Expanding the Geography of Esports
If you’re a fan of competitive gaming, or esports, you probably know your share of gaming organizations and teams. One you may not have heard of is Empire Play, which is a part of Empire Entertainment in Africa. Empire Play is an organization that is dedicated to building the competitive esports scene within the Middle East and North Africa (or MENA) region. As it stands, this region doesn’t get as much focus, especially compared to the North American, Asian, Oceanic, and European regions. I have even learned of the large following for fighting games in South America. So, for Empire Play, it seems like it may be a big undertaking to grow their community when there’s so much focus on the others.
Empire Play has a web site for information about the tournaments they host, as well as Facebook and Twitter accounts. When looking at the Twitter account for Empire Play, it was created in November of 2018, so it seems it’s still relatively new to the esports scene. In this short time, they seem to have hosted a number of tournaments for games like League of Legends, Fortnite, Overwatch, Counterstrike, and other popular games.
However, it’s the upcoming event that got me looking into Empire Play and the MENA region: The Valorant Ignition Series x Empire Play North Africa Invitational. This tournament will start on June 26th, 2020. There will be eight teams from the region competing for a cash prize while the games are broadcast on the Empire Play twitch channel.
The tournament itself isn’t the best part. Riot Games, the company that created Valorant, is working with Empire Play for the tournament. The official Valorant twitter has made posts promoting the tournament as well. This is an absolutely huge opportunity for any gaming team, as well as the players themselves.
Valorant was officially released by Riot Games on June 2nd, 2020. It’s been less than a month since the release and the game company is supporting a tournament in a very under-represented region. According to the release on Empire Play’s web site, this is the first time a game developer has directly shown interest in the region, especially for a game that was released so recently.
For Empire Play and the MENA region, this tournament represents an incredible opportunity to showcase some of their best players, as well las hopefully gain more interest from other companies. There are a few players from the Middle East that have been able to gain a following and have a successful career. With this tournament, that number may be able to grow, as well as adding players from the North African region. The official Valorant post listed Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia as countries with teams participating. I hope these teams and their players are able to help the gaming scene grow in their communities with the spotlight this tournament will bring.
As mentioned in the posts by Valorant and Empire Play, the tournament will be broadcasted from the Empire Play Twitch, and the commentary will be in Arabic. The tournament will run from June 26th thru the 28th, with game play starting at 6PM GMT +1 (which would be 10AM PST).
The post on Empire Play’s pages only showed the team logos, but I did my best to find out which teams they were. I was able to find out all but one, which is the bottom left logo that looks like a red V and a grey swoop. ** (EDIT: They’ve posted a list and this team is DIVINE VENDETTA) But here are the teams I was able to figure out:
· Knights of Bizterin Rise, or KBR Esports from Tunisia (www.facebook.com/KBR.Esports)
· Simplicity Gaming, or SPL Gaming from Tunisia (www.facebook.com/SPLgaming)
· Team WaVii, Algeria (https://www.facebook.com/teamwavii/)
· Team Viboras, Morocco (www.facebook.com/teamviboras)
· Divine Vendetta (www.facebook.com/divinevendettaofficial and https://twitter.com/divinevendetta
· Team Exalted, Algeria (www.facebook.com/Exalted.esports1 and www.twitter.com/exalted_team)
· Eternity Esports from Morocco (www.facebook.com/etyesports1 and www.twitter.com/etyesports)
· Stade Tunisian Esports, Tunisia (www.facebook.com/StadeEsports)https://m.facebook.com/divinevendettaofficial/
Hopefully you’ll be able to check out some of the games and support the esports scene in the MENA region. I applaud Riot Games and Valorant for giving a spotlight to the region and hope it’s a start to better overall support to esports in Africa and the Middle East as a whole.
https://www.twitch.tv/empireplay/profile
