It was the inaugural Esports World Cup, a coming-out party for Saudi Arabia’s growing video game industry. As part of its plan to diversify its economy from oil, the Saudi government has said it will invest $38 billion in video games by 2030 through its Public Investment Fund, known as the PIF, a wealth fund that manages $700 billion.

The wealth behind that commitment was on full display in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, in July, but the country’s influence in video games now extends far beyond its borders. In what has been a financially difficult year for the industry, which has seen mass layoffs, many of the world’s largest video game companies and influencers have quietly partnered with the oil-rich Saudis.

Through acquisitions, a company funded by the PIF called Savvy Games Group now owns 40% of the total esports market share, a spokesperson said. (Esports are video games played by professional gamers in competitive tournaments.) The PIF and its subsidiaries have spent roughly $6 billion buying up game companies and $14 billion on stock investments.

“They’ve used unlimited resources to pretty much make whatever they want to happen, happen,” said Rod Breslau, a gaming and esports analyst.

Some critics have labeled the investments “games washing,” an attempt to polish the country’s reputation and human rights abuses with entertainment and tourism, as it has been accused of doing with its professional golf and soccer leagues. Some gamers have denounced the country’s involvement and vowed to boycott its events. And it can be jarring for visitors to see women — some of them in elaborate costumes — working at a conference in a country where women’s rights have historically been, and continue to be, very restricted.

But as Saudi money becomes ubiquitous in the esports world, avoiding it has become increasingly difficult.

“We’ve gotten to the point where if you draw the line and say, ‘I’m not working for a Saudi-owned company’ or ‘I’m not going to Saudi Arabia,’ your career in esports would probably be very short lived,” said Parker Mackay, an esports broadcaster who resigned from his position on an awards panel in June after it partnered with a Saudi-funded organization.

Along with buying up game publishers and hosting extravagant esports tournaments, the Saudi kingdom is building a gaming city with its own esports district 30 miles west of Riyadh called Qiddiya. Its companies have partnered with video game giants such as Sony and Activision Blizzard, which is owned by Microsoft, and media companies such as Rolling Stone and CNN.

Leaders of Saudi gaming organizations have pushed back on criticism of the kingdom’s financial interest in gaming.

“Three years ago, I would have had my own prejudices as well, thinking about what Saudi is and what it is not,” said Ralf Reichert, CEO of the Esports World Cup Foundation. “Ultimately, everyone needs to judge it on their own, and I just invite people to come and see it.”

Once a country that effectively banned movie theaters and strictly restricted tourism, Saudi Arabia has poured wealth into sports and entertainment at a staggering rate. Notably, the 38-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is an avid gamer.

The PIF is heavily invested in publicly traded video game companies. Its stock portfolio includes a $3.4 billion investment in Electronic Arts, $1.7 billion in Take-Two Interactive and $5.2 billion in Nintendo, according to data from Nasdaq. Its 8.3% stake in Nintendo makes it the Japanese company’s largest outside investor, according to Japanese regulatory filings. The fund also had a $3.3 billion investment in Activision Blizzard before it was acquired by Microsoft.

In 2021, the PIF created Savvy Games Group to spearhead its planned $38 billion investment in the industry. The fund recruited Brian Ward, a former director at Electronic Arts and vice president at Activision Blizzard, to be the company’s CEO.

As part of the government����ap plan to create 250 video game companies and 39,000 new jobs on Saudi soil, Savvy Games Group and other PIF-funded companies have recruited top game developer talent from the United States and Asia. In June, Saudi Arabia’s U.S. embassy launched an exchange program to connect young Saudi game developers with Americans.

Savvy Games Group has already acquired a number of key industry players, most notably Electronic Sports League, which is to esports what the PGA Tour is to golf, and Scopely, the game studio behind Monopoly Go. The company also acquired Faceit, a digital esports platform, combining it with its other esports properties into Electronic Sports League Faceit Group, or EFG.

In January, Activision Blizzard partnered with EFG to revive the esports circuit for its popular game Overwatch, which had shuttered a few months earlier.

In May, EFG provided funding for Rolling Stone to create a new gaming desk.

Rolling Stone did not respond to a request for comment.

In Riyadh at the Esports World Cup, gamers competed for a share of a $60 million prize pool, the largest for an event of its kind.

The tournament is meant to be “a lighthouse in the world sports calendar,” Reichert said.

The eight-week event was organized by the Esports World Cup Foundation, a Saudi nonprofit.

The foundation has leaned on big-name partnerships to spread its influence. In March, Sony became a founding partner of the tournament and is set to produce an Esports World Cup documentary. In June, Warner Bros. Discovery partnered with the foundation to stream the event on CNN. Hours before the tournament����ap opening ceremony, two dozen of the most followed gaming influencers posted links to its livestream on social platform X with the hashtag #EWCPartner.

Some esports teams are trying to make a social statement while still accepting Saudi cash. Team Liquid, an esports team known for promoting diversity and inclusion in the sport, wore jerseys with a Pride logo during competition. Its leaders had mulled over what it meant to play in Riyadh in the weeks leading up to the tournament.

“Participating in a region of the world with a pretty egregious track record of human rights is difficult,” said team co-CEO Steve Arhancet. Arhancet, who is gay, said he took a trip to Riyadh on his own before deciding whether to compete in the tournament.

Some influencers tried to justify their participation to their fans on social media.

Joshua Howard, a sportscaster for the tournament, said his 10-day contract with the Esports World Cup will account for 20% to 30% of his annual earnings.

“When you see an opportunity come along that way, it����ap really hard to say no, and I don’t begrudge anyone for saying no or being upset that I’m here,” Howard said.

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The 6,345-square-foot center, will have a soft opening in May with plans to be fully operational by the summer, according to officials. The center will operate in Streets at SouthGlenn mall, 6851 S. Vine St., a short walk from the SouthGlenn Library.

“The YMCA specializes in providing a safe place for multi-generations who want to meet up
with friends, or make new friends, and engage in activities that are interesting and fun,” said
Kimberly Armitage, YMCA Senior Vice President of Strategic Growth and Mission of
Metropolitan Denver.

