A nationwide e-sports tournament of the popular online game Valorant has been announced, with a prize pool of up to P500,000 up for grabs.
Riot Games has partnered with Philippine-based e-sports company Mineski Global for the online tournament.
Mineski Global now has a network of offices in Southeast Asia. Mineski has grown to a thousand employees working across five business units covering multiple aspects of e-sports.
Apart from the Philippines, the company has also established its presence in Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia, as well as representatives in Vietnam, Hong Kong/Macau, Taiwan, Myanmar, Cambodia, and India.
The Valorant online tournament is considered a big development in Philippine gaming, as it will involve not just professional Filipino online gamers, but also collegiate players.
The professional tournament has so far attracted more 100 professional teams across the Philippines, and many more expected to sign up.
A Valorant collegiate tournament has also been initiated and set to continue in 2021.
Valorant will now be include in the roster of games for the Philippines’ Youth E-sports Program (YEP) and National Interschool Cyber League, two government-backed e-sports programs for Filipino youth.
In a July announcement, YEP officials bared that Valorant will be included as an official tournament game in soon-to-be-announced national cross-campus e-sports league throughout the Philippines.
Ronald Robbins, founder of Mineski Philippines, said the Riot Games and Mineski partnership on Valorant is a “good development for Philippine gaming.”
Robbins, who is also a former top Filipino gamer, said “Asian talents have been struggling on FPS, for many years now, but this time, Asian gamers can compete with the rest of the world.”
Marlon Marcelo, YEP director, said the collegiate tournament offers a prize of P150,000, and has so far attracted 24 schools in the National Capital Region alone. Many more are expected to sign-up, he said.
He said YEP is eyeing to promote e-sports “to colleges and all universities, small or big,” and that many schools from Luzon and Mindanao have also signed up
Valorant, a first-person shooting (FPS) game, has been gaining global traction as premier online team game, typically pitting 5 versus 5 players in a strategic and tactical shooting game play.
The game was developed by Riot Games, and is reminiscent of CounterStrike, arguably the best FPS game ever developed for online tournaments.
Valorant, however, is a bit more tactical, as players can assume different roles, buy ammos and guns, and even acquire “abilities.”
As with modern games, the free-to-play Valorant also has an in-game economic system, where players can buy and use in-game “money.” It can also be tweaked or customized for a strategic battle, which suits online tournaments.