Unifying Esports Voices at the 3rd Global Esports Executive Summit (GEES)

Attentive attendants at GEES.

GEES saw two South Africans as panalists at the very upmarket 3^rd Global Esports Executive Summit (GEES), being Colin Webster (IESF President) and Jason Batzofin (IESF Athletes' Commission Chairperson).

As an event promoting open discussion of global esports development, the 3^rd Global Esports Executive Summit (GEES) was held in Busan, South Korea, gathering key stakeholders from 57 countries, 121 organizations (181 participants) on 13^th to 15^th November 2018.

The agenda covered four core areas as announced in August 2018 which were discussed with vim and vigour at GEES 2018.

• ESPORTS GOVERNANCE
• GAMING DISORDER
• ESPORTS PROFIT MODEL
• ESPORTS ADMINISTRATION

‘Esports Governance’ agenda was led by two keynote presentations from both RIOT GAMES (publisher perspective), and CTESA (esports national federation perspective, Chinese Taipei Esports Association), portraying both opinions of the public and private sectors of esports, followed by a panel representing both esports and sports world to discuss on ‘collaboration for esports ecosystem development’.

GEES 2018 this year also introduced a new section, ‘Esports Academic Seminar’, which is a pillar of the Global Esports R&D Center of IESF. As a new initiative to promote esports researches to enhance and support the esports industry development momentum, 4 different researches were presented to the delegates of GEES

Research	Presenter
Esports Governance in East Asia	Peichi Chung (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Understanding & Enriching Esports – Esports research at UC Irvine	Je Seok Lee (University of California, Irvine, USA)
Esports Risk Management	Gil Fried (University of New Haven, USA)
Esports and Equality	Maria Stukoff (University of Salford, United Kingdom)

(Related article of Global Esports R&D Center:

https://www.ie-sf.org/news/iesf-launches-global-esports-rdcentre-for-further-esports-development/)

Upcoming 4^th GEES will once again be held in Busan in 2019 to continuously promote dialogues between sports and esports and reach consensus for promising direction toward a better Esports world.

More detailed information can be found the official 2018 GEES website (https://iesf.rsportz.com/).

REFERENCE:

• AGENDA - SPEAKER information

Agenda		Speaker & Panelist
Esports Governance	Esports World (Publisher’s perspective)	Ho Min Lee (Riot Games)
	Esports World (Federation’s perspective)	Brayden Erwin (Chinese Taipei eSports Association)
	How publishers and federations can collaborate for esports ecosystem development	Ho Min Lee (Riot Games) Vlad Marinescu (Rsportz, Pressident of USeF, Former GAISF Director General) Ian Smith (Esports Integrity Coalition) Serhat Bekedmir (Collegiate Esports League) Brayden Erwin (Chinese Taipei Esports Association)
Gaming Disorder	How esports can support gaming disorder	Kevin Morris (Daily Dot) Colin Webster (IESF President) Jason Batzofin (Athletes’ Commission Chair)
Esports Profit Model	How AirAsia Allstars created internal & external awareness on esports	Allan Phang (AirAsia Esports)
	How esports stakeholders can create sustainable profit models and expand the market	Allan Phang (AirAsia Esports) Samart Benjamin Assarasakorn (Benjamins International Group Company Ltd) Sunghoon Jung (Rossetti) Alexey Kuznetsov (Wargamings) Katsuhiro Harada (BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment)
Esports Administration	How Korean government has supported esports from administration?	Gyujig Kim (Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism)
	How can administration support the growth of esports?	Gyujig Kim (Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism) Duane Kale (International Paralympic Committee) Charmaine Crooks (NGU Consultant, Five Times Olympian) Peichi Chung (The Chinese University of Hong Kong) Cheol Hag Kim (Korea e-Sports Association) Cristian Mazzei (UN Environment)