The First Olympic Esports Games to Be Held in Saudi Arabia in 2025

Every single person you see on an esports broadcast at this event compromised their morals for the bag. And most are huge hypocrites over human rights abuses. Disgraceful for Epic and Capcom to work in Saudi. Expected from Riot games, though.

I think it’s a joke & sad on several levels. expect more generic unoriginal soulless sweaty tryhard live service trash in the future for a quick buck .

and this is coming from someone that loves multiplayer but the industry these past years have been trash imo. As soon as they started allowing video games to punish you in real time timeout for leaving non-competitive casual matches i knew it was downhill from there. I would’ve respected this more if they had grass touching at the olympics instead .

Cool I guess, gaming is international, not only in japan or western 😃

@zhoont A public corporations doesn't have morals, the pretend they have, but they're not. If esg/dei score gone and the saudi is the one that bought most of the stocks and can provide the lowest rate of interest, all of the pandering will be gone in second lol.

Also not every country have the same morals as western country, it's beyond arrogant to expect western morals anywhere that's not western.

@nomither6 when you say "they started allowing video games" you mean the players right? Because whatever situation the industry is right now is thanks to what people buy and pay for.

If people didn't use money in the services you describe those services wouldn't exist.

Hahahahahahahahahahaha

Good luck having the best of the best when there’s a large contingent of LGBTQ+ players at the highest level. The FGC specifically is a community. If any of these players care about their fellow competitors, they’ll boycott. The world is a big place, there are plenty countries where it isn’t downright dangerous for swathes of society to be themselves.

Seeing the attempted and failed boycotts will be amusing I guess.

@wiiware freedom of speech and freedom of expression should be protected by government, and the Saudi government kills people for those things. Western values include human rights, so if you want to tell me that part of a culture includes fragrant disregard for the rights of man, then that culture ought to change and certainly does not warrant respect. Saudi government is a bunch of thugs and I'm glad I can speak that without being thrown in prison

@wiiware "Also not every country have the same morals as western country, it's beyond arrogant to expect western morals anywhere that's not western."

I would argue that not advocating for the oppression of women, the trafficking of poor migrant workers, or imprisonment, lashing, and death sentences for being gay, has nothing to do with western morals, and everything to do with basic human decency.

I'm a huge DOTA fan so I have watched and enjoyed events organized by the Saudi, China, Russia and the USA for years so I'm not going to play Mr. Morality.

This could be a cool event but I'm guessing this is actually going to divide players by country and that would make the event boring because certain countries just dominate in particular games like China and Korea in LOL or Pakistan and Korea in Tekken. If it wasn't for Menard USA and Japan would just dominate Street Fighter lol.

Now that we are talking about the Saudi, saw las week people are ready to "boycott" EVO thanks to someone who made the rumor that the 3rd EVO of the year is going to be in Riyadh because Sony was part of the EWC (doesn't make sense, the Saudi make almost all their events in Europe and they recommend their partners to do the same because they know were the money is). I respect if people want to fight against whatever Saudi Arabia are doing with their money and videogames but they are owners of SNK, they own a part of Nintendo, now they are working with Capcom and Tencent, CEO (the event) and many other events worked with the EWC. DOTA, 6, CS and COD are also part of the EWC so Valve, Ubi and MS are in too. Basically they are just everywhere so I expect for the internet people to do the same with every company and not only "boycott" the ones they don't like and act like the rest are innocent LOL.

If Capcom involved then i hope the same for Bamco, SNK, and ArcSys. As a big fighting games fans, i want to see the genre get more recognition while the FGC can get out from poverty. Capcom already started the move with 1 million U$D prize money for Capcom Cup. And this month + August there's Esports World Cup event with 60 million U$D prize money that includes SF 6 and Tekken 8.

@zhoont "Western values include human rights"

Stop. Your statement is straight out ignorant considering how western countries has a very long history as invaders and colonizers who did tons of crimes against human right. I'm sure that western country who dropped two atom bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki which killed hundreds of thousands of innocents civillians including women, kids, and elderly as well crippled unknown numbers of civillians care a lot about "human right values". You should look at your own country who are a big mess right now before you judge other country.

@PuppetMaster Are you trying to conflate decriminalisation of homosexuality with dropping nuclear bombs in 1945? I’m not even sure what point you’re trying to make. Yeah, let’s just stone people to death in countries uninvolved in the Pacific theatre of WW2 because the US dropped a nuke on Hiroshima. Murder is now legal because of the Defenestrations of Prague that one time? I can’t condemn genocide because there’s a high possibility that somewhere down the line, my ancestors probably did bad things too? Christ almighty, I read an awful lot of brain rot on here but that takes the cake. You get more compelling arguments from a Greggs sausage roll.

