The Esports Awards befell final evening in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for the primary time final evening throughout the concluding weekend for the Esports World Cup.
Samantha “Rivers” Rivera Treviño received for Streamer of the Yr. Character of the Yr went to Seth “Scump” Abner, who was additionally one of many emcees for the night. And the primary Lifetime Achievement award went to Jens Hilgers, founding father of Bitkraft Ventures, Bayes, G2 Esports and ESL.
I attended the Esports Awards on the conclusion of the primary day of the New World Sport Convention (NGSC), which introduced collectively leaders from esports, gaming, enterprise, sports activities, and leisure to discover The Way forward for Fandom. NGSC mentioned it drew greater than 1,400 folks to the Riyadh occasion simply because the eight-week Esports World Cup was coming to a detailed.
The Esports Awards was extra sparsely attended, although I didn’t get an estimate on the gang dimension. It began at 10 p.m. and ran onwards, with a number of hiccups in this system the place issues didn’t begin as anticipated. As this system went on towards midnight on Saturday, the gang thinned out.
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The Esports Awards befell in Riyadh amid issues that it was a part of the dominion’s try at “sportwashing,” or associating itself with sports activities occasions for the sake of masking the nation’s points with human rights and different points such because the lack of acceptance of LGBTQ+ folks.
That was balanced in opposition to the necessity for gaming to seek out new sources of capital at a time when layoffs have been rampant all through the business. Those that attended or sponsored the occasion made the reputational calculation that the advantages of attending outweighed the dangers, even because the area noticed a flare up in violence between Israel and Lebanon.
In an interview, I requested Mike Milanov, chairman of Qiddiya Gaming and former COO of Crew Liquid, in regards to the sportwashing situation.
“We point out the positive. I think the amount of progress made in the last seven years since a change in the ruler of the kingdom, since the Crown Prince became the [leader] has been kind of equivalent to 50 years [of change] in other parts of the world. That is very positive for me, seeing that very similar to how we talked about governments couldn’t make quick decisions in other parts of the world to build something or to fund something. The same thing happens with these types of modernization initiatives.”
He added, “The number one thing we can do to break the ice is bring people here. We’re at the New Global Sports Conference, and there are 1400 attendees, and bringing executives and CEOs and CMOs and media such as yourself. So the kingdom really helps everybody make their own opinion. Saudi does a good job of not launching these expensive campaigTns about what your opinion should be about the kingdom. I think opinions get formed naturally. he best thing is for all of the Arabic countries not to be grouped together when you think about your opinion, and for you to come check it out personally. That’s what I did. And then right afterwards, I started at Qiddiya.”
As for the expansion of esports, he mentioned, “There is still a steady growth. There are two things happening. So the total gaming population is increasing, and the percent of that total population that watches competitive gaming is also increasing. There will be these moments where there’s like three years of surge, and then that kind of calms down.”
The remainder of the winners included:
- Malr1ne received for Esports Breakthrough Participant of the Yr.
- Teamfight Ways received for Breakthrough Recreation of the Yr.
- Ones to Watch winners included Zip Artistic, Alti Company, Gaming Gladiators, the Philippines, S8ul Esports, Full Squad Gaming and Nobru.
- S8UL Esports received for Content material Group of the Yr.
- Valorant received for Esports Recreation of the Yr.
- Gods Ft. Newjeans received for Esports Content material of the Yr for Worlds 2023 Anthem — League of Legends.
- Riot Video games received for Esports Recreation Writer of the Yr.
- Liquipedia received for Esports Protection and Content material Platform of the Yr.
- Crew Liquid received for Artistic Crew of the Yr.
- Cellular Legends: Bang Bang received for Cellular Esports Recreation of the Yr.
- Pink Bull received for Esports Industrial Associate of the Yr.
GamesBeat is a media associate for the NGSC,which paid my technique to Riyadh.
