Over the course of the last 30-some-odd years, the industry of esports has seen its ups and downs. Once bound to local arcade scenes and community LAN events, under the stewardship of major esports organizations and in partnership with game publishers, pro gaming has evolved into a worldwide phenomenon. But to carry the world of esports into the future — and further cement its role in a shared global pop culture — it’ll require serious investment, and a commitment from governing parties to accelerate healthy growth and proliferation. That’s the mission of the Savvy Games Group, a games and esports company based in Riyadh, that was established in 2021 by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund to energize the games and esports industry as a key part of the country’s economy. Since its arrival, Savvy has quickly become a major player in all aspects of the industry. In its first year, Savvy acquired shares in historic publishers like Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, and Take-Two Interactive. With a keen eye on the astronomical reach of mobile gaming, the company acquired developer and publisher Scopely — the powerhouse behind hits like Monopoly Go! — and now-owner of Niantic, the creator of a little title called Pokémon GO, a sensation that garnered over 100 million players in 2024 alone. But Savvy’s most prolific contribution to gaming has arguably been its work in esports. According to CEO Brian Ward, within 60 days of the company’s formation, they had penned deals to purchase ESL and FACEIT, two of the leading global organizations in esports. ESL is the leading esports company behind the world’s largest tournaments like Counter-Strike’s Intel Extreme Masters series; FACEIT being a gaming platform where users can both watch live esports broadcasts and organize their own community play. As a combined organization, ESL FACEIT Group also hosts DreamHack, a wide-ranging celebration of all things gaming culture that has spread to cities like Dallas and Stockholm. But the trajectory of Savvy hasn’t stopped at just fostering well-known institutions, but spearheaded the creation of their own. In 2024, the first-ever Esports World Cup was held in Riyadh, bringing together roughly 1,500 players to compete across 22 different games. The eight-week international tournament was the biggest esports event of its kind and will continue this summer in its second iteration. Building on the foundation set by Savvy with the Esports World Cup, the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region is set to become an even greater fixture in the global gaming community with the introduction of the Olympic Esports Games, the first of which will be held in Riyadh in 2027. Amid all this, Savvy remains focused on its core goals. “Our mission is to build the world’s number one global games and esports company,” Ward tells Rolling Stone. “This is a very audacious objective. But an important underlying part of that mission is to be a good investor and to be a good steward of overall industry growth, [and] lead to growth in games and esports.” To do so, the company will focus on some key tenets behind their mission. Shifting consumer dynamics While all forms of modern entertainment require some form of participation — music and streaming shows should at least stir your attention — the interactivity of gaming drives a level of engagement far beyond what’s expected in traditional media. Platforms like Twitch have made passively consuming gameplay the norm for many, while FACEIT takes it a step further with the ability to individually track specific esports’ players POVs in-game and personally organize and jump into matches in real-time. But a huge part of audience engagement isn’t limited to virtual space or even the direct control of games. For Savvy’s CEO Brian Ward, there’s never been a more pressing time for fans to engage with gaming on all levels. “The engagement in esports viewership and participation has been off the hook for a long, long time, so we anticipated that there might be some investment coming in that we could help that consolidation,” he says. “And now I think we’re at a different stage of that inflection point where having some very large events — Esports World Cup last summer and Gamers8 two summers before — is raising awareness and broadening viewership into a broader segment of the population.” Ward acknowledges the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has on the proliferation and adoption of virtual esports as a medium for home consumption, but it’s true that the heart of esports from its earliest grassroots days, is in the IRL community. And while Savvy-owned organizations like ESL FACEIT Group have been hosting esports tournaments and festivals for thousands of attendees for over two decades, the CEO believes that the current moment is a true “inflection point” for the industry, with events like the Esports World Cup driving global attention — and more importantly, investment. “Now, I think we’re turning that corner. [These] mega events, thanks to some very large investments, are making it more obvious that these things are exciting and