LAKAD MATATAG

Tracing the History of Philippine Esports from Computer to Mobile Gaming

Originally written for my Anthro 179: Culture Change finals in S.Y. 2023–2024

Special thanks to David “Neep” Viray for their guidance from start to finish!

Here is one of my fondest childhood memories: the physical hum of machinery whirling open, brick black blocks on the dining table. A weekend where the family gathers in the dining room and my father connects our two personal computers and his and my mother’s work laptops using a bright blue cable.

My first offline LAN event was held within the comfort of a small one-storey home on borrowed hardware. We faced off, duoing father-daughter against mother-brother, for a game of Starcraft.

Me, my father, and our family’s first personal computer.

I grew up with computers, always tied down. I didn’t receive my first phone until I went off to boarding school at 13. By then, personal tech had evolved to prioritize portability. I survived high school deadlines with a thick ThinkPad and a flip phone.

Video games too spent half of its history tied down – within arcade walls, in front of a TV console, or seated facing a monitor. Now in 2023, the growing playerbase of gamers worldwide sees mobile gaming at the lead (Newzoo, 2023).

Video games are a billion-dollar industry. According to lead esports industry source Newzoo in their 2023 Global Games Market Report, it is projected that the global games market revenue will reach $184 billion in 2023. In the same annual report, industry analysts predict a 3.38 billion reach of players worldwide, half of whom have spent money on video games within the last six months through game purchases, subscriptions, in-game cosmetics, and more (Newzoo, 2023).

Watching video games has become essential in enhancing game involvement and nurturing community interactions. Broadcasted esports tournaments especially plays a significant role in the gaming landscape, uplifting iconic game titles such as League of Legends (also known as League), CS:GO, Dota 2, and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) (Newzoo, 2023).

Newzoo defines esports as “[c]ompetitive gaming at a professional level and in an organized format (a tournament or league) with a specific goal (i.e., winning a champion title or prize money) and a clear distinction between players and teams that are competing against each other.” Whether you start counting at Pong, Spacewars, or Space Invaders, competitive gaming found its footing through the local arcade.

HISTORY OF ESPORTS

The earliest regarded video game tournament goes to The Intergalactic Spacewar Olympics held in 1972 at Stanford University where two dozen people crammed inside the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory to watch players compete for a 1-year subscription to Rolling Stone Magazine (Smith, 2019).

Eight years later, 10,000 players across the United States of America competed under a regional format for the 1980 Space Invaders Championship hosted by Atari (The Retroist, 2013).

Up to this point, competing in video games means grinding for the higher score. It wasn’t until titles like Quake, Doom, and Golden Eye were released where audiences could watch the competitors battling it out on the same map. With a prize pool of $5,000 USD and a 1987 Ferrari 328 GTS, the 1997 Red Annihilation marks the beginning of modern esports (Liquipedia, n.d.a).

A televised StarCraft II esports event circa 2006.

Esports as we know it today developed through the early 2000s’ South Korean StarCraft scene. The game had an active professional circuit in and starting around 2003, various teams began forming sponsored by large South Korean companies such as Samsung and SK Telecom – companies that are still heavily involved with esports globally today.

Years before my family ever played StarCraft, South Korean broadcasters had already been televising professional StarCraft: Brood War tournaments on South Korean TV channels (Bellos, 2007).

While this professionalization of esports was happening in South Korea, video game publishing company Level Up! Games would change the Philippine video game landscape with the release of Ragnarok Online in 2003.

Ragnarok Online is a massive multiplayer online role-playing game that gives new players 30 free hours of gameplay at registration. After this period has elapsed, players were required to purchase gametime in the form of scratchable cards. Denominations included PHP 10 for 1 hour, PHP 20 for 2 hours, PHP 50 for 8 hours, PHP 75 for 3 days, PHP 100 for 7 days, and PHP 350 for 31 days.

