With less than a week before the region’s biggest e-sports tournament, the Major All Stars (MAS) Dota 2 Tournament, kicks off, many are still wondering who are the people behind this tournament. Yesterday, Fallout Gaming, the event organisers behind MAS, finally held a press conference alongside captains of the participating teams to provide more details on the tournament and the mysterious group of people shaking up the e-sports scene in Malaysia.
For a company organising the region’s largest e-sports tournament, the Fallout Gaming team is actually really small – there are just four of them. It consists of Rafe Daniels and Adrian Gaffor who are in charge of sponsorships, Ken Chai in charge of events and Francis Goh who is in charge of managing the tournament itself. Interestingly, none of the four have any experience organising an e-sports tournament, let alone one as large as MAS. However, their passion for gaming inspired them to literally leave their jobs in marketing and advertising and pursued the idea of organising a Dota 2 tournament right here in their homeland, Malaysia.
Adrian Gaffor, Fallout Gaming
Ken Chai, Fallout Gaming
The purpose of the Major All Stars Dota 2 Tournament, according to Fallout Gaming, is to elevate the Dota 2 scene in South East Asia – and to grant passionate Malaysian fans a chance to meet their Dota 2 idols. Knowing that it is hard to meet them because of where these teams are based and where we live in, the team decided to bring them here instead.
As the first Dota 2 tournament to be held in a stadium, Fallout Gaming wants to provide fans more of a concert experience, where fans can meet their idols and have fun at the same time. In addition, one of MAS’ co-sponsors, Logitech will also be lending a hand in enhancing the interaction between fans and their idols by creating a Logitech player lounge where fans and players get to interact and converse with one another.
Captains from the six teams present were also present during the press event. The remaining two teams, Natus Vincere aka Na’Vi and Ninjas in Pyjamas were still on their way to Malaysia when the press conference was held. Malaysia’s representative in MAS, Team Invasion revealed they were happy that a Dota 2 tournament of such calibre is being held in Malaysia, as this gives local teams a chance to experience going up against some of the top tier international gaming teams.
Artist’s impression of the MAS set-up
Given the scale of MAS, will this be a one-off event from Fallout Gaming? Not likely. The team is already looking to branch out into different regions across South East Asia, and more importantly, Dota 2 is not the only game the team will be exploring as they will branch out to other games as well. No countries or games were mentioned for the expansion, but the team states that they are here to stay.
Malaysia’s newly-formed e-sports governing body, eSports Malaysia(eSM), was also present. eSM’s Secretary General Rinie Ramli explains that eSM is expanding the e-sports movement and wants to ensure that no one is left out in the advancement of e-sports in Malaysia. And, with eSM’s new branch opening in Sarawak, eSM is planning to provide greater support for those in East Malaysia with Ian W Lee, the first President of eSM Sarawak, holding the fort.
Fallout Gaming has also managed to get some big sponsors for the Major All Stars Dota 2 tournament, including Logitech and LG for peripherals, MyTeksi for transportation and Best Western Hotel for accommodation.
Lowyat.NET will be at the Major All Stars tournament in Stadium Malawati, providing day to day coverage on the matches as well as activities held at the event. With all eight teams now in Malaysia, the Dota 2 scene here has just escalated to a whole new level.
There is still time to pick up tickets for the Major All Stars Dota 2 Tournament from Storekini.com!
