ESGS 2015: A Bit of the Old, a Bit of the New

Do you like e-sports? Well even if you don’t it’s a growing industry and several investors are already looking into finding a way to stop this sentence from sounding like the introduction to an article about startup BPO’s.

Actually getting to the topic at hand, the E-Sports Gaming Summit (that’s ESGS for short) is an upcoming event this October that’s looking to showcase…well, games. We got ahold of Mr. Joebert Yu, the event’s organizer, for a few words about the summit and a bit about e-sports in general.

“Compare in the past, esports now has become more well known throughout the country. As the days, weeks, months and years go by, we can only hope that it continues to grow and more people and companies, specially in the mainstream market, will acknowledge and accept the popularity and possibly see the opportunity it can bring them.”

It’s no secret that your typical Filipino schoolchild spends roughly two to three hours a day (DISCLAIMER: that figure is purely guesswork) in an internet shop with some MOBA like DotA or League of Legends. Much of the hype for ESGS will of course be for a number of e-sports competitions, but the FGC and a number of game dev companies get a piece of the pie too.

“For this year, there will be atleast one international gaming company that would be joining as an exhibitor (announcement will come later). We will also be introducing an area called Indie Arena where local (and possibly international) developers/programmers, that does not have the means to fully ran a big company or studio, get to showcase their games to the public and possibly to companies that might be interested to buy their game or hire him/her. We will also be reintroducing a fighting game brand called Brawlfest at the event. This will be an area where it will only be focusing on different fighting game competitions and will act as its own event at ESGS 2015. I co-organized Brawlfest last 2013 but it was only a very small side event at that time.”

ESGS is going to be in its second year this October, with the potential of having some international gaming companies added to the mix; as of our interview with Mr. Yu, he stated that the announcement of any international exhibitor(s) will be coming later. He ended our brief session with some heartfelt words of thanks:

“This event would not have been possible primary without our Co-Presenter of ESGS 2015: PLDT Home and GameX. I would like to thank them for supporting our concept and ideals that we wanted to create. Thank you to our the current Gold Sponsor, MSI, and Silver Sponsors, Mineski Infinity, Monster Energy and Sports 5 for supporting our event as well. And also thank you to all the gaming company exhibitors and partners that confirmed their participation this year. And lastly, the people who are part of behind the scenes that makes this event running, thank you very much. Without each and everyone one of you, this event will never ever materialize.”

You can follow ESGS’s news on their own page and for our brothers and sisters in the FGC, Brawlfest has its own spot on Facebook.