Esports players are medal athletes in the upcoming SEA Games 2019
That’s right, the moment we’ve been waiting for for a long time has come closer than ever, which is a formal recognition of video players as athletes at all levels. With the 2018 Asian Games and now the South East Asian Games, we are one step away from the largest official recognition in history
The Southeast Asian Games is one of the largest sport events in the world and the second largest Asian event, held every two years under the supervision of the International Olympic Committee and the Olympic Council of Asia. This event usually includes a large number of physical sports, but the next iteration will be the first to provide video games to the audience in the Philippines in 2019.
The announcement was made by the Philippine Asian Games Organizing Committee, where it was revealed that the well-known peripherals manufacturer Razer will be the official sponsor of the Philippine athletes in this competition. Not only that, the winners will be honored with six gold medals distributed through a number of platforms and games, including two for the PC, two for mobile games and finally two medals for home consoles.
“Gamers are an important part of the community,” President Alan Peter said of the upcoming event, which will be the first sports event to include eSports officially, after being presented as a demonstration sport at the 2018 Asian Games only to be met with a great success that will make it official at the 2022 edition.
Qualifiers will be held to determine the contestants before the start of the tournament, but the competitive games are not yet revealed. What we know now is that Mobile Legends: Bang Bang will be on that list, a MOBA game for smartphones.
Unfortunately, the list of competitive games will lack a number of titles because of the limits set by the International Olympic Committee, which excludes games “violent” or containing any form of gambling from the competitions. This means that we will not see any Counter-Strikes or Tekkens for example.
“We can not have in the Olympic program a game that promotes violence or discrimination.” The chairman of IOC Thomas Bach said. “So-called killer games. They, from our point of view, are contradictory to the Olympic values and cannot therefor be accepted.”
However, the final list will be unveiled on December 15, while the Southeast Asian Games will be held on November 30, 2019, nearly a year from now.
