The Esports World Cup: serious tournament or soft power play?, 19/06/2025
A little from Column A, a little from Column B
We examine the investment and intent behind the Saudi-backed Esports World Cup
Xbox’s next-gen console chip opens the doorway to Steam on consoles
TRON: Catalyst puts the energy into the week’s releases
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Hello VGIM-ers,
I’m back in the hot seat following Tom Regan’s first fantastic VGIM. I’m looking forward to introducing George Young to you all next week.
This is my penultimate newsletter before I head out on book leave. So I’ll use it for some utterly shameless self-promotion, as I’m wont to do.
While Tom was slaving over last week’s edition, I gave a couple of talks about the games business to various bigwigs.
I briefed the Games Rating Authority’s Appeals Panel on the state of the games industry, which included a definitely not-at-all confusing explanation of why Balatro is fantastic.
I then rolled out a similar presentation to various dignitaries at City Hall in London, where we had a deeper chat about how to reach players with public information campaigns.
If you’re interested in my future speaking engagements, I’m hosting a panel for BAFTA on Saturday about innovative sources of video games funding.
And lastly, I’m happy to reveal the speaker line-up for this year’s VGIM Business Breakfast at Develop: Brighton - sponsored by Games Press.
Those of you who have grabbed tickets will be lucky enough to hear from Dan Dawkins, Matthew Reynolds and Tracey McGarrigan about the past, present and future of the video games media.
You can also join the waitlist for the event here, if you didn’t grab a ticket during the early rush.
The big read - The Esports World Cup: serious tournament or soft power play?
Back again: The Esports World Cup restarts in a little over three weeks. The second annual festival of competitive gaming will run for seven weeks between July 7th to August 24th in Riyadh, with 200 clubs competing in 24 games across 25 tournaments for a combined prize pot of over $70m.
Statement of intent: But as was the case with last year’s tournament, questions have been raised about its true purpose. The event, which is organised by Riyadh-based not-for-profit organisation The Esports World Cup Foundation, has been painted as an arm of Saudi Arabia’s soft power strategy - the digital aspect to its ‘sportwashing’ aims, if you will.
Nuance in between: So, is the Esports World Cup a genuine centrepiece event for the $3bn global esports sector? Or is it a vehicle for Saudi influence? The answer, of course, is that it is both. And by being both, it makes it that much harder to disentangle state-building projects from the esports and video games industries.
Doing it properly
Serious effort: Saudi Arabia’s plan to make it the home of the international esports economy is deadly serious. Mike McCabe, COO of the Esports World Cup Foundation and former Nike, EA and Epic Games exec, is crystal clear about Riyadh’s ambition to be the beating heart of competitive gaming.
Erecting the tent: “The Esports World Cup is a really unique opportunity to create a tent pole moment that brings the whole ecosystem together - the clubs, the publishers, the fans and a multitude of IPs,” he said. “It’s the idea of bringing all those elements together to help support the ecosystem, both from a growth and a sustainability perspective.”
Diagnosed successfully: The Foundation has correctly identified a problem that exists in the industry. The esports economy has historically been hilariously fractured, with teams, competition organisers, publishers and the moneymen - whether brands or investors - often pulling in different directions. Moments like the pandemic, where the esports sector quickly grew as physical sports were briefly taken off the table, have generally been the exception rather than the rule for an industry that’s struggled to sustainably and strategically grow.
Concentration of power: Therefore, building a big tournament that pulls the ecosystem together and sustainably funds its key players (literally, in some cases) makes a lot of sense. “From our perspective, it’s about creating something additive to the ecosystem,” Mike explains. “So we work really closely with all of the key publishers that we’re working with at the moment and finding where there are gaps that we can help fill…That will ultimately help grow the ecosystem for all.”
2030 Vision: And despite Saudi Arabia’s historic reputation for failing to foster much fun (that’s Wahhabism for you), Riyadh’s pitch to be the epicentre of esports has serious backing from the modern state. Vision 2030, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s plan to diversify the Saudi economy away from oil with the help of its Public Investment Fund (PIF), prioritised investment in sports and technology as part of the national modernisation drive when it was first announced in 2016. Esports is the natural fusion of both, making it a perfect fit for a young sports-mad population.
Gamer nation: “I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere where there are so many passionate gamers,” Mike said. “I’m sure you’ve been given many of the stats about the incredibly young population that’s close to 75% under [the age of] 35. But what always gets me is that 75% of the population identifies as a gamer in some form. And so with that young audience, you’ve got this incredible desire to play and engage.”
Growing fast: So far, this investment has been economically beneficial for the esports industry and Saudi Arabia The World Cup’s implementation of a ‘club championship’ model for its multi-million dollar prize pool has flushed hundreds of teams with much-needed cash to fund their operations. The Esports World Cup festival, which runs alongside the tournament, provided a reason for 2.5m people to brave Riyadh’s August heat last year in line with the country’s wider tourism goals. And the half a billion views on Esports World Cup content online suggests that the tournament also served a need for competitive gaming enthusiasts across the world.
