Fireside Chat: Zain’s Vision for the Esports Market - Hamzeh Iseed, Corporate Communications - Zain

[Music] thank you and now I will introduce Chris James of Steel media and Hamza isid from Zane who are discussing Zayn's vision for the Esports market so please welcome them now [Applause] it's not a battle it doesn't matter um so I'm Chris James I'm the CEO of Steel media you might have seen me on stage uh yesterday um I thank you first of all for coming to the show and supporting us we really appreciate it um I I don't need to introduce you Zayna I'm sure many of you have uh have them in your phones uh you're very familiar with the company um and I but I have been visiting myself

I've been visiting Jordan for many years and I'm aware that Zayn was the first major Telco in the Middle East yep founded back in 1983 see the bit of research there yeah um but and it has multiple subsidiaries but but I I've known from being in this region that you're very involved and supportive of both the game Space and obviously the Esports space so um we can talk about that what you're doing in Esports and but first of all I'd like you to introduce yourself what what do you do for Zane well basically first of all thank you for having me here today at the PGC representing Zayn and zany Sports Zen has always been the leading telecommunication company to support and to have the social responsibility for and Jordan exactly before I talk about Zayn and start talking about zany Sports the department where I work in um I'm going to ask the guys to play a quick video to show some of our achievements toward the the gaming industry and and the Esports uh precisely uh can we guys play the video

for zany Sports yeah can we play the video two things at once yeah no they got it guys [Music] [Music] foreign [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause]

[Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] basically this is some of our achievements since we launched zany Sports back in 2020. yeah it's good yeah I hope that's not answering my questions it's gonna be very short so um so tell me tell me why Esports why is Zane getting involved in in Esports I know you've been doing this as we've seen for a few years but what was it that first got involved and and what what is the ultimate reason well again because we we always try to to support

the uh or let's say the social responsibility for Zayn uh to to follow and and support the youth and we always try to follow the trend and what's new so we we almost noticed that the esport segment and the gaming industry is uh is getting really popular so so we had to be there we had to understand the needs of this segment this youth because at the end we are a service provider and we have to be there in this in this industry yeah so yeah it's connection with the youth it's provided as being part of the Society of Wireless um obviously zaina mobile um I mean globally Esports certainly in Western markets is more PC dominated in Asia it's more immobile dominated that's partly because the dominant Technologies in each space what what would you say is a state of play in Jordan or and the kind of wide Amino region as far as you know in in terms of

uh uh people playing Esports on mobile or on PC well actually both but I'm gonna say the majority of the Jordanian Gamers plays uh mobile Gamers because not everybody can afford the buying a PC gaming PC or or a console but when it comes to the uh to the uh let's say share the market share of of uh of the gaming industry the development and the the spending on gaming PC is much higher it's the biggest of a model but I'm gonna say in Jordan mainly mobile Gamers right but they are shifting step by step if they want to be a professional players they have to buy a gaming game yeah so the professional stuff is is still PC console based but because I mean in in Asia as I say a lot of the the tournaments are mobile based experiences mobile games especially in Southeast Asia it's huge just because

the PC is not uh is not fully uh yeah um and talking about particular types of games uh are there sort of specific games that are really popular I saw a kind of FIFA popping up on here yeah um obviously we've got the uh that football tournament coming out shortly just up the road so yeah yeah exactly what other games are most popular is it is it the same as everywhere else is it like you know is it um Counter-Strike League of Legends rocket was it or was it is there anything kind of more Regional local I would have I would have to say and Jordan mainly maybe the guys will agree uh pubg mobile is the most uh is the highest demand because based on the studies we do in zany Sports we noticed that the viewership of pubg mobile for example is higher of them all then comes FIFA then more Zone Etc but we keep focusing on let's say pubg because at the end as I said The more viewership is

his own pubg mobile and pubg PC so we try to keep it fair towards the other category game category like FIFA Warzone but the most is okay we can do it we can do a straw poll here how many people here play pubg FIFA I say you've got a FIFA audience has been underrepresented there there's another amount he's just voting for anything that's a delay that's fair so basically both of them uh pubg then comes FIFA so we always try to keep it fair does anybody here play has anybody here kind of compete at any level in Esports is there any Esports people oh hang on fantastic we have to talk to you after this do you play for like it's not only for money but you play in competitions with prizes and stuff yeah that's all right competing is is fascinating I mean Sports there's an official official

