An athlete warms up before the cycling final on the second day of the Singapore Olympic Esports Week.
Lin Yongde | Getty Images
SINGAPORE – Singapore will host the inaugural Olympic Esports Week, with more than 100 athletes from around the world competing in 10 virtual sports.
Alvin Tan, Singapore’s Minister of State for Culture, Community and Youth, said this was not the first time the IOC had worked with Singapore to “experiment and launch novel…events”.
It had previously appointed Singapore to host the inaugural 2010 Summer Youth Olympic GamesChen, who is also minister of state for trade and industry, said the event has since become a “top elite sporting event”.
The event kicked off Thursday at the Convention Center at Suntec City Mall, with athletes sparring across two competition arenas and attendees able to try out several video game zones.Singaporean President Halimah Yaakob appears via hologram and delivers the opening speech The Straits Times reported.
Some games include mobile archery game Based on Tic Tac Toe, taekwondo Matching with on-screen motion-tracking avatars, and virtual bikeplayers race across the Scottish countryside using the interactive platform Zwift.
There will also be virtual sports like baseball, chess, racing, sailing, shooting, tennis and dance.
The organization said it was the first live version of the virtual sports series created by the IOC.It builds on the success of the Olympic Virtual Series ahead of the 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, which Attracted 250,000 participants’, added the IOC.
Asian Esports
Southeast Asia is one of the world’s fastest-growing esports markets, with gamers accounting for 82% of the region’s urban online population, according to gaming research firm new zoo established.
According to statistics, the global e-sports market will be worth more than 1.38 billion US dollars in 2022, with an audience of 532 million politician.
Singapore is no stranger to esports competitions, having established the Singapore Gaming Association to grow the country’s esports ecosystem. The Singapore Tourism Board says the country has the potential to become “the destination of choice for esports enthusiasts around the world”. Central News Agency reported.
In 2022, the city-state hosts the finals of one of the world’s largest esports tournaments, The International. The first standalone Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Pro League will take place in 2021.
The local gaming industry is “small in size but has huge potential for growth”, International Trade Administrationhighlighting that the industry employs nearly 2,000 people in 2021.
Over 3,000 gaming industry professionals will gather in Singapore in October Asia Cologne Game Showis one of the largest tech and video game expos.
The government will continue to look for ways to support the growth of the games industry’s “dynamic space”, Ministry of Communications and Information said in the parliamentary reply.
Speaking on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Friday, Tan said Singapore is bullish on virtual sports and the Olympic esports week is an opportunity to “try out new ideas”.
The city-state is “taking a small step in that direction, like we did in F1,” he said, citing the first night race in F1 history held in Singapore in 2008.
However, some people in the game industry are not satisfied with the lineup of the Olympic e-sports week. local media reports.
Critics say it includes simulations of many sports, but not popular video games like Dota or Valorant.
Although the video game Fortnite is in sports shooting competitionThey say players compete to hit targets in a specially designed environment that lacks the battle royale features of the original game. This refers to a game mode in which players simultaneously fight each other to survive to the end.