The Esports World Cup is live now in Riyadh, offering fans an unprecedented eight weeks of action across a whopping assortment of twenty-one different esports-focused games. It’s the most ambitious event in the history of the industry, and what’s more, there’s a $60 million prize pool on the line – some of which has already been distributed.
One of the most unique elements of the grand tournament is the ‘trophy system’. Players who win aren’t simply handed a trophy to take home – there’s something much more emotional and memorable at the heart of the EWC’s trophy system, and the CEO of the Esports World Cup Foundation, Ralf Reichert, recently spoke about it on social media.
Soul Crushing
Every team competing at the Esports World Cup is given a unique key – that’s where it starts. It’s a two-part thing comprised of an inner and an outer piece, and when someone wins a tournament, they take the inner portion of the key and add it to the trophy that they’ve claimed.
This is where it gets a little more dramatic, as the losers must hand over three of their inner keys for destruction, at which point they’ll also be added to the trophy, giving the winning team a literal piece of the teams that they’ve defeated.
The CEO of the Esports World Cup Foundation, Ralf Reichert, explained why this method was chosen:
When we designed the Esports World Cup we had the chance to rethink. Building something new is hard but gives you a unique chance to start from zero. We tried to put a few design elements at the heart of the Esports World Cup. “We’re not just hosting tournaments; we’re rethinking how we celebrate victory, focussing on a connected story and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible”.
This unique trophy system is a prime example of this. Featuring personalized keys, Game Trophies, and the Totem, it adds a complete meta game to competition. Each victory becomes a step towards greatness, marked by the ceremonial breaking of a key and the addition of its fragments to the winner’s trophy. It creates a visual narrative of the team’s journey.
The winning team for each competition (every game) will have their keys added to a grand totem, as Reichert mentioned. This will remain in Riyadh, displaying the names of the teams that achieved greatness at the inaugural Esports World Cup for all to see. In the base of the totem, the crushed keys of the losing teams will be permanently encased, which is pretty symbolic, I think.
As Reichert said: ‘It’s a symbol of what happened throughout the Esports World Cup and makes it visible for the global gaming community.’
The players get a phenomenal stay in the heart of Saudi Arabia, the chance to win millions of dollars, and they also get to potentially win an innovative trophy and have their name etched on a totem in Riyadh forevermore – that’s quite incredible.
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