The new center, part of the , will operate familiar programs like SilverSneakers, a wellness program for older adults and an array of other programs such as cooking classes, esports and Youth in Government.

Armitage said the vision for the center grew, in part, based on conversations with Centennial Mayor Stephanie Piko.

“The City is excited to partner with the YMCA to develop senior and youth programming for
Centennial residents,” Piko said in a news release. “Centennial’s Senior and Youth Commissions have shared the desire and need for a place for both age groups to gather and enjoy various programs, and the YMCA has the capacity and experience to make this happen. The City looks forward to continuing to work with these Commissions along with the Y as additional opportunities for community involvement become available.”

The center at the mall will include several rooms, including a space for senior yoga, Silver Sneakers and other classes and activities. It will also have a board game room and a gaming lounge for esports and video gaming.

Evie Hall, 16, a junior at Grandview High School, is a vice chair with the . Hall, through the commission, became involved with planning of the space at the new center.

By design, “phone use will be dissuaded in the board game room,” Hall said, as a way to have youth be interactive in a unique setting and partake in chess, checkers, cards and games like Monopoly and Scrabble. The gaming lounge, where computers and video games will be available, is just steps away from the board game room.

Participants in the gaming room will be able to “create videos, create content, and develop creative juices,” Hall said.

Esports, competitive video gaming popular with middle and high school students, was sanctioned in 2022 by the (CHSAA). The new center will engage 11- to 18-year-olds to develop games skills. The new center’s esports offering will be a pilot program for the YMCA of Metro Denver.

Anne Mckinley, 90, joined the Silver Sneakers program at the Littleton YMCA about four years ago. Mckinley also uses the Y’s Livestrong program as part of her recovery from breast cancer and she takes a balance class to help keep her active and moving.

“I’m wanting to make myself as independent as I can be me,” Mckinley said. “Having gone to the Y all this time has made that possible.”

The new location in Centennial is seeking new members of all ages and officials are looking forward to engaging youth and seniors at the facility.

“Our goal is to create an intergenerational space,” said Marlana Krulish, a teen engagement manager with the YMCA. “We will connect bridges to them.”

On the youth side, multiple programs will be offered, including the popular Youth in Government program. Teenagers interested in law, journalism or government can join the three-month program and take on the roles of politicians, lobbyists, attorneys and journalists.

The Center of Generations will be open to the public, and initial offerings will begin in early June, with plans to be fully operational in the summer.

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“I think I was just genuinely inspired by digital technology,” he said.

Motivated by his love for video games, Fair learned to code and fix computers. In 2009, he started I Play Games!, a Chicago-based business that exposes young people of color to a side of video gaming they might not have otherwise known existed.

By channeling students’ enthusiasm for esports — multiplayer competitive video games — schools and businesses like Fair’s aim to prepare them for careers in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, at a time when the fields lack racial diversity.

“These kids were born with digital devices within their hands, and if you give them access, the world is theirs,” said entrepreneur and scholar Jihan Johnston, who founded digital education company Beatbotics with her teenage son, Davon — an avid gamer.

Despite industry inequality and representation issues, young video game users are diverse. A 2015 Pew Research Center study found Black teens are slightly more likely than their peers to play video games, while roughly the same amount of white and Hispanic teens play.

Meanwhile, Black and Hispanic workers make up just 9% and 8% of STEM employees in the U.S. respectively, Pew said last year.

Johnston is reframing the conversation about video games by coaching communities of color on how esports can lead to careers for their children.

“I think our community does not know that this can lead to college,” she said.

This school year, DePaul University in Chicago offered a new academic esports scholarship designed to hone practical skills for the video game industry. Nine of the 10 freshmen recipients are students of color, according to Stephen Wilke, the school’s esports coordinator.

Aramis Reyes, an 18-year-old computer science major with a focus in game design and development, is one of the $1,500 scholarship awardees.

The bespectacled teen described himself as a casual, noncompetitive gamer. For Reyes, the magic of video games is the potential for storytelling. “I have so many design ideas that I want to get into,” he said.

Skills that gamers develop naturally help prime them for their pick of careers in IT, coding, statistics, software engineering and more, Fair said. Typing proficiency sets up gamers to be efficient in the modern workplace, and competitive players approach the data they see on their screen analytically, thinking in frames per second.

“All of that is high-end math happening in the person’s head at the moment,” he said.

Like Fair, video games also sparked Reyes’ interest in coding.

“Everything is so accessible if you know the right place to look. You know, I literally went through a secondhand store and found a book this thick on how to learn Python,” Reyes said, gesturing to show a 10-inch (25-centimeter) spine.

Fair said businesses like his will help close the diversity gap. Increasing diversity in STEM would improve pay equity, invigorate innovation and help keep America competitive on a global scale, as testing reveals the U.S. is lagging in STEM education.

University of California Irvine research supports Fair’s strategy: a collaborative program with the North America Scholastic Esports Federation found that school-affiliated clubs aimed at using student interest in esports in an academic context facilitated math and science learning, increased STEM interest, and benefited kids at low-income schools the most.

Grace Collins, a Cleveland area teacher who launched the first all-girls varsity esports high school team in 2018, said creating a welcome space and improving representation is crucial to building out diversity in both esports and STEM.

“I think the challenges for diversity in esports and the challenges for diversity in STEM are often very similar … so solving this problem in one place can help alleviate them on the other side,” Collins said.

Reyes, who is Hispanic and Latino, said esports feels like a welcoming community for students of color, and is “absolutely” an avenue into improving diversity in STEM. Although civil rights advocates say racist hate speech persists online, overwhelmingly the gaming community is accepting, in Reyes’ experience.

Sophomore Lethrese Rosete agreed, calling DePaul’s esports club “a very safe and friendly environment.”

Rosete, 20, is majoring in user design experience to combine her creativity and coding skills.

She’s aware of inequality issues in STEM and video game design, mentioning Activision’s Blizzard Entertainment president, ousted after a discrimination and sexual harassment lawsuit cited a “frat boy” culture that became “a breeding ground for harassment and discrimination against women.”

