Peripheral company Razer has announced a standalone esports tournament in the region to take place at the end of June, in a bid to capitalise on the spike of interest in esports in South East Asia after it debuted in the SEA Games last year.
The online event — set to be titled “Razer Southeast Asian Invitational 2020” — will feature the mobile edition of battle royale godfather PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, alongside Dota 2 and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang.
Razer is no stranger to esports in the region. The company pushed for esports’ eventual inclusion in the 2019 SEA Games, which saw nine countries battling it out for titles in six different games in the Philippines last December.
“The SEA Games 2019 was a new adventure for all of us in the region, with Razer and the federations working in tandem to bring the dreams of many budding esports athletes to life,” said Razer’s global esports director, David Tse.
“We hope to extend this dream to many more talented individuals within the region through the SEA Invitational,” he continued, “and we hope the athletes can utilise this as preparation to hone their talents and acclimatise to a structure and format similar to SEA Games.”
With the tournament being designed to prepare the region’s best for esports’ repeat appearance at next year’s SEA Games in Vietnam, the tournament will play host to ten South East Asian countries.
National teams from countries such as the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia will be looking to back up their performances at the 2019 SEA Games and stake their claims as the best in the region.
For the event, Razer is working with Tier One Entertainment, an esports talent agency based in the region, who will manage promotions and the overall broadcast that fans can tune into on YouTube, Facebook and Twitch.
CEO of Tier One Entertainment, Tryke Gutierrez, said they were looking forward to getting the new partnership underway: “We are excited to partner with a company such as Razer to create a platform for talents to shine.”
“As a premiere talent agency in Southeast Asia, we want to lead initiatives like the SEA Invitational to help develop talents to become Truly Top Tier,” he added.
In order to qualify for the event, players will have to go through their regional esports federations who will then select teams from qualifying events over the next month. Those who advance will be able to battle for glory and national pride when the event begins on June 22.
Schedules for the qualifiers will be updated on the official SEA Invitational website.