that we can attract [people] — there were 2.6 million visitors to the Esports World Cup in Riyadh over eight weeks last year,” he says. “Hopefully, our investment in ESL and FACEIT, and later Vindex and Hero Esports in China, and our commitment to providing long-term capital to the sector has helped encourage both the publisher side [and] the sponsors’ and advertisers’ side of the equation.” “Then,” he adds, “you start turning the flywheel in the opposite direction.” Gaming can also be a deeply personal experience. Social media and content creator culture has helped feed into the art of self-expression for gamers, who are following their favorite esports teams (or creating their own moments) on FACEIT. User-generated content is a huge boon to the esports industry, as is the parasocial relationship between audiences and pro gamers within fandom. The biggest contributing factor to the personalization of gaming, however, is the mobile market — something Ward has been, well, savvy about. “Let’s face it, there are now 3.4 billion who play games — only 200 million of which have consoles — but the other 3.2 billion are playing on their phone,” he says. “And that wasn’t the case 15 years ago. In the PC/console days it was more, I wouldn’t say ‘niche’ activity, but you had to have a piece of hardware. And now, you still have to have a piece of hardware, but it’s something you already own.” The new global games and esports hub Historically, there’s a few regions that come to mind when players think of the gaming industry. The United States and Japan have played an integral role in game development since the earliest days. Parts of Europe and South Korea have helped turn grassroots esports communities into stadium-selling spectacles. Now, with investment from companies like Savvy Games Group, MENA is primed to become an epicenter of all things gaming moving forward. Part of that stems from the region’s built-in audience, with a population that skews younger than most. As a generation of old school gamers pass on their passion to the next, MENA is fertile ground for esports’ attention. “I think this is a generational thing for sure — the adoption of games and game-related enthusiasm, esports enthusiasm, is amongst the highest in the world,” Ward says. “And that’s, in part, because the population is so young. 70 percent of the population is under the age of 35. So, for them, it’s just perfectly natural that you would enjoy this as a form of entertainment; it might be your primary form of entertainment — and you might be interested in studying it at school or having a career in it.” There’s also a cultural difference in how the current generation of players perceive gaming and esports in general. While in the old days, it was considered a more male-oriented area of interest, today the gender gap in participation and fandom is much less skewed. Ward recalls visiting China in 2024 for an “all-star” esports tournament where he and his team had expected to see huge crowds, but not as intensely dominated by female attendees as it was. “These professional athletes are like K-pop stars in the East, and that’s not something we see in the West,” he notes. “Esports athletes are not yet of that stature culturally yet.” But behind the old pop cultural ethos of, “Build it and they will come,” lies a key factor: the building. According to Ward, that’s where the biggest hurdles have been in cultivating esports in most regions. Although many organizations, and even publishers themselves, have attempted in the past to provide their own infrastructure, a true commitment to the endeavor requires more capital than most are willing to commit long-term. (“Something [always] gets cut,” Ward says, “and it’s usually on the marketing side.”) That’s what the government-led coordination of Savvy aims to do differently. With a long-term investment in turbocharging growth and innovation in games and esports, Saudi Arabia’s National Games and Esports Strategy is pushing to provide consistent funding to create a sustainable infrastructure. Savvy tells Rolling Stone that the target estimate of its contributions is adding to the tune of $13.3 billion to Saudi Arabia’s GDP and creating 39,000 jobs by 2030. Yet, for the betting man, it might seem like a lofty gamble — even to Ward himself. “You’d ask yourself, ‘Why, if you’re building a games company, would the very first thing you spend money on — and a lot of money ($1.5 billion) — would be in esports, which is the segment of our ecosystem that doesn’t yet make a profit?’ Ward continues, “The answer was, it’s a very important part of [the] investment in the global industry. Focusing on developing esports across all vectors, from training and development to professional competitions to grassroots, and so forth.” The word “grassroots” here is key. For Ward, developing a sustainable and lucrative gaming incubator is dependent on introducing and supporting gaming as a hobby and career path early on. “People do play these games at young ages. When we grew up playing traditional sports, we all had some kind of grassroots way to participate in that sport, whether it was baseball or hockey or soccer, and that doesn’t really exist in esports,” he says. “So, I think that’s one of the longer-term ambitions that we’re trying to unlock: how do we develop a grassroots ecosystem for esports? It gives younger people a chance to compete and develop their skills. I think the Olympic Esports Games will help foster that because every National Olympic Committee that will participate in the Esports Olympics will have an ecosystem in their own country for developing athletes.” The cultural impact It’s well known by now that gaming, as an industry, is more profitable than music and movies combined. With over 3 billion “gamers” on earth, engagement is at an all-time high. Combined with social media and content creation, the medium has become a nexus point where playing, spectating, and both active and passive fandom align. While most people themselves play games — and everyone at least knows someone who does — it’s become more than just a hobby; it’s a part of our culture writ large. Woven into the pop culture fabric is celebrity. What was once, “what are they wearing?” could very well become, “What are they playing?” And when it comes to big events, celebrities also play a huge role in the modern world of esports. “These big events attract a lot more viewership because they’ve got more to them than just the competitions. There are festivals and there’s all kinds of entertainment that goes with [them]. They attract celebrities; celebrities attract more viewers,” Ward explains. “I think of my old days at EA and the Madden Bowl and, you know, Madden was a cultural icon — partly because of the Madden Bowl and the excitement around celebrities and players playing the video games during Super Bowl week. I think we’re starting to see more of that with these events, and we’ll see even more of it with the Esports Olympics Games.” Yet the definition of “celebrity” doesn’t precisely mean the same thing that it once did. As content creators and influencers have become a dominant force in global digital culture, Ward believes it’s time for the same level of adoration to be applied to esports players. “When you look at and understand the physiological demands on these esports athletes, it’s tremendous,” he says. “It’s almost the same sort of realization you have at how hard it is to drive a Formula One car in a race. These athletes are really underappreciated and under-acknowledged in society, and I hope that we have the opportunity to tell more of the stories of the people who are involved in these competitions.” With a 30-year career in gaming, stretching from companies like EA to Activision, and now Savvy, Ward has seen it all. Or, at least, he thought he had. His biggest revelation in the esports space came when he attended his first big tournament in Poland some years back. “What surprised me the most [was] seeing 15,000 people, mostly 40-year-old guys and their 9-year-old kids, and the people screaming their heads off are the 40-year-old guys,” he says. “Then, I really got it. I really understand the fandom around watching professionals who are amazingly skilled at a game.” He adds, “People like to compete. Seems to be human nature! And they like to see others who compete in something they’re familiar with, at a higher level, and watch their expertise in action.” Ward himself is (of course) a gamer, although with his duties as a CEO working for a company that aims to be the largest gaming organization on the planet, he’s got less time these days. “I was a very wicked Space Invaders player back in the arcade days, and that dates me,” he laughs. “I got into Doom 3 for a long time. That gave me nightmares.” Today, his go-to “turn off your brain” game is Scopely’s own Tripeaks Solitaire. But not having time to commit to mastering modern games, he remains in awe of the dedication and skill of esports pros — as well as the people behind-the-scenes who organize the tournaments. Referring to the hit F1-centric docuseries, Drive to Survive, Ward muses that getting to know the people that make esports a global juggernaut would only further expand its reach. “I think if we did a better job of telling human stories — and there are great human stories in esports — from the team management to the athletes themselves, to the organizing of these events, and the things that the folks like EFG go through putting on dozens and dozens of [events] all around the world every year. Some of these stories are frankly mind boggling. ‘How did you pull off a World Cup in nine months?’ Ward is hesitant to go as far as saying that esports needs its own Drive to Survive, but maybe it does. “If we figure out a way to bring viewership to the ecosystem by focusing on the human element more, then I think we’ll get more people interested in the underlying competition.” Through the work being done by Savvy, Ward is confident that the future of esports is brighter than ever, but it can only come to fruition through committed investment. “There are not very many places in the world that could put this on,” he says. “But Saudi Arabia is clearly the leader in investing in this space and intends to be the leader in this space for decades to come.”