But Rosete said DePaul doesn’t feel that way. “We’re all just here to learn,” she said.

When first-person shooter game Valorant released a new Filipina character, Rosete said she started screaming and running around in excitement.

“I felt at peace,” said Rosete, who is Filipina American. “I felt like my representation had come.”

But video games are not a cure-all for the STEM diversity gap. “It����ap a systemic problem that����ap way bigger than esports,” Wilke said.

Lack of representation, online extremism and expensive equipment buy-in could have the opposite effect by reinforcing stereotypes and exacerbating inequality.

Online safety is also a concern — video game company Epic Games, maker of Fortnite, will pay a total of $520 million to settle complaints involving children’s privacy and methods that tricked players into making purchases, U.S. federal regulators said Monday.

Fair recommended parents keep a “good watchful eye” on their kids’ online activity. “There’s a lot of trash out there,” he said.

Access to gaming consoles and computers varies by teens’ household income, and the average Black and Hispanic households earn about half as much as the average white household, the Federal Reserve reported in 2021.

Although surveys show increases in developers of color, white men remain overrepresented in the gaming industry.

Fair said there is a long way to go to improving racial diversity in both STEM and esports.

“I can have a lot of kids that love playing FIFA. But that doesn’t mean that they’re going to desire to become engineers,” he said. “You have to kind of try and show directly how what they’re doing, the activity that they want to do connects to something that they can make money in.”

A South Korean esports team, DRX, guided their video game characters into the home base of the rival T1 squad and smashed its Nexus, a blue gemstone, to pieces, clinching this year’s League of Legends world championship.

Fans roared their approval, fireworks flared, the winners embraced, and the losers sobbed into their keyboards. Executives from Riot Games, the League of Legends publisher, presented DRX with diamond rings sponsored by Mercedes, celebrating the pinnacle of the professional video game scene.

It was a perfectly choreographed event, the kind of spectacle gaming publishers had promised investors from the traditional sports world when they first pitched them on putting their money into the rapidly growing esports industry in the mid-2010s.

“I remember seeing a team come out, and the fans were going crazy and asking for autographs. I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, this is just like our experience,’” said Zach Leonsis, the son of Ted Leonsis, who owns the NBA’s Washington Wizards and the NHL’s Washington Capitals. The younger Leonsis invested in an esports team in 2016.

But despite the industry’s growth and appeal to the young consumers traditional sports owners are desperate to attract, the money has not followed. Some sports owners have soured on the industry’s short-term prospects after discovering that the methods that make money in traditional sports — like building fan bases in specific cities and striking lucrative deals with television networks — don’t always apply in esports.

Most have not yet turned a profit or seen a return on their investments, and the gaming publishers that control the biggest competitive leagues in North America, like Riot and Activision Blizzard, are operating those leagues at a loss or just beginning to break even.

Although major esports events sell out buildings like the Chase Center and attract tens of millions of viewers in China, tickets cost less than for traditional sports games, and far fewer Americans are watching esports than the 12.4 million who watched the 2022 NBA finals or the 17 million the NFL averaged for 2021 regular-season games, a difference that means less interest from advertisers.

Most critically, leagues like the NBA and NFL earn billions of dollars each year through broadcast deals with television networks, while many esports are streamed for free on sites like YouTube and Twitch. Some early revenue projections included anticipated broadcasting deals with Twitch and YouTube that were less lucrative and consistent than expected.

Of course, esports investors did not expect the industry to supplant traditional sports in just a few years. But some have still been underwhelmed by early returns.

“They certainly pitched us that the growth of these leagues would be meteoric, and we all drank the Kool-Aid,” said Ben Spoont, CEO of an esports organization called Misfits Gaming, whose backers include the owners of the NBA’s Orlando Magic and the NFL’s Cleveland Browns. “What has happened is that growth has not materialized as fast as we had hoped.”

There are other challenges. Most League of Legends competitions in North America take place at Riot����ap arena in Los Angeles, where many teams are based. That deprives esports teams of a chance to make money hosting games or to build a fan base in a specific region.

Activision aimed to change that with leagues based on Overwatch and Call of Duty, its first-person shooter games. Both would hold home and away matches, with teams located around the country like traditional sports teams. Activision charged investors $20 million to join the Overwatch League.

But the league was just building momentum when the COVID-19 pandemic forced it to cancel in-person events. Since then, it has struggled to gain traction. Activision allowed teams to defer fees to be in the league and is now helping teams cover their costs, paying each of the league’s 20 teams about $1 million this year, according to a person with knowledge of the league’s finances.

“Even with the recalibration brought on by the pandemic, we’ve had full arenas and record viewership,” said Joe Christinat, an Activision spokesperson, adding that there was “overwhelming enthusiasm” for the new Overwatch and Call of Duty games. “Our fans want these leagues, and we remain committed to them.”

Investors have also realized that game publishers’ incentives are not necessarily aligned with their own. Publishers can afford to operate money-losing esports leagues as long as they drive interest in their profitable video games, so they sometimes prioritize growth over revenue. Riot, for instance, might hesitate to sign a contract to broadcast League of Legends exclusively on YouTube or Twitch because it would preclude viewers in China, where both services are blocked, from tuning in.

Those kinds of conflicting aims have at times led to tense negotiations.

“It����ap a push and pull,” said Kirk Lacob, the son of Joe Lacob, who owns the Golden State Warriors. “I’ve had long discussions with various members at Riot over the years.” In addition to serving as executive vice president of basketball operations, Kirk Lacob oversees the Warriors’ esports teams.

Lacob’s point of view is common among the sports ownership groups that have bought or invested in esports teams, a list that includes Stan Kroenke of the Los Angeles Rams, Robert Kraft of the New England Patriots and Hal Steinbrenner of the New York Yankees. A former gamer, Lacob discovered the competitive gaming scene in recent years and was enthralled by the prospect of reaching a young and growing audience. He remains bullish on the industry — but would like to start seeing some results.

