Last week, the news broke that the Saudi Arabian city project Qiddiya had acquired an American talent management and brand consulting firm called RTS. Now, you may not have heard of RTS, but you may have heard of the video game event it co-owns: Evo.
Evo, the largest fighting game tournament in the world, is now owned in-part by the Saudi Arabian government. This government, criticised heavily for its human rights record, has brought the jewel of the fighting game community into its ever-growing sportswashing venture.
The reaction was loud and largely negative in the wake of this announcement, with a wave of fighting game fans and professionals decrying the move, pledging to never attend an Evo again, and urging others to focus their interest and money towards community-owned grassroots events. But will this manifest in reality, or remain just a topic-of-the-week on social media? To find out, I reached out to those who’ve dedicated a chunk of their lives to the genre to find out if the sentiment to go back to basics is real.
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“I fully expected it – it was a little sooner than I thought it would – but at some point it was bound to happen” says Jack “Kenno” Kenwright, a UK-based commentator. He continued by pointing to other games and the growing Saudi government presence there: “Rocket League, League of Legends, Counter Strike… All these games have already been largely assimilated. They’re being supported by certain companies that some people might have issues with, some people might not care about, and some people might be fine with. That’s been going on for ages and eventually it was going to come to the FGC. It’s the monkey’s paw isn’t it? People want a cheaper event with higher budgets and prize pools and it’s like, well, you got it!”