Week 33 2020
For three weeks now we’ve continued used the community section of our newsletter as a way to educate and inform on serious issues plaguing our community. We’ve shared commentary around banter vs bullying, ethically sourced games and this week, share a resource on every day sexism and how to tackle it. We’ll continue with this series for the month of August, in the hope that we can use our small platform to illicit even a slight change in our industry.
Featured Story this Week
A Twitter account released screengrabs of racist behaviour from two South African Dota 2 players this week. The account named Matthew “BEE” Raubach and Callum “Skeeehound” Foster in the tweets. Both are listed as members of the Exdee Gaming Dota 2 team on the VS Gaming website. BEE has released an apology on twitter. South African Gaming & Esports Newsletter emailed both Exdee Gaming and VS Gaming on Tuesday 11 August. Exdee did not respond to our request for a statement. Johann Von Backstrom, Senior Manager Esport at Telkom VS Gaming issued the following response:
“Telkom VS Gaming is committed to creating a safe, inclusive environment for all gamers and do not tolerate racism as stipulated in our regulations. When such a matter is brought to our attention, we investigate the matter thoroughly before imposing any penalties. Should it be found that anyone contravened these regulations we will expel a player for behaviour unbecoming of our ethical code.”
This is an ongoing story and we will update accordingly in future mailers.
Gaming News
Grant Hinds has partnered with Samsung Mobile to promote the gaming offerings on their new Galaxy Note 20 device. The popular YouTuber has done a variety of interviews these past two weeks discussing mobile gaming.
Netflix will release a gaming documentary next week about gaming’s golden age. Glitched had early access and posted this review.
Esports News
2 South African Fortnite players have qualified for the heats of the FNCS MEA Finals. Syco and Trogonz, both signed to ATK Arena, finished among the top 40 players in qualifiers. ATK also celebrated with their CSGO team this week, who won the Gamedock Cup over the weekend.
A host of tournaments have been announced this week for various titles. For fighting games enthusiasts, Ultimate Gaming Championship has announced a new project with rAge Expo. Mettlestate announced the ROG Invitational: Soldiers of Fortune CSGO tournament. ACGL will be handling the Red Bull Solo Q 1v1 League of Legends tournament this weekend.
Business News
Logitech G has a South African social media presence. The peripheral brand launched their localised Facebook Page late last week.
South African eCommerce Store FoxyTech will sponsor Omnius Gaming. The company announced the sponsorship on twitter.
Community News
Sexism online in social media responses and in game is common. Here are a few examples of everyday sexist behaviour you may not even be aware you’re doing as well as how to respond to it.
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