“I really believe that where there are eyeballs, where there’s usage, there’s eventually revenue,” he said.

Gaming executives urge patience. They say esports, popular for decades in Asia, are still nascent in North America and should be thought of more as a high-growth startup than a fully mature business. U.S. viewers watched an estimated 217 million hours of esports content this year, according to the data firm Stream Hatchet, up from 147 million in 2018. “We often say that we’re still in the leather helmet days of the NFL,” said Naz Aletaha, Riot����ap global head of League of Legends esports.

Many investors in the space still believe esports will eventually become a dominant, profitable industry. But in the short term, some are “very frustrated,” said John Needham, Riot����ap president of esports, adding that Riot has worked to convince investors to embrace a different monetization model.

Although sponsorships still make up a majority of revenue, a cornerstone of Riot����ap strategy involves microtransactions: selling recreational League of Legends players in-game items for their characters that are themed around real-world esports events like the world championship.

It sounds like a niche revenue source, but early numbers have been eye-popping. When Riot hosted its 2022 championship event for Valorant, another esport, it made $40 million from microtransactions alone. Half of that went to the league’s teams through a revenue-sharing agreement.

“This is where we’re going to disrupt the broadcast revenue formula, because that scales,” Needham said.

For now, the costly endeavor of fielding competitive teams is simply a catalyst for the real revenue-generating operations at many esports organizations. Prominent teams like FaZe Clan and 100 Thieves have morphed into more general lifestyle brands that offer viewers apparel and livestreaming entertainment. FaZe Clan, which went public this year in what was seen as a bellwether for the industry, is losing money and cutting costs as shares of its stock plummet.

Felix LaHaye, CEO of United Esports, a gaming marketing agency, compared competitive play for esports organizations to a car company fielding a Formula One racing team — an expensive undertaking that draws eyeballs and prestige.

“It creates value elsewhere in their ecosystem,” LaHaye said. “It����ap worth it to have a loss leader in terms of a product that creates the brand, and then you end up selling normal products to people.”

Even Team Liquid, considered one of the more competition-focused esports organizations, has made much of its money elsewhere and now has nine separate sources of revenue, including owning an esports encyclopedia website, said Mark Vela, CEO of Axiomatic Gaming, Team Liquid’s ownership group.

“It����ap a natural evolution,” Vela said. “Everyone’s having to take a step back and seeing what����ap really working for us here.”

Team Liquid, which took in more than $38 million in revenue last year, is not yet profitable, but Vela, whose ownership group includes the Leonsis father-son duo, said esports remain alluring because of the rare type of young, affluent viewer they attract.

Spoont is also optimistic long term, but he is not willing to wait. In July, he sold his European League of Legends team to a Spanish esports group for about $35 million. He said he was pivoting Misfits to focus on content creation, partly because it could be another decade before competitive esports reach their potential.

“We were trying to accomplish as an industry what took the NBA 50 years, but we were trying to do it within a five-year time period,” he said, referring to the many NBA teams that were not immediately lucrative businesses. “Turns out that it doesn’t happen.”

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That conundrum dogged the platform as it grew from a small startup called Justin.tv to an Amazon-owned, pandemic-fueled behemoth in the world of live video. Today, as many as 8 million streamers broadcast their gaming exploits, cooking experiments and political hot takes every month to the 31 million viewers who visit the platform each day.

Along the way, Twitch has mostly maintained the goodwill of the streamers who are its lifeblood. But that has been changing, and streamers say they are increasingly worried that they’re being forgotten by the platform in the name of profits. More than a dozen star Twitch streamers have switched to YouTube in recent years, and the service risks losing more to other livestreaming platforms.

Rebellion was in the air this month at TwitchCon, a gathering of 30,000 people in San Diego where fans meet their favorite streamers in person. Streamers, while holding their usual meet-and-greets and reuniting with their friends, said they were angry about a recent decision Twitch made to take a greater cut of the revenue some streamers make from fans subscribing to their channels — a change they believe is emblematic of Twitch’s shifting priorities.

“The displeasure with that decision is tangible,” said Taylor Drury, who streams on Twitch as Taylien. “We’re all confirming with each other: ‘You hate this?’ ‘Yeah, we all hate this.’”

Streamers say there are other signs that Twitch is losing touch with its community, a complaint that has been leveled at other streaming and video services over the years as they have matured.

An effort by Twitch to persuade streamers to run more advertisements on their channels has dismayed creators who say more ads will repel their viewers. The executives who were considered to be the biggest supporters of the streamer community have departed. Streamers say communication with the company has deteriorated, and they believe Twitch has prioritized adding engineers over hiring people to handle their concerns.

Samantha Faught, a Twitch spokesperson, said Twitch had tripled the number of employees in “community-facing” roles in the past two years and added new ways for streamers to give feedback. She acknowledged that because of the platform’s rapid growth, “it becomes harder to scale the personalized communication and feeling of close connection.” She said relationships with streamers remained a priority.

Streamers also wonder if Twitch is under pressure from Amazon, which purchased the service in 2014. Andy Jassy, who took over as Amazon’s CEO in July 2021, has looked for ways to control costs this year, as Amazon’s growth has slowed to its lowest level in two decades. The company has focused on efficiencies in its warehouses, shuttered teams with lackluster projects and temporarily frozen hiring in its retail division.

Amazon does not break out Twitch’s financials, though analysts do not believe the site, which has more than 1,800 employees, turns a profit.

“It����ap wild that Amazon is trying to force Twitch to squeeze more revenue out of top content creators,” Hasan Piker, one of the site’s biggest names, said in an interview. At his booth on the convention floor, Piker, known as HasanAbi on Twitch, was giving out faux newspaper front pages with a provocative headline: “Twitch Steals 30% of Revenue From Content Creators.”

The subscription revenue change will only affect streamers with so-called premium deals with the platform that let them keep 70% of their subscription revenue, with 30% going to Twitch. Starting next June, those streamers’ subscription earnings will be split 50-50 with Twitch after their first $100,000. The company said several hundred streamers currently earn enough money to be affected by the change.

