Is The Esports World Cup Healthy for Esports?
With over 60 Million in Prize Money, I sure hope so.
What is the Esports World Cup?
Viewership and Criticism
ESportswashing?
Does this event benefit gamers.
Welcome to Beyond The Controller:
We are a few weeks into one of the largest gaming tournaments in history: The Esports World Cup, a multi-week and multi-discipline Esports event, will take place from July 3 to August 25 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The competition is supported by a grant from the Saudi Arabian government and organized by ESL FACEIT Group, a subsidiary of Savvy Games Group. Savvy Games Group, owned by the Saudi government’s Public Investment Fund, has its board chaired by HRH Crown Prince MBS, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler. ESL FACEIT Group oversees various entities, including the tournament organizer ESL, Esports Engine, the competition platform FACEIT, and the Esports and gaming festival company DreamHack.
The event boasts a prize pool of $60 million USD and features competitions across a range of popular games including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, Call of Duty: Warzone, Apex Legends, Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, EA Sports FC 24, Fortnite, Free Fire, Honor of Kings, League of Legends, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Overwatch 2, PUBG Battlegrounds, PUBG Mobile, ESL R1, Rocket League, StarCraft II, Street Fighter 6, Teamfight Tactics, TEKKEN 8, and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow 6 Siege.
Popular teams include, Team Liquid, FNATIC, Mouz, G2 Esports, Team Falcons, T1, Omega Esports, Flyquest and more.
The event, while benefiting a struggling industry, has faced its fair share of controversy. Criticisms come from how the event is being physically ran. Accusations of sportswashing involve using a major sporting event to deflect from political controversies while the event also provides advantages to players that are rarely seen in the Esports industry.
Viewership and Criticism
The Esports World Cup is the first time a group of people has taken on the challenge of running a video game tournament with such an extensive collection of games and a sizable prize pool. On paper, it’s a win. The result has been a middling live experience, streaming issues, and inconsistent attention to all its games.
Some titles hit really impressive viewership, such as
League of Legends hit the highest viewer count of 1,123,619 viewers with an average of 566,478 viewers on all combined platforms.
These are big numbers to consider the success of the tournament. But these numbers are nowhere near the peak for their respected games. League of Legends highest viewer count came from their Worlds Tournament in 2023 of over 6.7 Million viewers.
In contrast, these titles did not fare so well.
These three games have never had numbers as high as the goliath League of Legends or Counter Strike, but they have had a history of considerably more than this event. Last month, Evo 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada hosted one of the largest Street Fighter 6 events with a peak viewership of 403,710 viewers. The count from the Esports World Cup is middling in comparison.
Furthermore, the handling of scheduling for these events has received criticisms. For example, Street Fighter 6’s last chance qualifier had an 8-man bracket that lasted almost six hours. There were long breaks, ranging from thirty minutes to an hour, between matches, which caused a significant lull in the games. This is likely a major reason for the lack of viewership. Additionally, there is criticism regarding the absence of a live audience. The number of people watching live is much smaller compared to the League of Legends Worlds Event. In traditional sports, the audience is considered an extra team member, giving energy to the players. Live audiences bring hype to the experience. It is a spectacle that keeps the blood of the event pumping. A lack of a major live audience makes this event lose credibility.
Esportswashing
Like the Olympics, the World Cup, and any other world-scale sporting event, there has been a lot of talk of the ethics of the location. Many people are concerned about linking the tournament to Saudi Arabia, which has faced accusations of “sportswashing.”
As a community of gamers, it is important to think about where we take part and many prominent members within various Esport communities are declining to work the event.
The most talked about controversial issue is Saudi Arabia’s death penalty on homosexuality. Many of the players who might attend or view the event identify within the LGBTQ+. Players are asking, “Why should I support the Esports World Cup if they don’t respect my humanity or people I care about?”
United Arab Emirate player, NASR Adel “Bigbird” Anouche vouches that the middle east solely wants to see high-level gameplay. In response to the backlash, he made a comparison to the World Cup in Qatar posting an interview with 2022 Qatar World Cup CEO Nasser al Khater Discussing similar claims. In short, Khater assured that in the middle east, public display of affection from any person is severely frowned upon. So, as long as attendees do not show excessive PDA, (heavily implied towards someone within the LGBTQ+) then everything will be fine.
Saudi Arabia has been pushing Esports as a major factor within its country. It is the home of Game8 a major video game tutorial hub and even bought out Japanese arcade company SNK. The Royal Family is the one running this event. The proceeds return to them. While countries may not differ in shady practices as major businesses do in the United States running sports teams, the question is, Do gamers want the Saudi Arabian government, a country that promotes hate crimes, Illegal trafficking or other major illegal activities to become a face of Esports?
Imagine if Joe Biden actively promoted this event in the United States to deflect the optics of the United States funding of Palestinian Genocide and repair his reputation with the youth. Or Trump to use this to promote how cool he is while deflecting the attention to his myriad of criminal charges. This is how many view the tournament.
Who Does This Benefit?
The real question is: “Is this good for gaming?”
A dream of many gamers is being able to make a living from the thing we love, Videogames! As of now, roughly 95% of the careers within Esports is not the players, they are the journalists, the producers, organizer, or the shoutcasters. With 60 million USD in prize money, gamers can make a life-changing amount of money if they win. Viewership on stream with high numbers gives players a chance to pick up by future sponsorships and players can compete against high-level competitors they may not usually have the opportunity to face off.
Some of the most talented Esports players, who are also LGBTQ+ or allies, may not participate in this event. Does this event really give gamers the opportunity to see decisively who the strongest is while excluding some of the best?
Does this have a positive overall impact? Do gamers want to be represented by those who monopolize the industry and use it to hide political controversies? Some Esport ventures, like MLG and Overwatch League, have failed and seriously burned their communities. The Fighting Game Community has smaller viewership but has grown through grassroots competitions. However, ethics alone may not be enough to sustain it financially. As a parent, if I had the chance to win a million dollars playing games, I wouldn’t hesitate to do so for my family, even if it means compromising on ethics. Maybe that makes me a bad person? These events are complex and require considering multiple perspectives.
I don’t blame anyone for deciding to take part in the event. Everyone has the freedom to make their own decisions. These are my thoughts on the topic.
Thanks for reading.
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Good points, and concerns on where the industry is heading. Control or future sponsorship of events outside the US needs to show respect for all persons and players or it may threaten the livelihood of the industry. Have fun but most of show goodwill. The prizes are just icing on the cake!
This is so interesting.
Didn’t the same thing happen with Golf and its spinoff LIV Golf? They offered huge prize pools to ‘buy’ players off the PGA circuit.
Then PGA and LIV merged a few years later? Wonder if that’s the playbook here?
Anyway, this article got me thinking. Thanks for pointing out this event! Had no clue it was going on.