Why so serious: An e-sports player competes during a Free Fire category tournament in the finals of a regional qualifying round for the 2020 E-Sports President’s Cup in Bandung, West Java, on Jan. 19. (Antara/Novrian Arbi)

The electronic sports (e-sports) industry in Indonesia has been getting full recognition in the past two years, attracting many parties to plunge into the world of digital games that offers mouthwatering prestige and prize money.

The active players in the industry have been trying to dispel the stigma of e-sports, which many still regard as a dud or simply pleasurable activity without any productive purpose, which could harm child development.

The inclusion of e-sports at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta and Palembang, South Sumatra as an exhibition sport played a vital role in diminishing such stigma and put e-sports on an equal footing with others. A year after the Jakarta-Palembang event, e-sports received an upgrade as it was contested in the medal program of the 2019 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in the Philippines.

The industry players have intensively boosted their efforts to strengthen the e-sports ecosystem by working directly with the government to formulate regulations. The local community has also created a series of big tournaments to trawl for more talents and foster public awareness of the sport.

Presidents Cup

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo vowed to develop the gaming industry as one of the drivers for the country’s economic growth — a promise he delivered during a presidential election debate last April.

“Our children are interested in being gamers, so the government has developed digital infrastructure such as the Palapa Ring [nationwide broadband network] and 5G,” he said.

The establishment of Piala Presiden E-Sports (E-Sports President's Cup) last year signified a positive recognition by the government of e-sports.

The cup — which is organized by the Indonesian E-Sports Premier League in cooperation with government institutions such as the now-defunct Creative Economy Agency (Bekraf), the Executive Office of the President, the Communications and Information Ministry and the Youth and Sports Ministry — entered its second edition this year.

The cup’s organizing committee chief Giring Ganesha said he was proud of e-sports development in the country as it now attracts many entities to back the sport.

“E-sports, which began in internet cafés, has now risen to the stage where it has government support and is backed by big sponsors,” Giring said, noting that support from all stakeholders in the e-sports industry is essential for its continued development.

Since last year, the Indonesian E-Sports Association has been working closely to formulate a regulation that standardizes the e-sports industry in Indonesia.

The drafted regulation was apparently given the green light by the sports ministry in October last year, but it has not been realized until now.

Youth and Sports Ministry spokesperson Gatot S. Dewa Broto said the regulation was to have been issued before the kickoff of the Philippines’s SEA Games in November.

“The regulation will be in the form of a ministerial regulation, since it would take longer if we wanted it to be regulated in the National Sports System Law,” he said after a discussion on the local e-sports ecosystem in Jakarta last October.

Gatot said that e-sports were not regulated in Law No. 3/2005 on the national sports system, but they had met the basic definitions of a sport.

“Our job right now is to gradually change the public perception [of e-sports]. [We] don’t want the public to label it negatively. We must show it [to the public] by creating an ecosystem portraying e-sports as a part of global sports.

“As time passes, we will make a clear definition of e-sports and what differentiates them from [casual] video gaming. There will be terminology in the regulation on what constitutes e-sports,” he added.

However, the regulation has not materialized, even though the 2019 SEA Games are finished.

When asked by The Jakarta Post regarding the continuation of the regulation in the new year, Gatot said it was still being discussed as the ministry’s focus had shifted to prepare for the SEA Games.

“We will continue the discussion to avoid misconceptions of whether e-sports are sports,” he said.

The unavailability of the regulation is not the only challenge that hampers e-sports development in the country — as the lack of adequate infrastructure also obstructs it.

Free Fire tournament

Christian Wihananto, the producer of Garena Free Fire by Singapore-based games developer Garena, said the basic thing the government could do to strengthen the country’s e-sports ecosystem was to upgrade the infrastructure, making “e-sports as accessible as possible”.

“It doesn’t necessarily need to be like funding or money; [we] can just start by allowing people to play [the sport] easier, have stable internet connections — to have stable infrastructure not only for the good of e-sports but for the good of the nation,” he told the Post.

Christian, who has been working as the country’s producer for the company since 2016, cited soccer development as a comparison by which people could easily play with a ball because of the availability of adequate facilities that preserve the sport itself.

“The bigger of the gaming market is, the better it is for e-sports. It means that more people are playing [and] more people can have the dream of being e-sports players.

“So, it’s not so much about what the government can do for e-sports but what they can do for the youth, like making entertainment and e-sports more accessible,” he added.

Garena Indonesia is among the active players in the country’s e-sports industry. The local industry has been intensifying its efforts to revamp the e-sports image, one of which is the Garena Goes to School Program.

In 2019, Garena Free Fire was used in a series of tournaments from the grassroots to the premier level and established the Free Fire tournament across the nation — from Aceh to Fakfak regency in Papua.

This year, the company has made another move by starting the inaugural season of the Free Fire Master League, which runs from Jan. 14 to Feb. 14. The tournament offers total prizes of Rp 1.2 billion (US$87,860) and is to feature 24 e-sports teams.

The best teams on the national level are to represent Indonesia at the international-level Free Fire World Cup.