Despite the paid model but encouraged by the early culture of computer shops, the Filipino player base of Ragnarok Online grew with guilds and communities being formed within and around the game.

EARLY ESPORTS IN THE PHILIPPINES

It is with Ragnarok Online where the history of esports in the Philippines finds its footing. In 2005, eight guilds from regional championships across the country competed at the Ragnarok Philippine Championships National Finals for the 1-million peso grand prize (GameIndustry.ph, 2023).

13,000 gaming enthusiasts attended the festivities at the World Trade Center to watch the tournament as well as participate in other community affairs such as cosplaying, guild-based events, and even a film festival for Ragnarok-inspired short films. The large prize pool and support to and from the community marks this as the most significant esports event in the early history of Philippine esports (GameIndustry.ph, 2005).

As esports developed in the country, various other tournaments – local and international – will see steady Filipino participation. The World Cyber Games, which had Filipino players competing in as early as 2003, is an important mention due to its regional format which held Philippine national qualifiers, further expanding the scope of what esports looked like in the Philippines.

The 2010s would ramp up the esports infrastructure within the country with the releases of Dota 2 and League of Legends and the community organizing surrounding these game titles. Esports is a heavy contributor to the audience, popularity, and player bases of these now quintessential game titles (Newzoo, 2023). Their world championships, Dota 2’s The International and League’s World Championship, is each title’s equivalent of the World Cup.

DOTA 2 DOMINATION

An enduring aspect of computer shop culture, Dota is just one of those games that needs no introduction, especially to any Filipino gamer. The Philippine Dota esports scene had its big break through the Mineski Pro-Gaming League (MPGL) founded in 2010 – back when Dota was still a modded game mode for WarCraft 3 (Reyes, 2016).

The 2011 release of Dota 2 through an invitational tournament organized by Valve would cement The International (TI) as one of the most iconic esports tournaments in gaming and Dota 2 as one of the most recognizable esports titles in the world.

Of the 16 teams invited to participate for the $1.6-million prize pool, the largest prize pool of any single esports competition to that point, the Philippine team Mineski landed within the 9-12th place. (Liquipedia, n.d.b).

The MPGL, now transitioned to Dota 2, continued season after season as the backbone of Philippine esports with the goal of preparing Filipino players for the world stage. The league would further expand to include Southeast Asian countries culminating in the MPGL Southeast Asian Championship in 2016, then even bigger still into the MPGL Asian Championship in 2018 (Liquipedia, n.d.c).

The International would also grow in scope with the establishment of the Dota Pro Circuit where the founding of the Dota Major Championships assisted the competitive structure for Dota 2 in various regions across the world, including Southeast Asia (Dota 2 Esports, n.d.).

TI is also known for its large prize pools with TIs 2015 to 2022 (sans 2020 which was postponed to 2021 by the COVID-19 pandemic) being the top 7 highest prize pools in esports of all time (SportsAdda, 2023). TI 2021 takes the first place with a whopping $40,018,400 prize pool.

The 2015-2016 season was for the Philippine Dota 2 esports scene for three main reasons – ESL One Manila 2016, the 2016 Manila Major, and the TNC lower bracket round 2 upset against OG at TI 2016.

Photo taken from joinDOTA.

The 2016 ESL One Manila, one of the largest early international esports tournaments hosted in the Philippines, was the precursor to the Manila Major, the first Dota 2 Major and the largest Dota 2 tournament in Southeast Asia at the time (Purdue, 2023). 16,000 Dota 2 fans sold out the Mall of Asia Arena where the deafening crowd overpowered casters and hosts. The crowd was so loud that the event organizers had to lower the volume of the crowd mic for the live broadcast. Regarded as one of the most memorable Dota 2 tournaments to date, both fans and professional players look back on the 2016 Manila Major fondly (dota2, 2022).

Philippine Dota 2 fans had another treat in store in 2016. Carrying the hopes and dreams of a nation, the TNC Pro Team represented the country and became the first Philippine team to qualify for The International since Mineski’s invite at the first TI in 2011 (Liquipedia, n.d.d).

