When Joshua Nino De Guzman competed on global stages in the late 2000s, professional gaming looked vastly different than it does today. Between the ages of 17 and 23, Nino De Guzman was a top-tier Gears of War and Halo player, representing the UK at international events like the World Cyber Games. But while players were competing in stadiums and getting flown across the world, the coverage surrounding the scene was fundamentally broken.
Media outlets covering competitive gaming were hyper-specialized and deeply technical, written almost exclusively for hardcore insiders who wanted breakdown-level detail on game mechanics. They entirely missed the human drama, intense rivalries, and entertainment value that made the ecosystem so captivating. Nino De Guzman and a few of his fellow gamers recognized a massive void: no one was covering esports through the dynamic, narrative-driven lens of traditional sports or entertainment journalism.
In 2015, he and three co-founders launched Dexerto on a shoestring budget to test that thesis. Over the next decade, without relying on major venture capital raises, they bootstrapped a humble blog into a multi-platform media engine and creative agency capturing billions of social engagements worldwide. Dexerto’s trajectory—from a Call of Duty-focused site to a proprietary ad-tech operator and video powerhouse—offers a masterclass in modern digital publishing.
In a recent interview, Nino De Guzman broke down Dexerto’s origin story and its evolution into a modern digital media engine, detailed how it evolved from a bootstrapped blog into a proprietary ad-tech operator, and explained why the company shifted much of its focus toward social video.
Let’s jump into it…
Building on Access and Identifying the Vacuum
Before Dexerto launched, competitive gaming coverage was siloed. Outlets focused on single titles or operated primarily as extensions of team websites. Nino De Guzman realized that if competitive gaming was going to capture a broader mainstream audience, it needed a different editorial voice—one modeled on sports tabloids and entertainment media, where individual personalities, rivalries, and storylines took center stage.
The founding team—comprising former pro players and event operators—had no formal media or business background when they launched the site. As Nino De Guzman recalls, “We knew nothing of the economics of the media world or marketing. We just wrote articles.” What they lacked in formal media experience, they made up for in industry access. Attending dozens of events a year allowed them to build authentic relationships with rising creators and influencers long before digital entertainment reached its current scale.
Rather than focusing purely on high-level game strategy, Dexerto framed competition around human stories. They focused heavily on popular franchises like Call of Duty, explaining complex matches in ways that casual viewers could digest while leaning into the natural friction between teams. “The center of the strategy was getting readers attached to the people who were playing more than the game that they were playing,” Nino De Guzman explained
By prioritizing accessibility over hyper-niche technicality, Dexerto tapped into organic search and social distribution channels that legacy outlets ignored. Traffic surged as readers sought out context, backstory, and personality-driven coverage.
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