SEA GAMES UNVEILS INAUGURAL ESPORTS STAGING
The 2019 Seagames esports opening ceremony began at the San Juan Arena with a series of videos about the months of preparation leading up to the event, produced by official Seagames esports partner, Razer.
A notable inclusion was Alvin Juban, Co-president of the Philippine Sea Games Esports Union, whose team worked hard to ensure the technical and logistical feasibility of hosting these events.
“... when we show them how successful we are in organizing this, we believe there will be more acceptance of esports,” Juban said. “We want a lot of young people to have brighter and bolder dreams.”
We also were given insight into the minds of the coaches and athletes as they prepared physically and mentally for the, at the time, upcoming games.
“There’s a misconception of people thinking that esports is just playing games. It’s actually not that simple,” explained Wong "Nutz" Jeng Yih, athlete from Singapore’s DOTA 2 team. “There’s a lot of hard work; you have to grind hours over and over again.”
After Razer’s presentation, flagbearers from each country were called to represent their motherlands on stage. Hearthstone athlete Jia Dee stepped up for the Philippines, followed by opening remarks by Hon. Mayor Francis Zamora of San Juan City, Razer CEO Minliang Tan, Asian Electronic Sports Federation President Kenneth Fok, and Congressman Abraham Tolentino
“This is a very historic day, because for the first time, esports will be played in the Southeast Asian Games,” said Mayor Zamora. “I was once an athlete myself—i used to play college basketball, so I understand the sacrifices that athletes have to undergo every single day.”
Min-liang ended his speech by declaring, “We’re gonna win as one, and be truly for gamers, by gamers.”
“The narrative throughout last year was that esports is not the next big thing; it’s already here,” Fok began. “A recent report indicated that over a billion people--over 1/8th of the world’s population--now follow esports, and is on the trend to surpass many traditional sports when it comes to overall views.”
All the speakers expressed thanks to the worldwide community of esports fans and athletes, and asked for continued support throughout and beyond the 2019 Seagames. Mayor Zamora mentioned that he “was told earlier that we will be doing our very best to make sure that esports will be played in the Tokyo Olympics,” and Congressman Tolentino promised that “[esports] will be promoted and will be part of the Asian Games in 2022 in Hangzhou, China.”
Philippine representative Jia then led the oath of sportsmanship, and the opening ceremony ended with the federation members signalling to let the games begin.
Mobile Legends: Bang Bang was the first game of the day, with Team Malaysia and Team Vietnam kicking off in the qualifiers. Shoutcasters Gian “Ilustrado” Bernardino and Em “Kaisaya” Dangla provided the commentary. Malaysia took the win, whose 2-marksman lineup surprised their opponents into losing control of the board. Team Vietnam put up a valiant defense of their turrets, but in the end fell to Malaysia’s Kimmy player.
Starcraft II’S playoffs came after Hearthstone. Mobile Legends: Bang Bang’s Group B match closed off the games.