sponsorship apparently we were talking about outside yeah so it's uh it's a free of charge you can just participate yeah um so tell me a little bit I saw the GeForce uh now kind of popped up a couple of times there I should have paid more attention to the video but can you tell me more about that initiative and the tournaments you're running there basically uh starting this year we launched the GeForce now with the Nvidia and uh uh it's a it's a it's a service from Zane where it allows you to to play The Most Wanted games you want without having to buy a gaming PC yeah with a with a minimum amount uh if you have a fiber from Zane so uh yeah it's a it's a service we launched that allows people to uh to play the games these games yeah uh without having to buy the gaming PC so it's like a streaming service yeah it's a cloud service here okay and that just I I it's not on here it's on my early question but it didn't but like obviously things like Technologies like 5G uh you know really impactful is is that a

big part of of enabling services like that does 5G kind of come in I'm sorry 5G do you have 5G we're working here on another 5G I don't know where the 5G speak here but yeah yeah we started with we we signed we've got a 60 in the UK we've skipped um okay so the the Esports Market a lot of people talk about Esports here whenever we talk about the region as well you know the the salaries investing in this big Esports company or this big Esports tournaments and it's it's a hot Hot Topic in the space sort of generally so how do you see Esports developing from what you see and what you interact with it in Jordan or The Wider region in the next couple of years what what sort of thing can we look forward to do you see for instance I think there's some talk about Esports being involved in the Olympics at one point I don't know if it actually happened or it kind of sidelined do you see Esports becoming more of a regular viewed sporting thing so we're watching football we're watching tennis we're watching Esports is that happening it's it's already happened okay I'm gonna say

like back in uh 2013 there was a tournament for uh for wcg and it was a Warcraft 3 I guess the physical attendees of these finals reached more than the uh FIFA World Cup in 2014. the physical attendees yeah so I'm gonna say from back back then it started to compete the regular uh Sports it's not gonna vanish uh regular Sports at the end everybody uh likes sports but it's beginning to to compete and even though it it's already surpassed the video movie making industry back in 2011. well Esports were in terms of Esports and Esports internment and Industry in general in Revenue yes it surpassed the the movie making in the 2000s I'm getting more interested that's good um so talking we've talked about people playing this is my interactive format how many people watch Esports here

handle it if you watch okay live streams do you guys watch live streams yeah and Harry would watch it live Harry would go to a place to watch live or have done it's pretty good I actually was at the league of now the Dota 2 world championship final in Singapore two weeks ago totally confused me it was the was incredible it was absolutely random people were screaming yeah people outside begging for tickets uh it was yeah it was this is the the new entertainment for for the for the the this generation yeah so uh it's not like before it's not like just playing games it's getting more and more it's it's it's uh it's a a career for so for some of I know it's a short career though right this is this is I've put something a bit but what what's the like the average age of sort of Aging out of Esports is like 27 or something I think is I think because your Twitch was I think I'm I'm too old now basically yeah I don't have the reactions I think I think you kind of as an Esports athlete you get to a point where you're just not fast enough anymore right yeah it's uh well I'm not expecting to be an expert at that but no

no it starts with with kids you know like anyone can can become a professional Esports player okay if he uh have the determination to some of you here still have a chance of this it's too late for me but some of you still haven't so um are there any big Esports sort of global Champions out of the region do we know I mean you guys might know there's other other kind of so if people have competed in the worlds I don't there's a sure there is a global uh tournament as I said there but other Jordanian teams that are competing in that there is yeah sure and we have a couple of them and uh what we hope in the future is to have our own representative team for Jordan we have individuals that participate in the global uh tournaments like we have uh one guy from Target with his name uh he already won that uh around 6 million dollar wow yeah okay it's just this is yes I mean I know it's interesting yeah

but we we hope to to have our own and I get do you do you um in terms of the games themselves we're obviously we've talked about um uh pubg uh I know that it's gonna craft them over here and engage in the Middle East talk about FIFA do you think there'll be other games coming out or we will we be playing like you know games from like tamatam or Babel or jaywalk or one of our homegrown Jordanian do you think any of those guys can look good at local games could become Esports is Jordanian look at games yeah yeah I think they should they should yeah like there's many many developers here uh like tomato yeah they are already doing great job so uh yeah we hope to see to see global championships for them okay um what about um The Wider kind of Social and governmental uh sort of Engagement is the I know the Jordanian government I mean obviously we're here in part with with um with the kind of coming up to the fund has done so much work for the

