Philippine esports has become more popular in the country after the 30th Southeast Asian Games. If you want to know about esports or gain more skills, you can consider any of the many courses available online. Some of the UK’s top universities and schools support students who want to pursue a career in esports.
The esports industry needs young professionals who have an understanding of the complexity and diversity of esports to work behind the scenes and keep the industry ticking. Esports organizations, teams, and publishers are scouting for the next generation of journalists, solicitors, developers, analysts, marketers as in any industry that needs to survive.
Staffordshire University offers an Esports BA (Hons) degree since September 2018 and built a state-of-the-art £8.7M Computing and Gaming facility for this purpose. The University of York has also partnered with ESL, one of the UK’s well-known esports organization in a ‘world-first esports collaboration, enabling students to pioneer and test new teaching methods and initiatives in a dedicated esports research facility.
Philippine esports in the Southeast Asian Games
The 2019 Southeast Asian Games was very memorable for Gold medalist Caviar Acampado from the Philippines. He won the Gold medal against his Singaporean opponent in the esports game Starcraft II. He contributed one of the three Gold medals won by the Philippines in the esports category of the SEA Games.
The Philippine esports team led a successful campaign on the recently concluded 2019 Southeast Asian Games. It was such an honor for the country to host the first-ever medal event for esports that was approved by the International Olympic Committee.
Esports gaming in the Philippines is a huge business. In We Are Social Report from 2019, 42 percent of internet users love to watch live streams of other players on online games, while 32 percent are the ones who are doing the live streaming of their games. Both percentages are about 10 to 20 percent higher than the global average.
Esports gaming in the Philippines
Esports gaming might not be as popular as basketball in the Philippines, but it still has overwhelming crowd support. Unlike basketball which is already in the heart of Filipinos, Philippine esports gaming is still establishing its name and rapport.
However, the Nationals, which is the Philippines’ first franchise-based esports committee, has other plans in mind. According to its commissioner, Darren Vitug:
The league wants to show that being a professional gamer is not as easy as it looks. Being a professional means a lot, and our players are out here to prove it.
The Nationals has three esports games in focus right now, DOTA 2 for computer games, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang for mobile phones, and Tekken 7 for game consoles. These games have weekly matches that are being live-streamed and are also shown on national television.
Philippine esports has certainly come a long way, being a part of the Nationals means you are eligible in earning as you train and play for the team. Salary of the player varies depending on their skills and roles in the team, salary ranges from $400- $1000 (20,000 pesos to 50,000 pesos).
In promoting esports in the country, we are able to scout and aqcuire exceptional talents in different esports games, and at the same time expand the community of esports enthusiasts in the Philippines.
Featured image by Mineski
