 Welcome to the wide world of eSports, a show devoted to all things eSports. My guest today is Jaymar Matej Hermoso, the CEO and founder of Elo eSports, joining us from the Philippines. Our topic is Partnering with Government in eSports in the Philippines and beyond. Welcome, Jaymar. Thanks, Catherine. It's a pleasure to be here and thank you again for inviting us over and for us to be able to share what we're doing here in the Philippines. All right. I bet it's very early in the morning there. That's right. It's currently 6 a.m. in the morning and yeah, I still haven't had my coffee, but I'm ready to just push through this and introduce what we're doing in Elo Elo. All right. So tell us about Elo eSports. That's right. Elo eSports is one of the first government-backed eSports organization. So in the world and industry of eSports, everything is privately owned and it's mostly in partnership with brands and private entities. So I thought why not create a eSports organization wherein I will partner up with my city government and be able to just share the vastness and the eSports scene with my city for me to be able to propagate and grow the grassroots level of eSports here in the region and hopefully my goal is to have other cities and places in our country to have their own government-backed eSports organizations as well and for this eSports organization to have the same level of legitimacy and support us with traditional sporting, us with traditional sports I mean. So what is Elo eSports to? Is it a team? So right now we are playing to create a team for three eSport eSport titles, particularly Mobile Legends, Bang Bang, League of Legends Wild Drift and Valorant, the three biggest games here in our region. But right now we're organizing events for our communities and what we're doing is that we create platforms for the members of our community and the local eSports enthusiasts to have a safe space to compete and hopefully make, pursue their passion in eSports and make it as a career. And we did some workshops as well for streaming, we also do a workshops for shoutcasting and we'll have soon, later this quarter we'll be doing a workshop for events organizing so that we can have more eSports events here in our region. All right you'll have to come to Hawaii and team up with some of the local eSports organizations here. Hopefully, hopefully, one of these days. All right so how did you, how did you get the idea to connect with city government? Yeah so I'm a bit of, I actually started my eSports career per se with organizing League of Legends well-drift tournaments and then I just thought that since eSports is considered as a support here in the Philippines since our games and amusement board approved eSports athletes around 2015 I believe. So I thought that why not tap our local sports and youth department from our city to provide resources even just for prizes, I mean for prize pools during our tournaments and after that I spoke with them and in hopes that I can make eSports a legitimate department or a legitimate organization here in our region create an executive order for the creation of an eSports council in our city who will administer and administer and be able to oversee all eSports activities and activations here in our city. It was signed last year by your mayor so the support and the platform that we're given is backed by our city government and it has been enacted to law due to the draft the executive order that I drafted. Terrific and did you have the connections to make that happen then? The funny thing is is that I just sent them a message on Facebook and they were good enough to reply back to me and after that that's where the connection started and I just continued the ball rolling on that path and from them sponsoring our events to us partnering with eSports activations here in our city including having workshops, events, tournaments and other things related to the eSports scene. Well you know that's kind of how I connect with government officials too but it's on LinkedIn because there are certain senators and legislators who post on LinkedIn and it's a good way to kind of communicate with them so that's kind of interesting that you did that on Facebook. Yeah that's right actually the Philippines Facebook is still the number one social media platform and basically everyone is in it. LinkedIn is still catching up and only those who are serious and I believe that those who want to connect in a global stage uses so that's why it was very effective in my end but yeah with regards to LinkedIn I was happy that I was able to meet you there and we're able to make this happen. So what is the government's interest in promoting eSports? So with regards to their interests I think in my presentation to them I mentioned how big the eSports in gaming industry is it being the eSports scene with more than viewers compared to the NFL and NBA it having more participants compared to traditional sports and the gaming industry being valued at over 300 billion it was something that I believe caught their eye and caught their attention that this is something that we must invest in, we must support so that our city might be one day being recognized worldwide in the scene in the gaming and eSports scene so and not only that since I started the organization during the pandemic there were limited onsite sporting events so in exchange I mean while they're not available we were still capable of doing online events through eSports and we're able to connect our fellow citizens here through