@PuppetMaster "look within" is a lovely deflection from criticism of a government that murders it's own own citizens for what they say or who they love. I'm lucky my own country's government protects my freedom of speech and expression. Its actually rare to find those protections outside the west, and I know from experience!

@nessisonett it's always the FGC fans, man

Damn the mix of one of the most corrupt institution on the planet (the IOC), one of the most immoral country and amoral profit-based enterprises is some way a very good symbol for today's world.
Add a pinch of war with a Call of Duty tournament and we can yell bingo.

If I had even a tiny interest in watching these "olympics", it'd now be completely gone. Not that this will change anything. Most people have no moral compass so they'll be more than fine.

Devil's asvocate, It's far too reductive to blindly judge the Saudi regime and feel morally superior. As if the West is so very different to Saudi. The West tries to assassinate presidents, is at war against 'the patriarchy' that is responsible for civilised society, gaslights people into believing men can be women, allows children to be mutilated or medicated, starts wars all over the world, put profits ahead of the health of the rest of the world...Saudi and the West are as bad as each other for different reasons. I can see why we demonise Saudi for thier human rights records but from their point of view what countries like America does, the constant wars they start ect, they'd say the same.

@zhoont Sure, I agree freedom of speech is important, every country has law though, so you can't just do whatever you want. As long as that country doesn't restrict it's people to move out (like north korea), people can move out to others country that suits them better.

@Intr1n5ic I guess that morals doesn't matter to corporations, money is more important to them, you're a fools if you're expecting morals from public company 🤷🏻

I will not even argue with the whole Human Right Violations thing because that is a can of worms in itself.

Anyways, happy for them and I hope this works.

I mean, I’m not a big esports fan or an Olympic fan. But good luck to them I guess.

Let's see the activists continue to turn a blind eye to women's and lgbt rights in a place where its actually a life or death situation. This is sad. Do your thing, but I'd advocate to not support Saudi Arabia.

@riceNpea Valid points, but at least the west doesn't strictly practice Sharia law or throw gays off buildings or beheads people in the street.

@Ludacritz no the West doesn't. What it does do that Saudi doesn't is have mass murder shootings, stabbings and rampant theft from properties and houses, to name a few.

It pointless making direct comparisons because both have awful atrocities perpetrated within their societies. To demonise Saudi is all well and good but let's not pretend the West is better by default.

"Show Your Pride with Epic Games in Rainbow Royale 2022"
"Celebrating Pride Month with Capcom Creators"
"We’re celebrating this year with more in-game events and goodies, an updated Pride playlist, and a brand new community hub to showcase the incredible creativity across LGBTQIA+ gaming communities." (Riot Games)
As always, their money is NOT where their mouth is.

Good thing I don't care about either side or esports at all.

I stopped reading when I saw "Olympics" and "eSports" then realized it wasn't April 1st...

I wonder what Khashoggi would have said about this if he wasn't murdered

@Intr1n5ic I would like the West to stay away from countries like that in general. It all the basic human rights that are trampled on in those countries.

@riceNpea Slavery, no women rights, revenge for honor, brutal punishment for small crimes. Yeah I'll be good not watching this. And you don't believe stealing and killing does not happen there?

@Flaming_Kaiser do you really think I could believe that? I mean in massive nimbers like the west, lets face it, get caught stealing in Saudi and it's not a slap on the wrist its hand taken off at the wrist. Though I can see I was unclear.

My point is why demonise Saudi when the West is as bad in different ways. Look at your country. Massive homelessness, mental health problems and drug abuse, mexican cartels widespread, some cities have dangerous no go areas, mass shootings, media propaganda rife, useless possibly complicit Secret Service who allow a president to be shot....

We have problems the Saudis don't and visa versa. Neither society is fair or equitable.

The IOC I just as morally bankrupt as FIFA they don't care about human suffering or better said human rights.

@riceNpea That's fair cutting of someone's hands for stealing. But treating your wife as a dog or not paying workers and using them as slaves is free gains or better said there is only justice for the rich and the tourist. 😜

Oh i want to add something the worst criminals go there to evade getting prosecution here you are singing the praise that they cut off hands of people that steal. 👍

@riceNpea Yeah, but that's not the atate doing that against its own people as it is in Saudi Arabia.