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Comic Con Brussels 2018
© Comic Con Brussels 2018
esports
Comic Con is coming to Africa
The celebrated international geek festival will be take place in South Africa at the Kyalami Race Track and International Convention Centre from the 14th to the 16th of September 2018.
Written by Sam Wright
3 min readPublished on
Fans can expect all the usual Comic Con fanfare including celebrities, panels and international guests. However, there will also be an esports and gaming element to the festivities courtesy of the headline sponsor, VS Gaming. VS Gaming has announced that their Masters Finals for CSGO and Dota will take place at Comic Con as will the VS Championships (previously known as the DGC and held at rAge since inception). There will also be a casual LAN at Comic Con. Rumours are that around 1500 people could potentially be able to bring their computers and play for the weekend.
Part of the decision to host Comic Con at Kyalami Race Track also includes incorporating racing and driving games into the mix, according to Carol Weaving from Reed Exhibitions. Racing games and simulations have a growing fan base in South Africa and no doubt this will be a smart way to bring this gaming subculture to the convention.
There’s a bigger esports picture that needs to be looked at as well. rAge expo has been South Africa’s largest gaming expo and runs every year around the 5th to the 7th of October. This will mean rAge is less than three weeks after Comic Con. The VS Championships/DGC have historically been held in the basement of the Dome during rAge. This won’t be the case in 2018. VS Gaming and Telkom (because they are one and the same whether they want to admit it or not) have been headline sponsors for rAge for years but it seems will now move that allegiance elsewhere, along with the stage they usually occupy at the expo - as the Masters finals will be at Comic Con.
We chatted to VS Gaming Spokesperson Lenushka Parannath who says that VS Gaming is still deciding what involvement they will have with rAge this year but that the decision to move their properties to Comic Con was part of their larger drive to ensure gaming is given a bigger stage and setting in South Africa.
In 2017, South Africa’s two largest CSGO competitions both hosted their finals at rAge and teams were forced to select between the two, as did fans. In a growing community this is never ideal. Opinions on the Comic Con Esports offering are split. Many players agree that this allows other organisers to host competitions at rAge and thus offers more opportunities for players and fans. However, others have argued that hosting these events so close together becomes problematic.
rAge has been held at the beginning of October to coincide with new game releases and to ensure the latest titles as well as pre-launch code is available on the show floor. With this thinking in mind it makes sense that Comic Con attempted to place their event during a similar time. Especially when you consider Comic Con will also be catering for movie releases as well.
South African esports has a true test to face now. Do we have the staying power to pull off big competitions at two major expos or will one fall short? For casual gamers, come September you’ll have your pick of the best gaming, geek and esports action - so start saving for those tickets!
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