On 13th of August at Seoul Coex Grand Ball Room, the 2nd International e-Sports Symposium closed in full swing.
Sponsored by Korea e-Sports Association and Korea Creative Contents Agency, with support from Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism and Korea Association of Game Industry, e-Sports localities, associations and groups, media outlets and 200 experts from 14 countries around the world have participated the 2nd International e-Sports Symposium to create a common ground for South Korea-led international exchange and corporation for e-Sports, and discussed developing plans for e-Sports such as providing international e-Sports entries and promoting standardization.
The 1st International e-Sports Symposium ended as a preliminary stage for developing e-Sports through sharing current issues for each country and discussing general ways to corporate. However, at the 2nd International e-Sports Symposium, it has promoted progressive participation of e-Sports officials, and specific discussions on how to proceed to a developed e-Sports era by resolving to establish one single organization for e-Sports which manages official rules and games.
GIGA and Turtle Ent. Representative Jens Hilgers, who have attended the discussion under the subject of “International Corporation to stabilize e-Sport’s growth” has stressed the importance of discussing the development of e-Sports by meeting, understanding, and sharing information together at events such as e-Sports Symposium. He has also said that this symposium will provide touchstones for establishing international committee for e-Sports.
Also, Pro Gamer League representative Patrick Wang has pointed out that e-Sports cannot develop solely by competition, and that regional and national corporation is urgent.
The panels participated at the discussion have all agreed to constitute a corporative organization, and have made consensus on reciprocate efforts towards developing world’s e-Sports growth, and establishing one single platform of international committee to reinforce information collecting and providing provisions with transparency. The IeSF’s chairman Kim Shinbae has announced declaration of reciprocity for world’s e-Sports as a representative.
As an extension to this declaration, operations senior vice president of U.S.’s representative e-Sports league Championship Gaming Series Scott Valencia, vice president of Japan’s e-Sports Association Akira Hirakata, representative of the world’s famous professional game team G7 and the founder of Fnatic team Samuel Mathews and many e-Sports experts have founded the World e-Sports Development Forum to consolidate reciprocity for world’s e-Sport growth as the 11 founding members.
The World e-Sports Development Forum will continuously discuss ways to fulfill its duties to head toward the common goal of developing world e-Sports through corporation. In the nearest future, possibly in 2008, a World e-Sports Calendar can be published, with world’s e-Sport schedules indicated.
The chairman of IeSF Kim Shin-bae announced in the closing address that “today we have taken an important step towards the development of world’s eSports development. As a homeland of e-Sports, South Korea will introduce the growth model of e-Sports, share technologies and knowhow related to e-Sports, and lead the world’s development of e-Sports through providing standardization from the low stage.”
