“Slay the dragon!” Thailand’s national coach yelled, rallying his players as they rehearsed an elaborate assault for the Asian Games.
Their sport, making its debut at a major global athletics event, requires only one piece of equipment: a mobile device on which to play Chinese tech giant Tencent’s online game Arena of Valor.
Competitive video gaming, dubbed e-sports, is to appear at the Asian Games in Jakarta as an exhibition event sponsored by Alibaba’s sports arm, Alisports.
It is a trial run for inclusion as an exhibition event at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
However, companies and telecoms are betting that the spotlight will grow the region’s e-sports market to match its East Asian peers, where tournaments can sell out entire stadiums in minutes.
“Everybody wants in. I’m getting so many calls that I have to charge my phone four times a day,” Thailand E-sports Federation president Santhi Lothong told reporters.
The region is already the world’s fastest-growing e-sports market, with PC and mobile games revenues last year hitting US$2.2 billion, a number projected to double by 2021, according to research by Niko Partners.
“The Asian Games will help e-sports become more mainstream in Southeast Asia and Asia,” said Johnson Yeh, who manages the region for Tencent-owned studio Riot Games, whose blockbuster game League of Legends is to be featured in the event.
Analysts also expect a significant boost in sales for the six games featured, half of which are owned by Tencent. Two more titles — Hearthstone and Starcraft II — are made by US gaming powerhouse Activision Blizzard, while Pro Evolution Soccer is from Japanese firm Konami Holdings.
The Asian Electronic Sports Federation (AESF), e-sports’ regional governing body, chose the Games for the competition, but has not made its criteria public.
Each title must promote “integrity, ethics and fair play,” AESF said in May.
The International Olympics Committee has said games involving violence or shooting would not be considered for exhibition events.
“Being in the Asian Games legitimizes our sport further among mass audiences and governments, while providing a legitimate sports dream for the players,” Yeh said.
Thai Arena of Valor competitor Krit Suphattaraphong, 23, said taking part in the Asian Games felt like validation of his nascent career.
“I feel like I made the right decision to pursue gaming professionally. This gives me strength to go on,” he told reporters.
Krit — one of Thailand’s 2,000 professional gamers — said that for most of his life he played on his laptop or mobile phone late at night while hiding under a blanket from his parents.
They blamed his poor grades on gaming and threatened to kick him out of the house if he did not quit.
Instead, he secretly registered to compete on a Thai reality TV show named King of Gamers, which pits would-be e-sports athletes against each other.
He was put on a makeshift team called Diamond Cobra that won the show and now represents Thailand in the Asian Games.
He and his teammates are sponsored by Toyota and Thai entertainment company Kantana, which ran the TV show.
“Now my parents see it as me doing my job,” said Krit, who practices 10 hours per day. “Since I’m on the national team, they keep telling me to practice hard.”
Before they represent their country tomorrow in front of 5,000 spectators and a TV audience, the team is competing in a professional Arena of Valor tournament sponsored by Singapore-based gaming and e-commerce firm Sea and Thai telecom True.
At stake? A prize pool of 6 million baht (US$183,597).
“Thailand was one of the first to embrace e-sports,” Sea chief strategy officer Alan Hellawell told reporters. “Vietnam is one of the fastest-growing markets, while Indonesia is the one that’s coming of age in the mobile era.”
The start-up, which describes itself as the region’s largest gaming platform, is partly owned by Tencent and sponsors tournaments, leagues and training.
Activision Blizzard told reporters that it has translated one of its games into Thai and was considering further language localization for the region.
“The majority of Southeast Asia countries have recognized e-sports as an official sport. We really see it as a growing market,” Southeast Asia head Paul Chen said.
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