Produced by: Hitansh Gaur
Designed by: Mohsin Shaikh
Three months after the first edition of Olympic Esports series, Asian Games is offering seven medal sets in the Esports segment for seven titles for the first time. The sport was given official status at the Olympic Council of Asia in 2017 and it featured as a demonstration event in the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta
Before its induction into the Asian Games 2023, Esports featured in the Asian Indoor Games from 2007 to 2013. Last year, a Commonwealth Esports Championship was held along with the Commonwealth Games 2022 as a demonstration event
Almost all the events of Esports are expected to be a sell out at the Hangzhou Esports Centre. The event is the only sport at Asian GAmes 2023 with a lottery system to purchase tickets. Esports has a massive footprint in Asian countries, especially the mobile games segment
Credit: (Asian Electronic Sports Federation (AESF))
Seven titles have been selected as the official medal events for this year’s Asian Games. The titles are – DOTA 2, Peace Elite (PUBG Mobile), Arena of Valor, EA Sports Online (formerly FIFA Online 4), League of Legends, Dream Three Kingdoms 2 and Street Fighter V: Champion Edition
DOTA 2 is a game in the genre of Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) and a sequel to Defence of the Ancients (DOTA). The game is played between two teams of five players each. The objective is to attack your enemy’s home base (Ancient) while defending your own. The game is similar to chess as each player has its own unique abilities. The main objective in the game is to defeat the enemy king
Everyone is familiar with the first-person shooting game (PUBG Mobile), but for Asian Games 2023, the developer has made Peace Elite Asian Games Version, a special edition in which only sixteen players will play at a time in groups of four each. The teams will then compete in a shooting mission and at last drive their way to the finish line to determine the winner
Just like DOTA 2, League of Legends is also under the MOBA genre and is played in teams of five players each. Players have an option to choose from over 163 Champions (characters), but the tricky part is that they have to choose while anticipating which characters their opponents are choosing as both teams try to counter each other’s advantage. It’s also more fast paced than DOTA 2
Street Fighter V: Champion Edition is just a good old fighting game which explores various combat styles like boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, Krav Maga and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. The objective is to win a three-round match and choose a character wisely as each one has its own special skills. Coming to FIFA, though the partnership between EA Sports and FIFA is over, still the monopoly of the football game in Esports events is far from over. For the Asian Games, players will play EA Sports FC Online (formerly FIFA Online 4), the online version from 2018
Both of these games come under the genre of MOBA games. While the Arena of Valor is played in a team of five each, Dream Three Kingdoms 2 is played among teams with ten players each
India has sent a 15-team member team for the Esports events which will compete in four out of seven titles. India has not sent a team for Peace Elite (PUBG), Arena of Valor and Dream Three Kingdoms 2
FIFA Online 4: Charanjot Singh and Karman Singh TikkaStreet Fighter V Champion Edition: Mayank Prajapati and Ayan Biswas
League of Legends: Akshaj Shenoy (C), Samarth Arvind Trivedi, Mihir Ranjan, Aditya Selvaraj, Aakash Shandilya and Sanindhya Malik
DOTA 2: Darshan Bata (C), Krish Gupta, Abhishek Yadav, Ketan Goyal and Shubham Goli