Dan Clancy, Twitch’s president, said in an interview that the change would help Twitch pay for the rising costs of hosting live video. He also argued it would eventually help streamers.

“Ultimately, the more we grow our audience, the more our streamers benefit,” he said. “A big part of it is about trying to get to this position that allows us to keep sustaining and steadily being able to invest, being able to grow.”

Clancy said Amazon was not involved in day-to-day decision-making.

“They give us a lot of freedom; they’re very bullish on Twitch,” he said. “And so that is not one of those things where there is a lot of detailed meddling.”

Twitch has also made several changes to appeal to streamers in recent months, including giving them a greater cut of ad revenue, letting them broadcast on rival platforms and lowering the amount of money they are required to earn on the site before they can cash out.

Twitch is betting that the new features will help it appeal to a broader swath of streamers, even if policies such as the subscription revenue change frustrate a handful of top personalities.

“I just don’t think the way to make deals with streamers in the long run is to focus on cutting special deals with the top 0.1% of streamers,” Emmett Shear, Twitch’s CEO, said in an interview. Instead, he said, the focus was on “making our standard deal attractive, which I think it is.”

Some streamers at the San Diego conference said they understood the rationale.

“What Twitch is doing, I like it,” said Antwayne Doctor, who streams on Twitch as Babywock. He said he thought a 50-50 revenue split was fair because although he provides the entertainment, Twitch helps grow his audience. “That����ap a partnership,” Doctor said.

But former Twitch employees focused on relationships with streamers said Twitch in recent years had prioritized its engineering teams and moneymaking endeavors over keeping content creators happy. Ben Goldhaber, who led content marketing and was one of Twitch’s first hires, said Twitch first took off because of the strong bonds it built with streamers.

“That����ap changed,” said Goldhaber, who was laid off in 2018 and is now CEO of an esports app. “They’ve shifted away from this original strategy of ‘Make the creators happy, and we win.’”

Some streamers and former employees also believe that a management shake-up over the last two years has been indicative of changing priorities.

Kevin Lin, Twitch’s co-founder and chief operating officer, left in 2020. Sara Clemens, Lin’s replacement, and Michael Aragon, the chief content officer, both departed this year. Clemens reacted to the subscription revenue change by tweeting “SMH,” which stands for “shaking my head.”

Lin was considered to be the face of the less technical areas of Twitch, such as managing streamer relationships. Aragon was someone “who could go into the executive meetings and fight toe-to-toe” against proposals that were unfavorable to streamers, said Zachary Diaz, who worked on Aragon’s team and left Twitch in January.

“Unfortunately, every executive who had that as a mentality has left,” he said. Faught, the Twitch spokesperson, said that was “absolutely inaccurate.” She said beefing up product and engineering teams was “not at odds with prioritizing relationships with streamers.”

Rod Breslau, a video game consultant, said that Twitch “is fast becoming just like every other site. Why stay at Twitch if it����ap no longer that tight-knit, bleed-purple community?” (Twitch is known for its purple color scheme.)

The exodus has also created a disconnect between Twitch leadership and some rank-and-file staff, said two current Twitch employees, speaking anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss the subject. They said many employees raised concerns internally about the new subscription revenue policy and how it was communicated to streamers.

Kyle Hinchliffe, a streamer known as Baddie on Twitch, said Twitch employees he had spoken with were “on the same page as us; there’s some disappointment there.” The problem, he said, seemed to be at “upper management levels.”

At TwitchCon, streamers were sometimes able to put aside their gripes. They spent hours signing autographs, donned colorful costumes, packed downtown nightclubs and delighted in Megan Thee Stallion’s appearance onstage at a concert next to Master Chief, the main character in the Halo franchise.

The experience, for many, was bittersweet: It reminded them why they came to Twitch in the first place and why they were fighting now to keep it from changing.

“We love this platform, and anything that they do that����ap a really good thing, give them a thumbs-up; we are very vocal about that,” Drury said. “But we are going to be equally vocal about the things that make us feel more disconnect.”

This article originally appeared in .

When Drew Bienusa began playing Call of Duty, a first-person shooter game published by Activision Blizzard, he was immediately smitten. He loved how immersive having a digital avatar was, and the game was a favorite among his friends.

Bienusa was so dazzled that in 2016, he began livestreaming himself playing Call of Duty on the Twitch platform. He gave himself the gamer name Frozone and amassed 114,000 Twitch followers. In January, he became a professional Call of Duty: Warzone player for the esports organization XSET.

But by then, Bienusa’s feelings about Call of Duty had changed. Bugs in the game went unfixed for months, he said. Activision’s communications with competitive players fell off. And he was turned off by a recent sexual harassment lawsuit against the company that exposed its toxic workplace culture.

So on Tuesday, when Bienusa, 26, woke up to the news that Microsoft planned to buy Activision for nearly $70 billion, he was jubilant. “New eyes, new people, new owners, new management — it����ap a step in the right direction,” he said. “It����ap almost at a point where it can’t get worse.”

Bienusa was one of many gamers who expressed cautious optimism about the biggest-ever deal in the $175 billion games industry. The acquisition of Activision, if approved by regulators, will help bolster Microsoft����ap video game ambitions with a library of popular titles, including Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Crash Bandicoot and Overwatch. Microsoft also positioned the deal as one that would help it delve into the futuristic digital world of the metaverse.

Yet ultimately, the deal’s success will hinge on how it is received by gamers. Historically, many players have expressed alarm about how acquisitions might affect the quality of online games. When Microsoft bought the maker of Minecraft in 2014, for instance, some gamers were concerned.

This time, the reaction has been more positive, partly because of how much Activision — with more than 400 million players worldwide — has appeared to stumble with its core users in recent years. In interviews, gamers said they saw Microsoft as a potential life raft for Activision Blizzard and as a welcome chance to bring new people into gaming.

