Behind the Glory of Kings joining the E-sports World Cup: Saudi Arabia spent tens of billions of dollars to enter the game and seize the new sports consumption center
Recently, Honor of Kings announced that it has reached a cooperation with the Esports World Cup (Esports World Cup). In August this year, the Glory of Kings Mid-Season Invitational Tournament jointly created by the two parties will be held in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. It is understood that the prize pool of this competition is as high as 3 million US dollars, and 12 top King Glory teams from all over the world will participate. With the official announcement of a number of projects, the atmosphere of this e-sports World Cup, which is known as "the world's largest and the highest number of prize money", is gradually becoming stronger.
FIFA23 Esports World Cup in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in July 2023 Photo by IC photo
In recent years, as Saudi Arabia continues to increase its weight in the fields of sports, games, and e-sports, Saudi Arabia's traditional national image is changing step by step.
The prize pool is $3 million
Honor of Kings joins the Esports World Cup
When it comes to the Mid-Season Invitational, many KPL viewers may feel unfamiliar because this is a brand new event. At the beginning of January this year, Honor of Kings announced the "2024 Honor of Kings Global Event Plan", announcing that it would invest $15 million to build an international e-sports ecosystem.
The International includes the inaugural Continental Invitational (S1) in Istanbul, Turkey in March, S2 in June, and the Mid-Season Invitational in August, followed by the Annual Finals. At that time, the location of the latter three competitions was not specified.
In July 2023, at the FIFA23 Esports World Cup held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Dutch player Manuel Bajgiore won the championship According to IC photo
It is understood that the prize pool of this competition is as high as 3 million US dollars, and 12 top King Glory teams from all over the world will participate. Among them, the 2024 KPL Dream Team will participate as the ambassador of the KPL Honor of Kings Pro League, and the remaining 11 overseas teams include the outstanding teams determined by the Honor of Kings Intercontinental Invitational S2 and the newly released regional teams that have won the direct invitation.
The KPL Dream Team consists of 10 players, who will be voted on by a professional jury and the general public from the 2024 KPL Spring Tournament Permanent Seat Club roster (50% weight each).
The specific rules for selection are that the top 5 players in each of the five positions in the 2024 KPL Spring Tournament (confrontation lane, jungler, mid lane, wandering, and development lane) will be selected, and the remaining 5 players with the highest votes (regardless of position) in addition to the first 5 players will be selected, in addition, each KPL club can only have a maximum of 2 players selected to ensure the diversity and fairness of the team. Such a team model and selection method are unprecedented in the Honor of Kings career field.
Covers multiple popular projects
The Esports World Cup is beginning to take shape
Previously, the official announcement of the Decisive Peak also announced that it would join the Esports World Cup, and in July this year, the Decisive Peak Global Mid-Season Cup and the Decisive Peak International Women's Invitational Tournament will be held in Saudi Arabia. The Global Mid-Season Cup covers more than 40 countries and regions around the world, and the International Women's Invitational Tournament is participated by 12 national or regional teams, including the China region.
According to foreign media reports, the E-sports World Cup will also include the League of Legends project, and Riot Games, the game manufacturer of League of Legends, allows each region to send two teams to participate. However, there is no official information on this matter yet. In addition, there are also reports that StarCraft 2, Dota 2 and other projects will join the Saudi World Cup.
League of Legends games have a huge popularity around the world
While there are still some popular esports that haven't been officially announced, it's likely that the event will include a lot of the current hits, as originally announced.
The predecessor of the Esports World Cup is the flagship esports event Gamers8 in Saudi Arabia, and the prize pool of Gamers8 in 2023 is as high as 45 million US dollars, breaking the record of Ti10 (40 million US dollars) in the 2021 Dota 2 event, becoming the highest prize money event in the history of esports.
Last October, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced at the New Sports Global Summit that the Esports World Cup would be held in Riyadh in the summer of 2024. The inaugural Esports World Cup will feature popular esports from around the world, aiming to create the world's largest esports event with the highest prize money. Although it is called the World Cup, the teams participating in the Esports World Cup are still club-based, rather than national teams based on countries or regions as originally speculated, but in the name of the World Cup and the organizers' historical investment, the presentation of the event is exciting.
Saudi Arabia enters the esports game
Spend 10 billion yuan to build a global game e-sports center
Saudi Arabians, eager to move away from dependence on oil revenues and diversify their sources of fiscal revenue, have put forward Saudi Vision 2030, which is an important part of becoming a global gaming and esports hub.
To achieve this, Saudi Arabia's sovereign investment fund (PIF) first set up a company called Savvy Games Group, and in early 2022, the company announced the acquisition of ESL and Faceit for $1.5 billion and merged them into ESL FACEIT Group. ESL is one of the world's largest third-party event organizers, covering a wide range of programs. Faceit, on the other hand, is a matchmaking platform and tournament company.
In September 2022, Savvy Games Group announced that it would invest $38 billion in gaming and esports.
According to the official website of Gamers8
In terms of e-sports strategy, the direction of the Saudis is very clear: first, they invest in game companies and e-sports companies around the world, and hold various copyrights and event resources. After that, he went to Saudi Arabia to establish an event with global appeal, use the event to drive the development of the industry, and eventually build Saudi Arabia into a global game e-sports center.
In addition, Saudi Arabia also announced that it will invest 40 billion US dollars to set up 250 game companies in the region, creating 39,000 jobs, aiming to become a global gaming and esports center. But these expenditures are a drop in the bucket compared to Saudi Arabia's sovereign investment fund, which is close to $600 billion.
Oil, desert, camel bells, white robes...... Saudi Arabia is tearing off those labels in an effort to rebrand a new national card, with its foray into the esports industry a key part of its strategy.
Red Star News reporter Pei Han Zhou Yao
Edited by Ou Peng