gaming and through tournaments that we have organized. So did when did when did you start partnering with the city what year? So you started last year January I know last year we started my events January I did the second batch of events in FEB and that time I reached out to the government to ask for a partnership. Okay so you're a pandemic organization. Yeah I mean I think that a lot of organizations and businesses started in the pandemic people are probably using trying to be creative in terms of what they can do remotely right? That's right so since especially here the Philippines that it took longer to have the establishments open have face-to-face events happened then the only way for us to socialize and be able to connect with each other is through online maybe through social media platforms or through eSports. Sure and I think the Philippines is a bit like Hawaii because we were pretty slow and as well. I didn't know that about Hawaii but yeah it was compared to other countries we think we just opened our face-to-face events earlier March or April this year. Sure sure so does the government provide financial assistance to Elo? Yes yes they do and but other than the financials the main benefit that we get from them is having their being in partner be tying tying in with them since it's a good way to market our organization as being the first government-backed eSports organization so it's something that can make us connect with more brands or more local businesses and even non-indemic private organizations to support what we're doing because our mission is really to grow eSports through the under the help of the government. Okay so what city are you in? So our city is called Ilo Ilo that's why we also named the eSports Organization Ilo. Ilo eSports. Okay and can you explain like where Ilo Ilo is located within the Philippine islands? Sure we're actually in the center of the Philippines that's why we're often called the heart of the Philippines and one fact is that we are the city of love here in the Philippines so the Filipinos have this notion that we are the most caring and loving people citizens in this country so yeah I think that's some of the facts here some facts about Ilo Ilo. We also have great beaches here I know it's nothing compared to that of Hawaii but we also have awesome beaches here. Oh terrific so have you heard after you partnered with your government did you hear of others other organizations partnering with their governments as well or did you start a trend or is it still building? Still building but I got messages from other eSports enthusiasts all over the country who wanted to follow what I started and replicate what I did especially in terms of having government support and actually I'm next year I'm planning to start a national level league where Ilo eSports can compete with eSports organizations from other major cities and municipalities here in the Philippines so it's still a working project but nonetheless it's something that I look forward to. What lessons have you learned from this partnership? Number one probably is the impact of having a legitimate of having the government as a partner because it makes your initiatives more legitimate and it adds more value to what you're doing especially that it will definitely give your organization a little shiny different light to your organization especially when it comes to having to connect with private entities and telling them that we're backed by our own government and it really drives the message to them that this is something that we're not doing just for fun but it's something that we're doing for the betterment of not only of our city but of the people from our city especially those who are into eSports and gaming especially since that the industry is worth several billion dollars hopefully we can bring back what they have invested and be able to be recognized as eSports hub in the eSports hub inside of Southeast Asia. Sure so this is a real win-win for not only you the government the people in your community and I would think anyone who provides sponsorship or partners with you is that correct? That's right so not only that they will receive recognition with our community they will also have a good standing with the government. Sure sure yeah you know I would think that it is a bit challenging for eSports organizations and their infancy to have that legitimacy and I would think that this because a lot of the gamers are young that they appreciate governmental stamp of approval so that they can tell their parents that you know our government says it's okay that I game so you should too. Definitely I couldn't have said it better that stamp of approval from a governing body is something that we can use to really make what we're doing more official and really uplift and promote what we're doing as something that can be beneficial to those participating in it. So all over the world you know eSports is really taking hold and you know we know that places like South Korea are really big and you know the United States has grown and Europe has grown how does the Philippines compare to other places in the world in terms of their growth in eSports? Yeah we actually had some world championships won by Filipino teams especially in the most famous game here in the country which is Mobile Legends Bang Bang we're back-to-back world champions in Call of Duty Mobile Philippines also has a winning team and with regards to organizations one of the most famous and the more established ones are getting noticed