In an email to employees, Activision’s chief executive, Bobby Kotick, said the purpose of the deal was to continue strengthening Activision’s games and its company culture. Activision declined to comment further. Microsoft did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Activision’s decline with gamers has unfolded over the last few years. Many said they had been down on the publisher for some time, concerned that Activision put too much pressure on some divisions — such as Blizzard, which it merged with in 2008 — to deliver frequent hits, rather than giving developers the time to create iconic games. Then last year, Activision became embroiled in a lawsuit over workplace harassment brought by a California employment agency, raising questions about its conduct.

Activision’s track record with some of its games also became spottier. In November, it delayed new versions of Diablo and Overwatch. That same month, the newly released Call of Duty: Vanguard was widely panned as being boring and full of glitches.

Parris Lilly, a video game streamer and co-host at Gamertag Radio, said Microsoft����ap deal to buy Activision would not only help Xbox Game Pass, Microsoft����ap video game subscription service, but also let Activision’s developers step off the treadmill. Microsoft����ap purchase might permit developers to “take a well needed break” so they can improve games over time, rather than update them so frequently, Lilly said.

He added that the acquisition could be an opportunity to fix Activision’s workplace issues under Kotick. Kotick declined to say in an interview if he would remain chief executive after the deal closed. The expectation is that he will step down, though he could move into an advisory role, people with knowledge of his plans have said.

Several gamers said the deal also had the potential to transform competitive video gaming leagues — known as esports — that are dedicated to Activision games like Overwatch and Call of Duty: Warzone. Such leagues, in many players’ eyes, have languished under Activision’s stewardship. Microsoft has seen success with its game Halo, which is played competitively.

Many gamers also said they couldn’t care less about Microsoft����ap framing of the deal as a way to strengthen its footing in the metaverse. They said the metaverse seemed like a far-off idea, whereas the deal had the potential to improve Activision’s games and workplace immediately.

“In all honesty, I don’t really know much about the metaverse and all of that,” Bienusa said.

Chris Nobriga, 28, from San Jose, California, said he had spent over 11,000 hours playing World of Warcraft, an online role-playing game, over the past decade, after watching his brother play sparked his interest.

But although he kept playing, he said, his views on the game changed over time as popular developers left Activision and the company reused in-game systems.

The company “has failed,” Nobriga said. “If we’re not even talking about Bobby Kotick or the sexual harassment, even just talking about pure gameplay, people in World of Warcraft are really jaded.”

He said he and other gamers were skeptical but hopeful that Microsoft����ap acquisition could make a difference. “There is a chance that they could turn the company around” and “reevaluate the objectives in how the company runs,” Nobriga said.

Another gamer, Jared Neelley, 28, has experienced the downside of a Microsoft gaming-related deal. In September 2016, one month after Microsoft bought the streaming service Mixer, he joined it to stream Call of Duty: Black Ops 3.

At first, he said, it felt like “someone’s coming to save you.” But Microsoft shut down Mixer in 2020, after Neelley had become the fourth-most-followed streamer on the platform, with 440,000 fans. Using the gamer name JaredFPS, he now streams Call of Duty: Warzone to 63,000 followers on Twitch.

Even so, he said, he was hopeful about the Activision deal because he felt Microsoft knew how to succeed in games in a way that Activision, with its leadership in tumult, did not.

“Short term, no one’s going to see a difference,” Neelley said, saying it would take time for Microsoft executives to make changes. “Long term, I feel like it is the best thing for the company and the community.”

This article originally appeared in .

China’s video game industry is booming. But it sure does not feel that way to Stone Shi, a game designer in China.

Shi, 27, got his first job in 2018, when Beijing temporarily suspended approval of new games. The next year, the government placed new limits on minors’ playing time. A few weeks ago, the rules got stricter still. People younger than 18 can now play just three hours a week, during prescribed times on weekends.

“We never hear any good news about the gaming industry,” Shi said. “We have this joke: ‘Each time this happens, people say it����ap doomsday for the video game industry,’ so we say, ‘Every day is doomsday.’”

That is a bit of an exaggeration. Shi remains employed, and hundreds of millions of Chinese continue to play games each day. Minors still find ways around government blocks. Chinese tech companies, like Tencent, are cornerstones of the global gaming industry. The country has also been quick to embrace competitive gaming, building esports stadiums and enabling college students to major in the topic.

Yet China’s relationship with games is decidedly complex. A major source of entertainment in the country, games offer a social outlet and an easily accessible hobby in a country where booming economic growth has disrupted social networks and driven long work hours. The multiplayer mobile game “Honor of Kings,” for example, has more than 100 million players a day.

For years, though, officials — and many parents — have worried about the potential downsides, like addiction and distraction. As a more paternalistic government under Chinese leader Xi Jinping has turned to direct interventions to mold how people live and what they do for fun, gaining control over video games has been high on the priority list. In addition to other pursuits, like celebrity fan clubs, Xi’s government has increasingly deemed games a superfluous distraction at best — and at worst, a societal ill that threatens the cultural and moral guidance of the Chinese Communist Party.

On social media, gamers fumed about the latest rules. Some pointed out that the age of sexual consent, at 14, was now four years younger than the age at which people can game without limit. Even though minors represent a small portion of Chinese video gaming revenue, shares in game companies plummeted on concerns about the long-term impact on gaming culture.

Shi said despite the anger, gamers and the industry are growing used to the array of government demands. For most adults, the new bans have little impact. For companies, it is simply one more obstacle to entering a lucrative industry.

Many in China’s gaming industry agree that games have some downsides. The most popular games in the country are made for smartphones and are free to play, meaning the businesses making them live and die based on how well they draw users in and get them to pay for extras. The game makers have become experts at hooking players.

But top-down attempts to wean children off games — what state media has called “poison” and “spiritual pollution” — have sometimes been worse than the problem itself. Boot camps fond of military discipline have proliferated. So have Chinese media accounts of abuses, like beatings, electroconvulsive therapy and solitary confinement.

Even the country’s past ban on consoles like the PlayStation made things worse, Shi said. That ban helped propel the popularity of free-to-play mobile games. Studios selling games for consoles are motivated to make high-quality games, like blockbuster movies. Not so, he said, with free-to-play games, which are motivated to maximize what they can get out of players.