Face-hugging the fun
Perceptive: So, is it a mistake to see the Esports World Cup as a well-funded soft power play? Nope. Instead, it’s better to view the seriousness with which the tournament is organised as a sign of just how important games, esports and sport are to Saudi Arabia’s influence strategy.
Top down: James Montague is a football journalist and author of Engulfed: How Saudi Arabia Bought Sport And The World, which has an entire chapter about his visit to last year’s competition. And what I found interesting throughout my chat with James is how much he mirrored what Mike told me.
Youthful energy: “Mohammed bin Salman is young. It is very unusual to have someone in such a direct position of power where they could within a generation become King,” he said, referencing the country’s tendency to put ageing sons of Ibn Saud, the founder of the nation, into power. “And this guy comes in and says right, ‘well we are dependent on oil, it's a gift and it makes us one of the richest countries in the world.’ But we need to diversify the economy away from this because it is not going to last.”
I know writers who use subtext and they’re all cowards: But while James does agree that Saudi interest in esports - in no small part because, in his words, “MbS is a Gamer” - he believes that it cannot be untangled from the soft-power subtext that is threaded beneath it.
Qatar heroes: According to James, Saudi Arabia’s initial investment into sports was inspired by Qatar’s success in using football - particularly its successful, but deeply controversial, bid to host the 2022 World Cup - to accrue regional status. But after making initial headway in sports such as boxing via its own sports strategy, Riyadh’s investment in the sector accelerated after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 as it tried to attract people back towards the country and its Crown Prince.
Do-up jobs: “Investments in sport were used as a way of repairing the reputation of Mohammed bin Salman and the Saudi state,” James explained. “You find something that you know is a well-loved institution that is down on its luck,” said James. “By buying it, buffing it up and making a success of it, you turn it into something that you have a lot of very grateful people who walk through a wall to support you and back you.”
Toon internet army: James cited the PIF’s purchase of Newcastle United as an example of this, with its fans taking to social media to defend the club’s Saudi Arabian owners after they rescued the team from the ownership of unpopular businessman Mike Ashley.
Escaping the winter:But it could easily be applied to the esports industry too. As mentioned in a previous VGIM, Saudi Arabia’s investment in video games and esports started in 2017, but gathered pace in 2022 with the purchase of ESL and FACE IT in February 2022. This meant that Saudi Arabia was investing as the esports winter began to bite, increasing the value of its support to the industry - and its millions of fans - just as it began to teeter under post-pandemic pressures.
Power play: So when the Crown Prince founded the Esports World Cup Foundation in October 2023, the state was perfectly placed to offer the struggling sector the venues, organising infrastructure and cash it needed to keep the virtual show on the road.
Face hugging: The result is that Saudi influence is now practically inescapable in all corners of the industry. “No conversation can take place without them [Saudi Arabia] being there,” James said. “If you wanted to extricate Saudi Arabia on moral issues, you’d basically have to kill yourself to do it. It’s like the face hugger in Alien. They try to take if off John Hurt, but they can’t without killing him.”
Esports Engulfed?
Reality check: And this is the tricky truth about the Esports World Cup. The tournament is a serious structural investment in the future of competitive gaming, which is conducted by a state that sees the industry as part of its economic and cultural future in a way others haven’t. But it’s also a successful ‘face-hugging’ exercise by Saudi Arabia, which has cleverly transformed an investment of a couple of billion dollars into influence in almost every corner of the esports world - something that can be used to bolster its public perception in the process.
No GeoGuess Appearance: The question is what to do about it. For many, the answer has been to steer clear of the tournament. GeoGuessr, the game where players identify locations around the world as quickly as possible, announced it was withdrawing from the Esports World Cup last month following community pressure. “We were excited to have Geoguessr be part of the festival, but they chose not to be,” said Mike “We fully respect their decision and that’s fine,” he said.
Influencing from the inside?: Others have sought to use their participation in the tournament as an attempt to bring their values to Saudi Arabia. Team Liquid, for example, took part in last year’s event while wearing rainbow-coloured laces, armbands and Pride jerseys after its Co-CEO Steve Arhancet pushed the point with tournament organisers.
Liquidity issues: But even with teams and organisations arguing that they’re trying to change values from within, the economic importance of the Esports World Cup to their existence makes it harder for them to push much further. “Team Liquid is probably one of the most successful esports team of all time, and they’re saying we can’t run a business without involvement in this,” said James. “You either play by Saudi rules, or you go home.”
