A record-breaking tournament is taking place in Saudi Arabia this year. With $45 million in total prize money, the festival organised by Gamers8 is breaking all boundaries
The Gamers8 Festival of Riyadh Masters already made a splash last year with a huge prize pool in various Esports titles. This year, the Saudi state-funded organisation has set a record $45 million prize pool.
45 million for the new edition of the Riyadh Masters
Gamers8 triples the prize pool of the Riyadh Masters with this announcement, which they also held last year. The record prize pool even surpasses the $40 million from the previous leader – The International 2021.
It is still unclear exactly which matches will be part of the tournament series on 6 July. Last year it was the following five titles: Dota 2, Rainbow Six, Fortnite, PUBG Mobile and Rocket League.
Did we say more than double? We meant triple!
45 MILLION DOLLARS
The largest in esports history.
This is Gamers8!
This is TheLandofHeroes! pic.twitter.com/qL7mRipR8K– Gamers8 Esports (@Gamers8GG) March 7, 2023
Saudi Gaming and Esports Offensive
The announcement is part of the major gaming and esports offensive that Saudi Arabia has been pursuing for several years. This includes not only the “Gamers without Borders” tournament series, but also investments in existing industry giants, such as the acquisition of ESL FACEIT Group last year.
In February of this year, the state-owned Savvy Games Group followed this up by buying the Chinese mobile esport tournament organiser VSPO for several hundred million euros.
With the almost inexhaustible funds from oil production, investments will surely continue to rise.
Despite the quite welcome additional financial injections for the industry, the tournaments with Saudi support are also viewed with scepticism. After all, Saudi Arabia’s handling of human rights and criticism of the government is more than questionable.
