GearUP! 2022 InterSchool Esports Championship

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eSports is an up-and-coming sporting event in the world. The world of eSports has now caught up with many traditional sports in terms of popularity and it has been newly recognized as an official sport that will be added to the 2022 Asian Games. There are thousands of professional players and content creators who earn a sound living and lead successful lives because of gaming. Over 280 colleges today feature eSports scholarship programs. The eSports industry is rapidly growing with a current assessed value of $1.38 Billion. To keep up with and promote this trend, The Royal College Computer Society organized an Inter-School eSports Tournament through this event. Games have long been accused of providing only harmful effects to the players but evidence has been building over the years that they can have more positive effects instead. Scientists say they are not only understanding why, but they are also trying to put these observations to the test. By using video games appropriately and balancing it with the other things in life, we can avoid negative effects like addiction and losing interest in other activities. According to the Hindustan Times, 71% of parents believe that video games have a net positive effect on their children, and 54% of gamers claim that video games help them to connect and socialize with other players worldwide.

“Gear Up! 2022” was an Islandwide interschool esports tournament which was held under two game titles, Valorant and Call of Duty Mobile. The first stage of the tournament consisted of the registrations, open qualifier rounds and the semi-finals,which were held fully online, with the Semi Finals matches being livestreamed on Youtube and Facebook. A website developed by our society facilitated this stage (https://gearup.rccsonline.com//). The teams who were victorious in the Semi-Finals were to compete in the Finals stage, which was held physically at the Royal MAS arena on the 8th of December.

• The tournament was held for two gaming titles; Valorant and Call of Duty Mobile.
• A total prize pool of LKR 100,000 was distributed among the winners, runners up and second runners up of the tournament.
• The first stage of the tournament was held online as a qualifier for the second stage
• Lenovo was the Official Platinum Title sponsor for our project, and SLTMobitel was the Official Gold sponsor. GamerLK, Laptop.LK, Media Unit of Royal College, Radio Club of Royal College and the Photographic Club of Royal College joined us as partners.
• The entire tournament process was facilitated by a website designed by the Royal College Computer Society for the tournament (https://gearup.rccsonline.com/), as well as a discord server and WhatsApp groups dedicated towards it.
• The second stage of the tournament were the grand final playoffs, which was held at the Royal MAS Arena on the 8th of December 2022, from 1.30pm onwards

Registrations -

• Free open registrations for the tournament were facilitated by GamerLK’s ingame.gg web platform.
• Registrations were open from the 16th to the 26th of October
• 594 students from 108 different teams from schools island wide registered for the tournament.
• Teams were required to attach clear and legitimate identification of each player participating and proof of them attending the respective school.
• Permission letters from parents were required to be submitted by all the players prior to competing in the tournament.
• A maximum age limit of 20 years old was set for players registering for the tournament

Qualifier Matches -

• All matches in this tournament were held under a bracket system, with a single loss to an opposing team eliminating the losing team from the tournament.
• Matches were held under the “Best of 3” system – with the team who reaches two round wins before the opposing team does, winning the game.
• Qualifier matches were held online without livestreaming. A total of 103 matches were held in this stage for both titles and a crew from the organizing committee was in charge of refereeing the matches.
• The final 8 teams (4 from each title) who remained in the tournament towards the end of the qualifiers stage advanced into the Semi-Finals stage.

Semi-Finals Stage –

• The teams who were victorious in the quarterfinals stage of the tournament successfully advanced into the semifinals stage. This stage was conducted fully online as well, while it was livestreamed on Youtube and Facebook, as well as GamerLK’s online media.

Valorant Semi-Finals - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uFQNl4fSbA&t=8013s

Call of Duty Mobile Semi-Finals - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrFVbvpsdOk

• Production for this stage was solely done by a crew from the project organizing committee.

Grand Finals Stage -

• The following teams were victorious in the SemiFinals stage and earned themselves the opportunity to compete at the Grand Finals of the tournament.

Valorant – Alpha Q from Lyceum International, Cloud 6 from Wesley College

Call Of Duty Mobile – VoltZ from Lyceum International, Toxic NC from Nalanda College

• The Grand Finale was held on the 8th of December at the Royal MAS Arena. The event started at 1.30 pm and concluded at about 9.30 pm. An estimated total of around 700 individuals came to the venue as spectators, and 20 players were playing in the finals with the common objective of being victorious and taking home the trophy.
• Gaming Computer setups were rented and arranged for the valorant players on stage, while Call of Duty Mobile players brought their own devices to compete with due to having portability.
• Team Alpha Q came out on top as the Valorant Champions, and Team VoltZ became the Call of Duty Mobile champions, with both teams representing Lyceum International College.
• Mr.Raveen Wijeyathilake, the President of the Sri Lanka Esports Association graced the event as the chief guest.
• Mr.Ananda Priyadarshana, host of the popular Youtube Channel PCGUIDELK also attended the event as an invited guest and conducted a small session on the positives and negative aspects of gaming as well as social media.
• Mr. Siraj Jabir, the country manager of Lenovo Sri Lanka, who is an individual who supported us to a great extent throughout the event also was present at the event as an invited guest.
• Several Playstation consoles as well as VR machines were placed throughout the event venue, providing an opportunity for all the students who walked in to have an on-hand gaming experience free of charge.
• Two stalls were conducted by Lenovo, and they showcased their Legion series gaming laptops, as well as a 2.8 million LKR Gaming PC courtesy of Redline Gaming.
• Towards the end of the event a prize giving ceremony was held, where the winners and runners up of the tournament were awarded their trophies and certificates. In addition to that, plaques of appreciation were presented to the invited guests of the event.
• Our platinum sponsor Lenovo awarded a few small gifts towards the organizing committee of the event as well as the supportive staff from GamerLK.