Southeast Asia plays catch-up
BEIJING - ESports tournaments are becoming the next big thing across Southeast Asia but the growth of the industry still depends on the development of infrastructure throughout the region.
Vietnam is a case in point. A rapidly developing country, it has relatively good infrastructure and Internet penetration. ESports is quickly gaining traction there thanks to a relatively large and young population and ongoing improvements in network infrastructure.
ESports, such as multiplayer online battle arena games, are competitions staged on electronic system platforms and mediated via human-computer interfaces.
Tournaments today, with prize money and even professional players, can provide live broadcasts and have the potential to attract vast numbers of spectators.
“Vietnam has a hundred million people and it also has the highest MAU (monthly active users) for League of Legends,” said Derek Cheung, founder and CEO of Hong Kong Esports, a company which owns a professional team of League of Legends players.
“(Vietnam has) around 5 million MAU. That’s a lot more compared to all the users in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao — together these only have 2 million MAU.
“(Vietnam) has a large population of young people. Basically every guy stays at home and plays computer games,” said Cheung.
Hong Kong Esports’ chief marketing officer Paul Chan also spoke of the country’s huge potential and its “whole different culture because of the language and the Internet speed”.
Unfortunately, other Southeast Asian countries do not have the same level of network infrastructure as Vietnam.
Alex Lim, secretary-general of the International e-Sports Federation (IeSF), noted the differences in gaming culture across Southeast Asia.
“Generally, Dota 2 and Counter-Strike, these first-person shooting games are the leading games at the moment. Southeast Asia has a very enthusiastic culture toward eSports, but the infrastructure in the region doesn’t really support such trends.”
In fact, network infrastructure is crucial when it comes to the localisation of new games.
“For instance, when League of Legends was admitted to South Korea with one of the best infrastructures for networks, the game quickly became trendy. On the other hand, it wasn’t as easy for Southeast Asia to apply these new gaming trends,” said Lim.
League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena game released by Los Angeles-based Riot Games in 2009.
In Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao, it is the dominant game with 90 per cent of the gaming population playing it. In places with weaker networks, players continue with older games.
“There is more loyalty toward games like Dota 2 or Counter-Strike. That’s why they stick to old games — they don’t have a lot of variety like South Korea or China,” said Lim.
He said that in the Philippines, for example, people play games at home but not everyone has the Internet.
“The gaming trends in these countries don’t change that fast. This also means that in Southeast Asia they have longer loyalty toward one game.”
Dota 2, an acronym for Defence of the Ancients, is a free-to-play multiplayer online battle arena game developed and published by Valve Corporation, based in Washington. The game was released three years ago.
Counter-Strike is a first-person war game that has become widely popular. It was co-developed by Valve and released in 1999. The latest version, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), was released in 2012.
“It’s a lot harder to get access and enjoy the game in Southeast Asia,” said Lim, adding however that Internet speeds and network connectivity did not necessarily “fully impact the trend”.What has become an antiquated game for most players in South Korea and China is still popular across Southeast Asia.
The reality of different network access and speeds creates different dynamics throughout Southeast Asia, with offline users flocking to the eSports tournament arenas — whereas in markets such as South Korea, there are plenty of live online channels to view games.
“Many people come to offline events, a lot more than in South Korea. It’s also because they don’t have other options, so when we have eSports events in Southeast Asia, we see a lot of people coming to the event,” said Lim.
The Singapore Cybersports & Online Gaming Association (SCOGA) took part in the inaugural Asean Games for eSports 2016 tournament organised by eSports Malaysia. SCOGA hosted local qualifiers to select Singapore’s representatives.
Asean Games for eSports 2016 saw gamers from across the Association of Southeast Asian Nations competing for an unprecedented regional prize pool of 1 million ringgit (US$250,000) over three days in March in Kuala Lumpur. The first prize went to a team of players from Thailand called Signature.Trust.
Speaking at the tournament launch in February, SCOGA president Kelvin Tan said: “We look forward to long-term cooperation with host nation Malaysia and participating countries to elevate eSports, foster cultural understanding among eSports athletes and build strong ties among Asean member countries.”
Tan and vice-president Reuben Conceicao represented Singapore at the launch. A memorandum of understanding was signed by Tan and eSports Malaysia president Latt Shariman Abdullah.
Lim of the IeSF said: “All the eSport communities are starting out late and the (Southeast Asian) countries don’t have full access, but it doesn’t mean there is less enthusiasm toward eSports.
“Every time when I go to Southeast Asian countries, offline, their enthusiasm is amazing.”
Lim recounted one such experience in the Philippines three years ago.
“We hosted the Asian Championship in 2013 in Cebu. It was on a third floor and packed with people. When the local Philippines team was beating the Korean team, the people there were jumping and cheering and you could feel the building moving.”
But while Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Indonesia have more hardcore eSports spectators, there are still few hardcore pro-gamers.
Cheung of Hong Kong Esports said tournament structures in Southeast Asia are not as organised as in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao where there is a huge gap between amateur and pro level.
“In Southeast Asia there’s no such thing. A lot of people play Dota 2, FIFA, Hearthstone, CS:GO and League of Legends, but none of them really are concentrated on one game,” he said.
For instance, in Asian centers outside of Southeast Asia, gaming tournaments are well organised — in A-league, B-league, college league or amateur league, to name just a few.
In Southeast Asia the tournament structure is just one league, said Cheung.
“So it’s really hard to differentiate (between) amateur players and the pro players, because in the whole region the quality of the gaming skill levels is improving slowly,” he said.
“Tournaments are needed because we need a stage for these people to show their talents.”
