The International Olympic Committee has announced it is exploring plans to create an Olympic Esports Games. This announcement was made at the 141st IOC Session in Mumbai, India, and along with several other initiatives around esports that it seeks to build on.
The IOC president Thomas Bach revealed that the newly formed IOC Esports Commission has been asked to study the creation of an Olympic Esports Games. Bach pointed out that the demographic and esports community’s numbers are what led to pursuing this move, with about 500 million gamers worldwide specifically involved in esports and many below the age of 34. This session was also attended by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Olympic Esports Series inaugural held during the June Olympic Esports Week, is an esports event run by the IOC that featured nine titles in its iteration. The featured games focused on sports simulation with events such as Virtual Taekwondo and Virtual Regatta, veering away from the traditional esports titles instead. The event was a success as hailed by Bach, with 500, 000 participants and more than 6 million views, from viewers between the ages of 13 and 34. “A promising start”, he called it, but with the real race lying ahead on how to keep it going.
With most of the games selected not being esports titles, the series faced quite the disparagement, even after the special Fortnite was added to the original lineup two months after the lineup was announced.
For the Olympic Esports Games, details are yet to be revealed on what games will be included along with other adjustments and formats; a step further in esports after the Olympic Esports Series and Olympic Virtual Series.
The Asian Electronic Sports Federation (AESF) also responded positively to the announcement by the IOC, highlighting that the existing esports titles used in the 2022 Asian Games followed adaptations by their publishers. Adaptations such as Peace Elite Asian Games Version (for PUBG Mobile) and Arena of Valor Asian Games Version (for Arena of Valor) were made to comply with Olympic values.
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Written By Jeffrey Osei-Agyeman
