Prince Faisal bin Bandar bin Sultan, chairman of the board of Directors of the Saudi Electronic Sports Federation, stressed that the new world sports conference was an important first step towards a bright and prosperous future for games and e-sports.
The second day witnessed the holding of six dialogue sessions focused on the positive impact of e-sports on other industries, how e-sports has evolved from a specialized subculture to a global phenomenon and its ability to merge with traditional sports to provide an unparalleled entertainment product for fans, while at the same time stimulating economic growth and bringing communities closer together.one session focused on the importance of the gaming industry, with which the audience has been associated for a long time and become part of its culture, while another dealt with the overlap of games with the art, fashion, film industry and creativity sectors.
The second day of the conference was marked by a special session that brought the attendees back to the oldest form of competitive sports, namely chess, during which Ralph Reichert, CEO of the World Cup esports Foundation, and Magnus Carlsen, world chess champion, discussed their ideas and experience in a session entitled “chess and esports: redefining strategy together – from the chessboard to the digital arena”.
Reichert said: “the essence of the eSports World Cup is Games, and when the rules are set, the competition is coordinated, and there is a winner and a loser, it turns into an esports, and this is how the whole thing developed, and in fact the same applies to traditional sports, including chess, one of the oldest competitive games, but it’s interesting because you play chess digitally in the same way as you play in reality and other games, such as football, for example, are completely different, and this is what makes eSports distinct because it is able to adapt to various types of sports, develop the game for the audience and increase their interaction with it”.
The 33 – year-old Carlsen, a five-time World Chess Championship winner , said: “chess has already evolved a lot to become more digital and has many esports elements, and I think the game in the Esports Arena is an exciting opportunity, where you play chess online, so there is already this element in the game-but what we need is a different environment with a higher audience and a better offer.
The new world sports conference provided a unique platform for leaders and pioneers of the esports, gaming, business, sports and entertainment sectors to explore this year’s theme “the future of fan culture” and aimed to consolidate Riyadh’s position as a global hub for sports, esports, sports and Entertainment, which is one of the key goals of the kingdom’s Vision 2030. By bringing together the most prominent entities in the field of e-sports, games, business, sports and entertainment, the conference supported the development and growth of these sectors in the Kingdom, and represented an ideal opportunity to improve the reality of games and e-sports in the Kingdom and the world, especially that the percentage of people playing E-games in Saudi Arabia reaches about 67% of the total population.
