June 10, 2022 South Korean company Bigpicture Interactive, the parent company of the World Cyber Games (WCG), announced that it has signed a partnership deal with the Philippines’ LCS Group in order to establish game entertainment hubs for the Southeast Asia region. According to the deal, the two parties will foster the esports education industry and host various esports events, such as game conventions and music festivals to successfully launch their esports services in the Philippines and Southeast Asia. In addition, a joint venture will be established to develop independent esports IP as well as a consumer brand. “We are delighted to build on our partnership with LCS Group as we continue to execute our global strategy,” Bigpicture CEO Kwangjun Song told Sports Business Journal. “With this initiative, we will work together with various gaming companies hoping to expand overseas, to create synergy with our global esports festival, WCG.” An Olympic-style, multi-title esports event, the WCG used to be the biggest esports event before Valve hosted its first Dota 2 The International and Riot Games hosted its first League of Legends World Championship in 2011. Samsung used to own WCG, but CrossFire publisher Smilegate acquired it in 2017. Smilegate is the company behind FPS game CrossFire, which has a significant following globally despite having a smaller presence in Western markets. Bigpicture told SBJ that the company bought WCG IP from Smilegate in January 2022 and aims to launch a new WCG before the end of this year. In 2019, WCG was reborn in the Chinese city of Xi’an after a six-year break. However, a familiar esports IP reborn can’t stop a global pandemic, which shut it down in 2021. by HONGYU CHEN (gamedesk@chosun.com)<See the original text>
