Dyaab Ryklief from Cape Town Youth Gaming spoke to Nick Holden, co-owner of African Cyber Gaming League (ACGL), about the future of eSports in South Africa.
With the onset of the coronavirus global pandemic, online gaming and eSports have seen a significant spike in participants and viewership as countries across the globe went into a hard lockdown, leaving everyone scouring the internet in search of entertainment.
This new demand played directly into the hands of ACGL, a South African eSports company who specialise in online and LAN tournaments, as well as broadcasting.
Since their launch in April 2015, ACGL now boasts a registered user base of around 47 000 users on their platform of which the age groups range between 18 to 35 years.
"I only see it (eSports) getting even bigger with time and the only thing holding us back is infrastructure," said Holden.
"If you go onto your mobile phone at the moment, how expensive is data, it's way too expensive for the average South African across the board.
"As that becomes cheaper, it means more people will be able to actively get involved," he said.
Holden added that part of their mission is holding free-to-enter tournaments for gaming titles like Fortnite, Call of Duty and eFootball PES 2021, which allows anyone to join and experience the online gaming scene.
"This ultimately gets players to keep coming back so that we can get more people involved... but we are also looking at schools and universities and how they can build on as part of this model," said Holden.
He added anything is possible over the next 10 to 20 years with how fast the digital technology space is growing and that any one catalyst could be a gamechanger, from a new game that could surpass the launch of Fortnite to a drop in internet rates.
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