That's awesome.
I image it's quite hard to push eSports in places where it's never been big. It's similar in the UK, where the scene exists, but the quality of players isn't there, and the interest from sponsors isn't there either.
Definitely one of the biggest issues is the high turn over of people here. Places like the USA, Europe, and regionally Jordan have a more solid foundation to build their scenes. Dubai, and the GCC in general, have populations that are constantly in flux because they compromise mostly of foreigners. Because of that we have a lot of 'uneducated'/young gamers who are superficially interested in competitive gaming, so you see a lot of exploitation from groups like Power League Gaming who take advantage of foreign companies unwillingness to personally invest in the region and hold sham events and tournaments just to say they have 'reach' in the region.
Since a lot of the people affected by their actions will leave the country, you don't have much accountability for your actions sadly.
There are other orgs here but they're generally insular/ afraid of new people so it's hard to connect with them or build better connections. For all intents and purposes, I act like I'm the first person to do this since everyone I've met doesn't want to grow the field if it means other people will enter it.
You'll find a lot of talk of "we're doing it for the community" and "we're only for the gamers" from orgs here and then find out they're taking out of prize pools and getting nice deals with sponsors. I'm upfront about our 'for profit' status which has bothered some people but I think it's healthier for everyone approaching it like that.
That's definitely cool!
Thanks, it's something that needs a lot of work and we're always pushing to improve the quality of our broadcasts. We don't have anything or anyone to really go off of here, so we're kind of working on building a good foundation for casting in the region outside of the few corporate 'shill' casters here. Slow and steady.
