Despite the massive growth of esports over the last few years, it’s still quite rare to see support for the medium coming from politicians. What’s usually the case is that some local school in your area awarded some 16-year-old half-colours for being very good at Counter-Strike, but other than that esports have largely been overlooked as a program that countries should invest in. Denmark has taken issue with this lack of concern over the development of competitive gaming, and have announced that they will be installing the first ever government-led strategy to grow the country’s esports scene.
The recently announced Esports Panel will spend their budget on fostering an environment and community around competitive gaming in the hopes that the country’s interest and investment in e-sports grows in both size and profits. The panel will be encouraging more young people to pursue competitive gaming while also putting money into already established competitors. A focus is also being placed on recruiting women into the scene to help diversify the current pool of gaming professionals.
Perhaps most uplifting about the statement of this panel, are their goals of community improvement, looking to tackle problematic areas of competitive gaming such as misogyny, racism, cheating and illegal match betting. The move in general appears to be a positive one with the strategy taking a “no tolerance” on any violations regarding the above issues.
It’s no surprise that Denmark is looking to actively grow their esports scene as the country is home to many of the most successful teams in the world, including Gravitas Gaming, Ventus Gaming and most notably Astralis, who frequently dominate the Counter-Strike scene, recently winning the Intel Grand Slam and taking home $1,000,000 in bonuses.
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Last Updated: May 27, 2020
Magoo
May 15, 2019 at 11:43
Nice. Danes are awesome. 8)
Admiral Chief Flammenwerfer
May 15, 2019 at 12:38
Indeed, they are great