For Shi, the government����ap new limits are similar to the ones his mother imposed on him growing up. During weekdays, his PlayStation 2 stayed locked away in a cabinet. Each disc he bought was scrutinized. Plenty of them were deemed inappropriate.

When he got to college, he entered a period that he called “payback,” trying to make up for the years when he had strict limits. Even now, he sometimes indulges his gaming habits or spends more than he should. What is important to understand, he said, is that for a generation that grew up largely without siblings, many with parents who worked late, video games offered a portal to a social world beyond the doldrums of school pressures.

“After school, I would finish supper alone, and it sounds pathetic, but what made it less pathetic was, I had my gaming friends,” he said. He recalled that when his parents kept him from playing games, he would go online and watch others game.

“Banning people from doing something doesn’t mean people will do what you want them to do,” he said.

China is uniquely equipped to control how children spend time online. A real-name registration system for phone numbers has effectively ended internet anonymity. To register for just about anything on China’s internet, for instance, social media or gaming, you need a phone number. If a child’s identity is linked to their cellphone plan, it is simple for companies to identify them as minors.

Yet workarounds persist. When officials began limiting minors’ playing time in 2019, children found ways to get access to cellular numbers linked to adults. Some would buy, others would rent. Many just borrowed or took their parents’ or grandparents’ phones. In response, Tencent has required facial recognition to confirm the identity of players of its most popular games.

When Chinese internet users this month pointed to an account they said was probably being used by minors — because it belonged to a 60-year-old who was masterly in one late-night session on “Honor of Kings” — the company released a statement that the account had passed 17 facial recognition scans since March.

Many gamers and designers have wondered what will happen to the popular competitive gaming industry. Those in esports said the rules would probably hurt recruitment and talent development. The rules may even foreclose careers, said Ma Xue, a 30-year-old esports player and streamer.

“A talented 15-year-old player will have to wait a few years to participate. The esports world can change massively in two years,” she said. “Esports is a cruel world.”

Hou Xu, founder of the Yizhimeng esports training center, said it may take a while for the effect of the new rules to be felt since there is already a pipeline of gamers. A 20-year veteran of the industry, Hou said the ban was “too one-size-fits-all,” though it was unlikely to change training, as schools get parents’ permissions and accounts to make sure athletes younger than 18 can play enough.

Through his school, Hou said he mostly tries to show video-game-obsessed children, and often their parents, how difficult it is to make it in competitive gaming. Only one in his latest class of 60 got trials at a pro club. He failed to get a spot.

Instead of focusing his students on improbable careers as gaming stars, he tries to work with them on deeper issues. “Often, children’s spiritual needs aren’t met. It is easy in the virtual world to get a sense of accomplishment, identification and initiative, but they may not have that in study or in life,” he said.

Shi, the game designer, said he had already noticed children moving to other gamelike pastimes. After the ban, he ran into a large number of children at a store examining and painting figurines for the strategy board game Warhammer.

“If I have kids and they have a problem with video games, I would explore something we can do together, like Warhammer, chess, Go or sports. They’re all very good substitutions for video games,” he said.

This article originally appeared in .

Founded in 2008 and based in Malta, EEG calls itself a “next generation online gambling company focused on esports.” Last December, the Philadelphia Eagles became the first NFL team to partner with EEG and the team became a shareholder. The Broncos opted not to pursue stock as part of the deal.

“We actually reached out to them,” Broncos senior vice president of corporate partnerships Brady Kellogg said in a phone interview with The Denver Post. “We’re always trying to keep tabs on which partners out there have the potential to make us better and we think we found another one of those in (EEG).”

The Broncos continue to be active in creating revenue streams. Last summer, they became the first NFL team to sign deals with gambling companies (FanDuel, BetFred and BetMGM). They see partnering with EEG as a chance to grow their fan base locally and nationally among gamers.

“There are over 500,000 gamers in the (Denver) metro area,” Kellogg said. “Only 5.2% of our known Broncos gamers live in Denver. Said another way, for as big of an opportunity for in-person gamers in Denver, our (out-of-market) fans may use this as an opportunity to travel to Denver or compete digitally and all told, you’re pushing to nearly 2,000,000 Broncos fans who are gamers across the nation.”

Highlights of the partnership include:

• Kellogg said the Broncos “have indicated an openness to entertain other titles over time, but Madden NFL will be the initial focus.”
• The Broncos will host three championship-level tournaments per year at Mile High and are also interested in organizing frequent online competitions. Kellogg said the Broncos and EEG are “hopeful” to host the first Mile High tournament this summer before training camp.
• Kellogg said Broncos players will be asked to get involved; on Thursday morning, the team will release a video featuring receiver Courtland Sutton discussing the partnership. “They will help us promote this,” Kellogg said. “Gaming is a passion point and area of interest for many of our players and you’ll see that from Day 1.”
• Prizes for tournament winners will include Broncos autographed memorabilia, the opportunity to have dinner with a player and, for a championship event, season tickets.

From EEG’s perspective, the benefit of partnering with the Broncos is Denver’s demographics and enthusiasm for esports. In October 2017, the city hosted DreamHack, a national gaming tournament tour, at the National Western Complex.

“Esports are really on the rise everywhere, but what makes us unique is we do have a younger, growing population,” Kellogg said. “We look to develop and strengthen relationships with our fans in fun and culturally-relevant ways.”

In negotiating with EEG, Kellogg was asked if any part of online gaming surprised him.

“There were several ah-ha moments along the way,” he said. “Big picture, I would say esports is here to stay and its growth trend seems to be continuing.”

Colorado on Wednesday announced it has signed Auston Trusty to a contract that will run through the 2023 season.

“Auston is a young, talented defender who has already proven himself in MLS and shown tremendous potential,” Rapids executive vice president and general manager Padraig Smith said in a news release. “We look forward to seeing his continued development over the coming years.”

