January 16, 2019: iNFOFED Co., Ltd., the founder of “Thailand E-Sports Arena” --Thailand’s first E-sports stadium stepped forward to organize University E-sports Championship or UEC, Thailand’s first full scale university E-sports league. The competition opens for university students from all across Thailand to participate and battle the games to win prizes worth over 1 million baht with a chance to up their skills and to work in E-Sports businesses ecosystem. The company revealed their intention to attract amateur players in university level from every region in Thailand to participate in UEC. Moreover, iNFOFED was glad that KK Fund, a venture capital fund from Singapore, has co-invested in the company by foreseeing opportunities and potential of the growing business. The company has shown their roadmap to expand the league into CLMV countries with target for 200% growth. Depa has also showed support for E-Sports competition by saying that depa would promote and support the youths who are enthusiasm to play the roles in esports and turn them to join the competition so that they could further develop themselves to be professional athletes and could also work in E-Sports industry. E-Sports market in Thailand has been growing dramatically similar to ASEAN region especially in CLMV countries. From now on, E-Sports in Thailand will be fully promoted.
Jirayod Theppipit, CEO and founder of iNFOFED Co., Ltd -- an E-Sports start up firm—revealed that after the opening of “Thailand E-Sports Arena”, the best full facility and equipped E-Sports stadium in Thailand which can organize both online or offline competition on both mobile and PC platforms. This year, the company aims to organize gaming leagues to allow Thai E-Sports players to show their capabilities and further develop their skills to cover future career path in professional tracks. This will first result in the cooperation with local universities in Thailand, the Digital Economy Promotion Agency (depa) and leading companies supporting the University E-sports Championship or UEC which is Thailand’s first full scale university E-Sports league. UEC widely opens contestants in university level from all universities nationwide to apply for the competition via www.UEC.live , has many popular games in the competition, and the highest prize comparing to previous competition. In terms of sponsorship, the company is still welcome more UEC sponsors to extend a communication channel to the young generation through UEC league.
“Organizing the UEC league is the new phenomenon of university E-Sports competition in Thailand because the competition widely open for students from all universities across the country to join Arena of Valor or ROV, Player Unknown Battleground Mobile or PUBG Mobile, and Overwatch. The games cover both on mobile and PC platforms. It can be said that the wide-opened competition intensely challenges Thai E-Sports players and is also a step leading to career paths in the future,” added Jirayod.
The UEC competing will be divided into 5 key regions including Northern, Central and Western, Eastern and Northeast, Southern, as well as Bangkok Metropolitan area. The competition of each game will be separated into 2 rounds --Online round to search for the region representative and Offline round for a champion in national level at Thailand E-Sports Arena. The prizes of UEC will be scholarships and a field trip at G-Star Game in South Korea. The total prize of the UEC is worth over 1 million baht.
Jirayod further revealed that recently KK Fund in Singapore has just invested in iNFOFED as KK Fund saw potential and promising business plan in the E-Sports start-up company. This raised fund will be used to arrange the UEC, develop a studio, production and platform for E-Sports competitions. iNFOFED has a plan to expand the league into CLMV countries --Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam-- because the economy growth of countries has been increasing 7-8 % per year on average. Moreover, E-Sports market in these countries tends to grow in the same direction as the economic. Arranging the league will help building more enthusiasm and popularity in E-Sports in the region. The roadmap regarding the arrangement of the league are the first season will be hosted in Thailand and the company plans to expand to CLMV countries and SEA respectively. The company still widely opens for investors who see the company potential and are interested E-Sports investment. iNFOFED targets to grow over 200% this year.
Dr.Nuttapon Nimmanphatcharin, Director of the Digital Economy Promotion Agency (depa) said that E-Sports was added in the 2018 Asian Games for the first time as a demonstration sport has proved Thai athletes’ capability in the game for the first time. This was also an important opportunity to prove the achievement of the competition in national level and to develop Thai E-Sports athletes’ potential in global level. The arrangement of full scale UEC league in university level is an important step to give E-Sport athletes a competition stage and allow them to show their skills and capabilities. This also helps solving the “game addicts” problem to “the opportunity of the country” at the right practice by encouraging youths who are game enthusiasts to participate in the competition and develop themselves to be the part of the E-Sports industry in the future.
League organizing can be part of promoting E-Sports market in Thailand and in the region. Nowadays, the E-sports market value in Thailand has increased rapidly by 30% annually. In 2019, the market is expected to be 50% growth. In CLMV countries, the market are also found to have a promising value growth as well.
