The aggressive gaming trade has grown quickly over the previous 20 years, remodeling from a distinct segment sub-culture into a world phenomenon watched by tens of millions of spectators worldwide.
Greater than 3 million followers attended the 2025 Esports World Cup in Saudi Arabia alone, based on the match’s organisers, the place skilled gamers and groups competed for over US$70 million (£53 million) in prize cash.
As I’ve present in my own research, esports are not simply contests between gamers. They’ve turn out to be arenas of serious geopolitical competitors in three predominant methods, as devices of financial improvement, soft power and statecraft.
1. Pillar of financial diversification
Saudi Arabia has invested closely in esports as a part of its broader efforts to scale back its financial reliance on oil exports. By its National Gaming and Esports Strategy, introduced in 2022, the Saudi authorities is aiming to assist 250 gaming firms and create 39,000 home jobs.
The Esports World Cup, which was launched in 2023 and is funded by Saudi Arabia, in addition to the five hundred,000 sq metre gaming and esports hub within the deliberate Qiddiya Metropolis, are core elements of this technique. The ambition is to deliver gaming studios, match venues, technical experience and tourism into the Saudi financial system.
Backed by the dominion’s sovereign wealth fund, Saudi Arabia’s Nationwide Gaming and Esports Technique is concentrating on a contribution of fifty billion Saudi riyals (US$13.4 billion) to the nationwide GDP by 2030.
Salman Al-Mazini / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY
As a part of these efforts to turn out to be the world’s foremost gaming hub, Saudi Arabia has additionally regarded to achieve direct stakes within the companies behind the worldwide esports trade.
The Saudi state-owned Savvy Games Group introduced in 2022 that it had acquired ESL Gaming and FACEIT, two of the most important esports match organisers, for a mixed US$1.5 billion. It later accomplished the US$4.9 billion acquisition of Scopely, one of many world’s largest online game builders.
2. Constructing comfortable energy
Some states are additionally utilizing esports to generate soft power. China, as an illustration, has creatively leveraged cell gaming to show its conventional tradition into one thing younger audiences worldwide can expertise and share.
Honor of Kings, a online game performed by over 100 million folks every day with main worldwide championships {and professional} regional leagues, supplies a direct route for Chinese language tradition to succeed in folks abroad.
Produced by Chinese language agency Tencent, the sport attracts closely on Chinese language historical past and cultural heritage. In 2025, the sport’s builders created a personality costume in collaboration with Fu Xianghong, a distinguished Suzhou embroidery artist.
Tencent shouldn’t be merely performing on directions from Beijing. The corporate has sturdy industrial causes to develop its viewers overseas, as new markets deliver important income.
But video video games meant for launch in China must be approved by the federal government’s Nationwide Press and Publication Administration, which evaluations content material below strict nationwide rules. This provides the state substantial affect over the Chinese language gaming market.
Kesy Sasta / Shutterstock
This digital diplomacy doesn’t all the time imply exporting Chinese language tradition overseas. Cellular Legends: Bang Bang, a recreation produced by Shanghai-based firm Moonton, exhibits a subtler route. The sport consists of characters primarily based on Lapu-Lapu, a Filipino historic determine, and Gatotkaca, a determine from Indonesian mythology.
On the opening ceremony for the 2026 Cellular Legends: Bang Bang World Championship, knowledgeable match that was held within the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, actors portraying Gatotkaca appeared in performances. Additionally they took half in city-wide match promotions.
Their inclusion is an instance of a Chinese language gaming firm drawing on native historical past in an try to attach with regional audiences and construct goodwill abroad.
3. Sanctions and disputes
Esports could look borderless as a result of matches are performed in digital areas and are hosted via on-line networks. However the energy behind them is rooted in the actual world. Warfare and safety disputes can thus decide who competes, below which phrases and thru which platform.
After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, ESL Gaming restricted the participation of esports organisations with supposed hyperlinks to the Russian authorities. Affected gamers had been allowed to compete below impartial names, as has been the case in lots of different sports activities worldwide.
Then, following the beginning of the struggle in Iran, the 2026 Esports World Cup was moved from Riyadh to Paris. The inaugural Esports Nations Cup, which was additionally set to be held in Saudi Arabia, was also postponed. It has been delayed till 2027, although this can be prolonged if Yemen’s Houthi rebels continue to escalate their army marketing campaign towards Saudi Arabia.
Teresa Suarez / EPA
Longstanding tensions between India and China have additionally had a disruptive impact on the aggressive gaming trade. In September 2020, India blocked access to 118 China-linked apps, calling them a risk to nationwide sovereignty and safety. This included the video games PUBG Mobile and PUBG Mobile Lite.
Earlier than the ban, PUBG Cellular had roughly 30 million daily active users in India. Severing entry disrupted a booming native esports ecosystem, placing tournaments on maintain and displacing skilled gamers and streamers who had constructed careers across the recreation.
The worldwide esports trade has grown to the extent that it rivals many mainstream sports activities in scale, viewership and cultural attain. For the various international locations now battling over who can construct, finance, host and govern the trade, this has not gone unnoticed.