worldwide even getting bigger numbers than eSports organizations from the US or Europe so we're growing and especially in the handheld scene the mobile eSports scene is growing by the year and the Philippines is one of the top players in that category. Sure and you know that was one of my next questions was mobile. I understand that like South America, Asia are really big in mobile eSports. It sounds like your eSports is more mobile rather than PC and console is that correct? That's right yeah I believe PC is a bit more harder what do you call this? It's a yeah we have more handheld gamers especially mobile gamers here in the Philippines because getting a PC here the Philippines is more expensive than just getting a handheld phone and the computer shops or the PC shops or the PC banks as what they call in Korea are famous here but since because of the pandemic their operations stopped so the PC gamers transition into mobile gaming. Okay sure and in in the Philippines are is eSports moving into schools at every level or you know how is that going? Yeah I'm actually lucky to have we're actually lucky to have Akad Arena. It's a startup for it's a collegiate eSports startup that got seed funded for three million dollars earlier later last year late last year and what they're doing is that they have created a platform for college eSports players to have a way to compete with each other in a more organized way and they've actually have expanded to Southeast Asia and just earlier this month to Brazil so they're pushing collegiate eSports worldwide and fun fact is that their founder and CEO is also from Ilohina. Oh that's terrific all right so what advice would you give to people in other countries who here who watch this and they think oh maybe we could partner with our government? Yeah so the main thing is that they just need to create a pitch that and a presentation that can make the government officials see how beneficial eSports in gaming can be and make it in a way that it can help their grassroots community grow and hopefully with those two you can follow and replicate what we're doing as well. Sure so what did you have any roadblocks in your journey to create your Ilohina eSports and to partner with the government? Not much of a roadblock but it was a longer journey than I expected because I had to since it's the government I had to speak to a lot of people just to push our agenda so we had the lobby and it was a long process but nonetheless we don't I don't see anything that's blocking our way to be more established and stabilize our organization. And what is the future for you? Yeah so sorry. What's the future of Ilohina? So yeah we're planning to create our own Ilohina eSports team for Mobile Legends Bank, League of Legends Wild Drift and Valorant so we're not only so we're not only organized tournaments but we'll send in teams coming from our city to different tournaments and promote what we're doing here so in that way we can have our players become our brand of ambassadors become ambassadors and advocates of our city and in a way it's also for them to be discovered in the bigger eSports scene especially since us here in Ilohina are not really lucky to unfortunate to be given spotlight because most of the pro players pro eSport players that we have came from Manila to seek the capital of the Philippines and for Ilohina eSports we're continually growing and will aside from the those three mentioned hopefully we'll be able to open more departments with other eSport games including other titles like College of Mobile and League of Legends PC since I think it was the fourth and fifth most popular games here in our region sure all right so how can people find you if they're interested in connecting yeah so they can check out facebook.com slash Ilohina eSports where we announce our projects right now we're in hiatus but we're planning to conduct a weekly tournament start starting October so we were blessed to partner with community gaming who will be providing a $200 per week prize pool so we're doing a Ilohilo versus the world so it will be Ilohilo teams versus organizations outside our city and after that uh yeah I think uh we will have to onsite all conventions where we will invite cosplay and hobbies from our city to gather and have a by monthly gathering of like-minded people so just think about it in in the half hour here you've very much promoted your city you've told us all about Ilohilo and people who watch will be interested in going to the city of love and going to your beautiful beaches so I definitely think that this is a great partnership with you and your government so anyway Jmar thank you so much for telling us all about it appreciate you you being our guest now thank you guys for inviting me and yeah I couldn't have promoted my city and the things that we do at Ilohilo you supported out your invitation here so once again uh I appreciate you for I appreciate being uh thank you for uh inviting me here and I look forward to more uh esports organization partnering with their local government so that we can revolutionize the esports scene worldwide fantastic all right and thank you to our viewers for joining us today in two weeks my guest will be Nick Turner joining us from the UK see you then thank you so much for watching think tech hawaii if you like what we do please like us and click the subscribe button on youtube and the follow button on vimeo you can also follow us on facebook instagram twitter and linked in and donate to us at think tech hawaii.com mahalo