Gyeonggi Province and Intel agreed to host 2016 IEM World Championship in
Goyang City; plans to cooperate in gaming industry over next two years

◇ Gyeonggi Province recently
announced that Gyeonggi Province Governor Nam Kyung-pil, Intel Corporate Vice
President Gregory Bryant, and Intel Korea President Kwon Myung-sook signed an MOU
for the hosting of IEM in Gyeonggi Province, specifically the 2016 IEM World
Championship in Goyang City. ⓒ Gyeonggi G-News

On April 25, Gyeonggi Province
announced that it had succeeded in securing the rights to host the Intel
Extreme Masters (IEM) World Championship, the world’s largest e-sports competition.
 

Gyeonggi Province recently
announced that Gyeonggi Province Governor Nam Kyung-pil, Intel Corporate Vice
President Gregory Bryant, and Intel Korea President Kwon Myung-sook signed an MOU
for hosting IEM in Gyeonggi Province. specifically the 2016 IEM World
Championship in Goyang City. 

IEM is an international
e-sports competition hosted by the global IT company Intel and supervised by the
German Electronic Sports League (ESL), the largest e-sports company in the
world. It began in 2006, and this year marks the 11th season.  

IEM holds its competitions in
different cities around the world, and the World Championship is hosted each
year as the final stage of competitions. Games such as League of Legends, StarCraft
II, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive have been chosen for the competition
in the past.  

In this year’s IEM World Championship
Finals held last March in Katowice, Poland, more than 113,000 spectators
visited the competition venue. Each season, more than 20 million people watch
IEM matches online.  

As seen from the T1 Team and
gamer Choi Seong-hoon of Korea, each winning the League of Legends and Star-Craft
II competitions, respectively, Korean professional gamers are very competent in
this event.  

Gyeonggi Province Governor Nam
Kyung-pil said, “The gaming industry is the culmination of cultural
contents and has a huge impact on other industries like software and music. It’s the key to Hallyu
(Korean Wave).” Governor
Nam added, “We
will offer Gyeonggi Province’s full support to ensure the success of IEM
stimulates e-sports in Korea and its Korean gaming industry.”  

According to the agreement,
the IEM World Championship will run for three days from December 16 at an indoor
sports complex in Goyang.  

Apart from hosting the
competition, Gyeonggi Province and Intel agreed to cooperate in joint seminars
and trade shows as well as joint marketing efforts including the demonstration
of new products.   

Given that Asia is the region
where the gaming industry is growing the fastest, Intel plans to hold
additional marketing activities and will support the competition in Goyang to
ensure its success.  

Vice President (of Intel
Connected Home & Commercial Client Group) Gregory Bryant said (translated),
“Not
only is Korea home to multiple global game corporations, it also has plenty of
game aficionados and professional gamers who even have competitions in IEM.” Bryant added, “It’s an important market
for Intel, which has increased its investment in gaming and e-sports to provide
the best possible gaming experience to gamers all around the world. As such, it
was only natural to select Gyeonggi Province as the host region for the IEM.” 

In particular, he explained
(translated), “Intel
will continue to innovate gaming with cutting-edge technology like the Intel
Core Processor and Intel Real Sense, and offer new and exciting gaming
experiences.” 

Gyeonggi Province is the hub
of the Korean gaming industry, accounting for 84.7% of sales and 70.6% of
exports for listed gaming companies. It’s currently pursuing a
mid-to-long term gaming industry development project called ‘G-NEXT’ that includes ‘Game Creative Audition’, ‘Stimulating e-Sports’, and ‘Supporting Global
Expansion’.
The project aims to foster 100 startups in the global gaming market by 2018.  

E-sports are a form of sports in
which people compete using computers, networks, and other visual equipment.
Since the Korea e-Sports Association was established in 2001, player
management, competition rules, and competition formats have been organized in
Korea, helping this genre to become widely popular.

ⓒ Gyeonggi G-News | Kim Jin-kyoung jinkyoungkim@kg21.net  

http://gnews.gg.go.kr/news/news_detail.asp?number=201604251445017055C049&s_code=C049