The team’s first TI appearance, analysts and audiences alike were not expecting much from this underdog team. Meanwhile, OG was the tournament favorites. TNC managing a consecutive two-game win against heavy-weight OG is described as one of the biggest upsets in TI and esports history (Thursten, 2016).

While Dota is a mainstay in Philippine gaming culture, League of Legends managed to compete for players within the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) genre. Released in 2009 and launched in the Philippines through Southeast Asian video game distributor Garena in 2010, League had a notable and aggressive grassroots esports presence within the country.

THE GARENA EFFECT

First, Garena had already established partnerships with various computer shops and internet cafes throughout Southeast Asia through the Garena CyberCafe Alliance program. This program allowed players playing in partnered shops to receive various in-game benefits from Garena’s lineup of games including but not limited to League, Heroes of Newerth, Path of Exile, and FIFA Online 3 (Autosurf Cafe, 2012).

Second, Garena penetrated rural and provincial markets by sponsoring small, contained mini-tournaments within affiliated computer shops such as Teemo Cups and Lulu Cups, named after iconic League characters. The Teemo Cups were especially well-known as Garena-sponsored merchandise, specifically the very recognizable Teemo hat, were awarded on top of in-game items (medsinfinity, 2014).

Filipino Gaming Content Creator Gloco sporting the Teemo hat. Photo taken from his GLOCO Gaming FB page.

Unfortunately, early official Philippine League of Legends esports documentation can only be accessed through archived web pages of the now defunct Garena Esports website. This is why I have created archives for all of the references made in this piece.

A quick rundown of the League esports scene at this time would be the introduction of the Garena Premier League (GPL) in 2012 as a Tier 1 Southeast Asian League tournament.

The Pro Gaming Series, which began in 2014, would end up serving as the Philippine qualifier to the GPL. In 2018, the GPL was replaced with the League of Legends SEA Tour (LST) and included the Indonesia–Malaysia–Singapore, Philippines, and Thailand server regions.

The LST merged with the League of Legends Master Series (featuring teams from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau) in 2019 to become the Pacific Championship Series (PCS), then the PCS as we know it today was completed by the joining of Oceania in 2022 and Japan in 2023.

As it stands, the PCS serves as the Pacific region’s qualifier for the League of Legends World Championships and the Mid-Season Invitational.

On top of the professional circuits, Garena also established and promoted a collegiate scene. I am currently the president of the University of the Philippines’ premiere gaming organization and the former head of UP Oblation Esports (OBE) before the team officially merged with the university-wide organization as its official esports arm. The history of OBE runs parallel to the history of collegiate esports in the country.

Me with the Oblation Esports League of Legends 2023 team. They won 4th place at the Alliance Games S3 semifinals held at the 2023 CONQuest Festival.

OBLATION ESPORTS AND THE COLLEGIATE ESPORTS SCENE

OBE formed in 2014 in order to participate in the first Garena League of Legends Collegiate League (LCL), which marks the beginning of official collegiate tournaments in the Philippines (Esports INQ, 2014).

Alongside 15 other teams from other universities, teams built through this tournament would grow their own legacies in collegiate esports including Viridis Arcus from De La Salle University - Manila and Tiger Esports (now the Teletigers Esports Club) from the University of Santo Tomas (Riku PH, 2015). (Incidentally, my first foray into esports – collegiate or otherwise – was through the Teletigers Esports Club in 2018!)

In 2017, OBE would win the LCL championship as well as be chosen as one of seven debut teams for the League of Legends Varsity League (LVL). The LVL was established by Garena as an effort to expand collegiate esports beyond player support and tournament participation and towards the “development of esports-related education and on-campus infrastructure” (Banusing, 2017).

