to help make gaming tech more accessible by spreading awareness of a cost-effective alternative: refurbished hardware.

The problem we have in the tech industry is that there are a lot of misconceptions about refurbished, which have traditionally stopped people from considering refurb as an option. I figured if we can help to change the narrative for data centre equipment, why not gaming hardware too?

Our message is simple: gaming setups don’t need to break the bank. Instead, you can go for a more cost-effective method, which provides the same reliability and performance as new.

Both of us are Overwatch players – but don’t worry Custa, your position is safe… for now. Are there more Overwatch fans hidden away at Techbuyer?

I’m a very poor player who tries hard with McCree and Junkrat. You’re a Lucio fan, right? Never say never, Charlie… But yes, we have a big technical team here who have grown up building PCs and figuring out how to customise games, so it’s no surprise that there are several gamers in our midst. Members of our sales team also have weekly gaming sessions and we even have somebody in our warehouse who builds gaming rigs as a side business – but more on that later.

We haven’t got involved with anything like this before, and I hope that talking about gaming will also interest people who are new to this kind of thing!

Why Custa?

I talked to the gamers in my team – unsurprisingly there are several in the IT department – and we did some digging to find the best person for the job. With over 88K subscribers on Twitch, a long thread of interesting content, and experience working as part of the Overwatch team, Custa seemed like the perfect fit.

How did you come up with the idea?

We could see that there was an interest there for gaming setups and wondered if we could do something fun as a company. Specifically, I wondered if a popular gamer could demonstrate that refurbished gaming rigs provide the exact same performance as new, whether we could change perceptions about refurbished and enable better access to cost-effective tech.

I was also looking for a refreshing way to encourage sustainable approaches to technology. We know that gaming tech contains a high proportion of precious metals like Silicon and Tantalum, that are difficult to recycle and often end up in landfill far before their end of life. Refurbishing our tech is the best way to keep quality tech in use, which limits the environmental impact of these materials, all whilst benefiting the consumer.

Can you tell us anything about Custa’s upcoming video content?

I want to keep the majority a surprise, however I will say that we’re hoping to do a very cool fundraising competition for our employees. Stay tuned…

 

Techbuyer is a global provider of sustainable IT solutions. These solutions include servers, storage and networking equipment, laptops, desktops, and components. We also buy, refurbish, upgrade, repair or replace existing IT hardware to maximise budgets and keep quality technology in use.

 As well as providing IT and data centre solutions, we also maximise gaming budgets by upgrading existing gaming rigs or configuring setups to your exact requirements. Simply get in touch to find out more.