games industry and to help us come here is there a lot of support for Esports from her government level is that something that's engaged or from the from the funds like this yeah there is a support it's beginning to to become a respected uh uh segment so as I said it's not like uh doing games anymore yeah there's you can have a career out of of gaming uh either you go to to to become a Caster analyst or a streamer or professional a player you can have as many as careers as you want as development it's not like before even though the uh even though the parents like for example yeah uh encourage their their children to to become and and enter this this uh this segment yeah yeah I mean that's really interesting I mean I was coming coming here five six years ago when I first came and there was a sense then that people were happy their parents would be happy for people to do stuff in the games industry to a certain level and

then it was go to university and be a lawyer or a doctor or something whereas now no no no I think that's changing and people can see this as a proper industry and Esports the same right exactly like for example in our tournaments we see the parents come with their children to to to play games to play to but there could be a family Invitational I could like I've got a 12 year old if I could I could go with him I could be like the embarrassing dad that's really fun I'm okay I'm okay I'm I can play I can play pubg I'm not not brilliant but I can play we'll see you afterwards okay one-on-one pubg saying a sponsoring big prize money can you beat me yes almost everybody in this room can um dude I've got a couple more questions but today we have a question for for for Zayn for zany Sports they'd like to ask yes there's a couple here have we got a mic fantastic start with the chat but over here the Esports Champion first he's he's the uh yeah he did the next world champion no pressure uh hello everyone I'm asking if you guys uh having uh like a training

Booth or helping players to get in a pro level yeah we already did a boot camps for for those who wants to to join this uh this uh gaming field and uh if you if you follow our page on social media you can find out that there's uh many events not just tournaments we already do a training session if you wanna because we already have two centers here in Jordan you can come to uh to uh to practice if you don't have the theory the the the equipments you need to to broadcast you can come to to then Esports I mean you have coaches we have coaches yeah yeah you are building teams we are a talent hunting for for teams yeah we already again from 2020 we have made more than 30 tournament uh in many categories and we already listed down the the most uh

professional players here in Jordan so this is our aim this is what we want to do we want to have our own team that represent uh uh Jordan but with a fund from from Zane thinking that's a big commitment there's one more question at the front here sorry mate you I know it's a bit hard with the setup here to move about thank you very much a bit of Fitness training it's good to see oh well uh first of all thank you for uh everything that you sent talked about uh I want to ask ask about uh Sim racing do you have anything uh for it like do you have like the I'm sorry what is it Sim racing simulation racing yeah yeah simulations yeah yeah we did we did not I mean not to the point of like a full simulation like a set of course Gran Turismo or anything like that uh at the moment no we did not uh went to this this field but we were focusing only on the PC games and mobile

games all right cool players but hopefully in the future maybe let me look at the team first is there any more questions out there but one more sorry this sense it's a longer walk um I just yeah first of all thank you I just want to ask what's the average price pool for the tournaments you do with Zane um it's well it's different like uh for example example a pubg uh the first place for pubg players uh like 1000 JD so uh it's a good amount yeah because we do a lot of tournaments so we can't have a big uh prize pool like like Global tournaments but basically yeah this is the minimum thank you it's all right that's not bad that's probably about ten thousand pounds by the way yeah one thousand for the first player but if you if you combine them the the old price ball it's like uh 10 000 JD yes yeah um okay uh time for one more question I could go myself oh there's one more

question there that that's last one and I'll close up uh hello thank you you've got a round of applause your question uh is there any chance to cooperate with uh like pubg or uh Call of Duty for the tournaments um we already yeah since Jordan not yet but uh when it comes to uh running pubg tournaments we already uh send them and inform them with the with the with the tournaments we do because at the end we cannot use any of their logos like tencent or uh uh for example pubg mobile we cannot use the logos if if it's not approved by uh tencent so yes we we informed them with with every tournament we do okay thank you cool all right well um I'm one final question what's next then what's the next thing you've already given a bit of an Insight that you're building teams you're you're looking to

kind of push this on what's your next big thing you're working on hoping for I would say a hosting a global tournament here in Jordan because okay yeah there's a lack of of having tournaments here in Jordan we started as I said back in 2020 and uh for sure to have our own team yeah from from each each category game category FIFA pubg Etc so next time I come next year we're here I hope that we have a big Global tournament next door and you'll be with you yeah it's a baby steps we'll look forward to inviting you back and having the team come and talk about yeah but I I it's impressive I could say I've been impressed by the support you've given the games industry generally and uh and and the Esports space and it's yeah I'm I've learned a lot myself so I hope it's kind of useful just a quick Insight it's only 20 minutes but I have to go insight into what's going some people have learned some things maybe there's a new job there I don't um but yeah that's I think that's it thank you very much thank you thank you so much thank you guys

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