OBE would round up the year with a 3rd place finish at the 2017 League of Legends International Collegiate Championship Southeast Asian Qualifiers, an international college competition co-hosted by Riot Games and Tencent (League of Legends Esports wiki, n.d.), and represent the Philippines for the second consecutive year at the 2017 International Esports Festival, a collegiate tournament for universities based in Asia, at Zhuhai, China.

Oblation Esports representing the Philippines at the 2016 International Esports Festival in Korea.

Garena’s heavy involvement with grassroots and collegiate gaming was heavily influential towards the building of community-based esports infrastructure in the Philippines and would pave the way for wider youth community reach through organizations such as AcadArena, founded in 2019 and would informally replace all Garena collegiate leagues.

AcadArena began organizing collegiate tournaments for League of Legends before expanding to other games such as Valorant, League of Legends: Wild Rift (WR), Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, and more. OBE will also expand beyond a League of Legends team, recruiting for a Valorant and a now-disbanded Hearthstone team in 2020 and a WR, MLBB, and now-also-disbanded Call of Duty: Mobile team in 2022.

Despite all of the institutional support provided by organizations like Mineski and Garena, how did mobile esports, specifically and especially Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, manage to rise so quickly into the conversation, escape the gaming niche, and penetrate into Philippine mainstream pop culture? Two words: Free Facebook.

THE RISE OF MOBILE LEGENDS: BANG BANG

Facebook released the Free Basics program in 2015 to various countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America (Advox, 2017). The program is a collaboration with local mobile operators to provide web access to “communication tools, health information, education resources and other low-bandwidth services” (Facebook, n.d.). Notably, Facebook is the only social networking site included in the program (Solon, 2017).

Data on mobile phone internet user penetration marks a clear and consistent jump starting from 2015 to 2020 (Statista Research Department, 2021). This, paired with the growing internet connectivity aided by Facebook’s Free Basics, provides a ripe opportunity for mobile games to thrive.

Released in 2016, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang has since grown to become a household name in Southeast Asia. The quick adoption of the game in the Philippines can be explained through the region’s established enjoyment of the MOBA genre from Dota 2 to League of Legends paired with the convenience of shorter games and the portable mobile platform anyone can play on the go.

Accessibility is a large factor as well with a lower barrier to entry when comparing prices between smartphones to personal computers and tingi mobile data to monthly cable internet subscriptions (Racoma, 2021).

The COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbated this accessibility divide when lockdowns and social limitations made accessing a computer shop near impossible, resulting in small Pisonet enterprises and even established computer shops shutting down (Royandoyan, 2021).

Bren Esports winning the 2020 M World Championships.

Benefiting from the esports infrastructure and audience already established by the Dota 2 and League of Legends Philippine scene, the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Professional League (MPL) would debut in 2018 (Liquipedia, n.d.f).

The 2019 Southeast Asian Games was the first to feature esports as an official medal event in an International Olympic Committee-sanctioned multi-sport event (Fox Sports, 2019).

Of the six titles included in its first iteration, MLBB is the only title to have appeared in every SEA Games since. Then in 2020, the world saw a Philippine championship from Bren Esports at the first M World Championship, the largest and most prestigious esports tournament in the MLBB professional season. Thus far, four of five champions of the M World Championship from its inception up to now have hailed from the Philippines.

THE FUTURE OF ESPORTS

Esports titles don’t just come in and out of fashion.

Tracing the history of esports in the Philippines, you will see familiar patterns: from Ragnarok to League and Dota to MLBB, there is an overwhelming amount of passion displayed from players, fans, and organizers alike.

Mobile esports is here to stay, but not as a replacement for beloved esports titles. League of Legends didn’t kill Dota 2; Valorant didn’t kill Counter-Strike: Global Offensive; mobile will not kill PC.

For me, this all began in the dining room. As more and more people log into their first games, esports will grow in tandem; world stages will remain as battlefields to the highest level of human skill.

Prize pools will grow, viewer counts will rise, and I will look back at how I fit in the history of it all through StarCraft II weekends with my family.

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