Food for thought: Saudi Arabia’s sophisticated support for esports has shown how a state can use its resources to harden soft power. And while the Esports World Cup will likely provide plenty of entertainment for competitive gaming fans in Riyadh and beyond, it’s also a reminder that games and esports are an increasingly active part of the wider culture war shaping our politics.
News in brief
Chips Ahoy: Xbox has revealed that the new AMD chip for its next generation console “is not locked to a single store.” The news, which was announced earlier this week, suggests that the rumours that Microsoft is looking to allow its devices to run Steam side-by-side with its own Game Pass ecosystem could be on the money.
Nexon Tencent’s acquisition list?: The Korean games industry has issued a statement protesting Tencent’s reported attempt to acquire Nexon for $15bn on national security grounds. The Korea Game Society said that the proposed deal - first reported in Bloomberg - “is a strategic move to dominate one of the most important industries in Korea." It has called on the Government to designate games companies as one of the country’s national strategic technologies.
Trade wars continue: Is Korea’s game society right to be worried about China stretching its influence globally? Developing news out of Shenzhen isn’t likely to quell its fears. The region’s new strategy to boost digital services trade by 55% by 2035 includes measures to help games companies set up R&D and publishing centres abroad to boost growth.
It’s turning into a Marathon, not a sprint: Bungie has announced that it is indefinitely delaying the release of Marathon. The game was meant to launch in September. But following its Alpha release and a lukewarm reception to a recent trailer drop, Bungie has postponed the game indefinitely - offering us nothing more than a promise of more information about it in the Autumn.
Not so ICE and easy: In the week where Grow A Garden broke the record for most concurrent online players in a video game in history, Taylor Lorenz has the scoop on the ‘ICE agents versus protestors’ Roblox experience that’s doing the rounds at the moment. Well, they do say that creating stuff is how we make sense of the world around us…
Moving on
Nina Collins has joined Auroch Digital as Business Development Director…Conor Clarke is the new Marketing Executive at ustwo games…Neil McFarland is the new Head of Gaming at Sky…Casey Vatcher is the new Head of Branch Sales and Marketing at Konami…And Nic Murfett has been promoted to Vice President & Associate General Counsel, Publishing & Global Affairs at Take-Two Interactive…
Jobs ahoy
Epic Games has reposted its job opening for a Public Policy Director (Competition) if you fancy booting Apple in another jurisdiction…Blizzard Entertainment is snapping up a Senior Social Media Specialist for EMEA…Run the reputational gauntlet as Senior Economy Designer - EA Sports over at Electronic Arts…Naughty Dog still needs a Senior Communications Manager…And Discord would like you to be their Safety by Design Expert for its Developer Platform…
Events and conferences
Games for Change, New York - 26th-27th June
Develop, Brighton - 7th-9th July
VGIM Business Breakfast sponsored by Games Press, Brighton - 8th July
Chinajoy, Shanghai - 1st-4th August
Siggraph, Vancouver - 10th-14th August
Games of the week
TRON: Catalyst - Bithell Games’s new isometric action adventure set in the Tron universe is available across platforms right this second.
Gex Trilogy - When you can’t get the best because Nintendo hasn’t released a new Mario game with the Switch 2, get the rest with the Gex Trilogy.
Lost in Random: The Eternal Die - It’s Hades with extra dice throwing.
Before you go…
Why was the match clock running absurdly fast in the TV news highlights of Serbia’s 3-0 victory over Andorra last weekend?
Because the channel was accidentally broadcasting footage of an eFootball Pro match instead of the actual footage of the game.
Close enough, eh?
I appreciate your fair view on this topic in some parts, and I can assure you that even the crown prince himself loves video games. see here: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ILklFSD5iXw
So even now in Saudi we start hearing about new companies and Saudi games coming to Steam this year. So it is not an attempt to polish Saudi Arabia's image and its human rights record. And, just like in the World Cup in Qatar, they prohibited drinking alcoholic beverages during the game matches, and everybody was happy, even considering one of the safest World Cups ever for women and fans in general. About the rainbow, we see even in the USA and many other countries, a lot of people refuse to force these rainbow agendas on their people and their children, so trying to make it a human rights issue is ridiculous. It's simply respecting other countries' religions and cultures.
And Concord failure is not far from remembering and many other games that force their rainbow agendas on players, and if you can't see these games and why they failed, I don't know what to say.
If you just realize that we are a young population and as you said, about 75% of Saudi people are 35 and under so it's not strange to see the World Cup for gamers in an event like Riyadh season.
About the Newcastle accusation, the latest numbers show that Saudi making a lot of money by investing in football. So it's real investing, not polishing Saudi image.
This is why I beleive in our forign minister when he said: if Saudi arabia did anything, people go skeptical about it and have to critisize it, it's damn if you do, damn if you don't. So we will do what we see is right and what represents us.
Thank you George
Rami Almalki
Saudi Arabia
Good summary of the situation. Thanks