The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) and Asian Electronic Sports Federation (AESF) announced on Monday that they would host a competition called “Road to Asian Games” (RTAG) in Macau from June 15 – July 16. Twenty-nine countries and regions across Asia will compete in the event, and the titles will be the same as the official esports titles of Hangzhou Asian Games—including League of Legends, Honor of Kings, Peacekeeper Elite, Dota 2, Dream of The Three Kingdoms, Street Fighter V, and FIFA Online 4.
The result of the competition will affect the grouping situation of national teams in the Hangzhou Asian Games esports competitions that will follow in September.
In addition, AESF COO Steve Kim announced that automobile maker Audi and smartphone company IQOO would become the chief partners of the event, with laptop brand HP OMEN and gaming chair outfit Auto Full acting as special partners. AESF President Kenneth Fok, Japanese Esports Union President Hideki Okamura, and India Esports Federation Secretary Lokesh Suji said in a joint statement that they would fully support the event, as well as the esports industry, and the Hangzhou Asian Games.
It should be noted that the competition will not be streaming on the Chinese live streaming platform DouYu, but will be broadcasting on other platforms such as Bilibili, Huya, Kuaishou, Tencent Video, and Weibo.
On a related note, the competition could push Battlegrounds Mobile India to return to India sooner due to Peacekeeper Elite (the Chinese version of PUBG Mobile) being one of the esports titles in RTAG and Hangzhou Asian Games, because competing in such competitions will be a point of national pride. Last week, South Korean game publisher Krafton announced that it had received approval from India’s government to restart Battlegrounds Mobile India in the country following a 10-month ban over national security concerns about the handling of user data.
