MASTERS INDONESIA IS REAL? INI TANGGAPAN RIOT

Bulan lalu, Riot Games sukses menggelar acara Valorant Ascension Pacific Jakarta yang berlangsung di BritAma Arena, Jakarta. Level Up ID diberikan kesempatan untuk menanyakan beberapa pertanyaan terkait skena Valorant Esports kedepannya. Riot Jake menjadi perwakilan Riot Games selaku Head of Esports Valorant APAC memberikan tanggapan terkait pertanyaan yang Level Up tanyakan.

So for the first questions, is there a possibility for VCT to play LAN in Indonesia again other than Ascension Jakarta?

Riot Jake: "Yes, absolutely. We're always looking forward to bringing more VCT events to Indonesia. But we're pretty sure that this won't be our last LAN in Jakarta or Indonesia in general. We're always looking for new opportunities to bring new events to new locations and Jakarta or Indonesia is one of our key markets and it's a region where we think there is a massive player base. We have a massive eSports fan base and the level of support that we've been seeing from the Indonesian fans has been incredible. So that is one of the reasons why we're bringing Ascension to Jakarta this year. But, with the continued support from our fans here, we're going to try to bring more events here for sure."

Does the change in the VCT system, especially Ascension, affect the scene in APAC?

Riot Jake: "I think it does in a very positive way. So, moving forward as we had announced earlier in the year, the teams that get promoted from challengers to the international leagues can extend their stay in the tier one leagues by performing well. So I think there is a massively increased upside or stakes for teams in tier two. And, so I think that improves the outlook of opportunities for teams that are competing in challengers right now. And moving forward, because we are creating a new Southeast Asia League, we think that Indonesian teams will be competing against the best SEA teams internationally week in and week out, and have more opportunities to play at the top level and bring more entertainment opportunities to the fans, get more fandom, get more exciting matchups, and be more exposed to fans outside of Indonesia, which I think is going to improve their business outlook as well. So lots of positive effects for the teams in, in tier two."

Is there a special reason for choosing BritAma Arena as the venue for this Ascension Jakarta?

Riot Jake: "Yeah, BritAma Arena is a really great venue. It's a home to a lot of, you know, top tier sporting events. We've also seen other eSports events take place in the arena. It's where the eSports events of Asian Games took place, so we have verified it and we know that it works. It's big enough to house thousands of fans. So that was one thing we were looking for as well. We wanted to come here and serve as many fans as possible, so we didn't want to go to a smaller place. It's very accessible as well, which means more fans are able to come and watch the events in person. So all around that we thought it was a perfect fit for Ascension"

We saw the move from Tokyo to Indonesia and the change in format and schedule also for Ascensions. What do you think about the format that is being implemented in Ascension this time?

Riot Jake: "Yeah, so being able to come to Jakarta has allowed us to improve the format in many ways. Most notably, we were able to upgrade the format from single elimination to double elimination, giving teams more chances to stay alive and make a lower bracket run, even if they have a bad day. And then the other thing was we were able to guarantee that all the matches would be taking place on LAN, which we thought was super important for competitive integrity, giving the teams a fair environment to compete in, and also making sure that external factors like connectivity or hardware issues don't affect the match. So we're pretty happy with how the pivot from to Japan to Indonesia allowed us to make these improvements to ensure that the event fulfills its purpose of finding the best tier two team to promote a team to Pacific next year."