Trusty, 22, made eight appearances and started five games for the Rapids last season. The 6-foot-3, 187 pounder was acquired in 2019 via a trade with the Philadelphia Union, where he had made 56 starts from 2018-19. He was part of the U.S. men’s national team January 2019 camp.

Rapids re-sign gamer. Colorado also re-signed Brandon Gonzales as the club’s professional eSports player for the 2021 eMLS competitive season.

The Littleton resident reached the eMLS Cup semifinal of the Last Chance Qualifier tournament in 2020. He finished the FIFA 20 competitive season ranked eighth among eMLS players in the FIFA Global Series standings and 19th overall in the United States.

The 2021 eMLS season begins Jan. 16-17 with League Series One.

Motivated. Bonded. Dedicated. Exuberant. These words and others describe a group of hikers called the AdAmAn Club, whose history is intertwined with that of Colorado Springs and Pikes Peak, the prominent fourteener visible from across the city. The club was formed in 1922 when brothers Ed and Fred Morath organized a New Year’s Eve watch party, climbing the peak with three others, including Fred Barr, who constructed the still-used trail to the summit. They set off fireworks and flares to mark the start of a new year — and kicked off a tradition maintained by men and women since. Club member Ted Lindeman has made the New Year’s Eve trek 50 times since 1973.

Editor’s Note

I am so proud of the breadth of work that Denver Post photojournalists produced this year, risking their own health and safety to document our communities as we confront these extraordinary times together.

We believe that our mission is more critical now than ever: to each day document the important events going on around us and to reflect the diverse, intersecting communities that make up our state, putting a human face to stories whenever possible.

It����ap been a hard year and there are hard pictures contained in these pages. On top of the coronavirus pandemic that has affected so many parts of our daily lives, Coloradans faced massive wildfires, a divisive election season and a reckoning over racial justice. I firmly believe that as citizens, when we are confronted with challenges, we are best served by facing them head on with open minds, looking directly at whatever is in front of us.

Photojournalism has a unique power to put us face to face with the most consequential events of the day, connecting people across distance and time. As photojournalists, we strive to bring you, our readers, an honest and thoughtful view of the world. It����ap not always comfortable. As you make your way through the pictures presented here, you will see a visual memorial to the year, one that I hope will be cathartic. And thankfully, in a year so often preoccupied with bearing witness to exceptional tragedy and tumult, moments of joy and wonder still manage to shine through.

In addition to the photographers, both staff and freelance, who are credited throughout these pages, I want to give a special thanks to the people who worked behind the scenes to bring this special presentation to life: Matt Swaney, Katie Rausch, Donovan Henderson, Maureen Burnett, Dena Rosenberry, Chris Paul and George Tanner. It is our honor to present the Year in Photos to the readers of The Denver Post.

— Patrick Traylor, Senior Editor for Photography & Multimedia

This year, we divided our Year in Photos into four parts. Click here to see Part 2: Outbreak, Part 3: Racial Justice and Part 4: Uncertain times

Foreword

We can all agree that 2020 has been an exceptional year. Coronavirus, shutdowns, homelessness, unemployment, racial tensions and protests in the streets, the contentious election, and the reality of a divided country have each left their mark on this year.

These events have led me to reflect on the importance of journalism to a free and fair society. Journalism is often referred to as the Fourth Estate, a term that speaks to the essential service journalism provides to our democracy as the fourth, if informal, branch of government.

More than 200 years ago, our founders recognized the importance of a free press by enshrining our right to it in the First Amendment.
But despite the essential nature of journalism, this year has also seen a ramp-up of assaults on both the institution and individual journalists. Reporters and photographers have been verbally and physically assaulted in the field, belittled, called names, threatened and vilified online.

This has been challenging and downright scary for those in the industry. As a photojournalist at The Denver Post for 28 years, I pride myself on being dedicated, fair and objective. I value being empathetic, understanding and open to new voices, ways of thinking and seeing our world.

Local journalism allows community members to read, hear, learn, understand and to contemplate diverse ideas and issues. It keeps us informed on what is happening at city council, and with the local fire and police departments. It informs us on environmental issues, on land and water use, on education, on business, on emergencies such as wildfires, floods and drought, and on the arts and entertainment. It tells stories of those who are important or influential in our community. And it����ap done every single day.

— Helen H. Richardson, Denver Post photojournalist

Serbians have immigrated to Colorado since the 19th century, first toiling in the mines and on the railroads and later in the steel mill in Pueblo. After holding services in other Orthodox churches in the region for many years, St. John the Baptist bought a small building in need of remodeling in 2009 in Lakewood and held its first church service in the building the following year. Parishioners pooled their skills, time and effort to expand the church and it was consecrated in 2016, officially recognized as the first Serbian Orthodox Church in Colorado. The church serves the spiritual, cultural and social needs of the state’s Serbian Orthodox community.

Coloradan Michael Bennet ended his bid for the White House on Feb. 11 after a disappointing showing in New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary. “Tonight is not going to be our night,” the Democratic U.S. senator told supporters. “But let me say to New Hampshire — you may see me once again. … I think it����ap fitting that we end the campaign tonight.” He added, “I feel nothing but joy tonight as we conclude this particular campaign and this particular chapter.”

Olaf was named Grand Champion steer and Bruce and Marcy Benson were celebrated as Citizens of the West at the 114th annual National Western Stock Show in January. The Denver tradition showcases the legacy of the West, with rodeos, livestock auctions, Native American and Mexican dancers and more. Its home at the National Western Complex is in the midst of expansion from 110 acres to 250 acres, a massive undertaking that will include construction of a 10,000-seat arena.

Spring training is special to players and fans for many reasons- it signals a change in seasons and the annual return of a beloved sport. There’s a hopefulness in the air- and for Coloradans visiting Arizona, warmth, palm trees and cacti to enjoy. “My background from art school has an influence on my work. I enjoy using an artful eye to tell stories in a different way.” – Denver Post photojournalist RJ Sangosti.

This year, we divided our Year in Photos into four parts. Click here to see Part 2: Outbreak, Part 3: Racial Justice and Part 4: Uncertain times.