Telkom has always been invested in the eSports arena and with the introduction of Comic Con in SA last year, there was an opportunity to broaden the spectrum and bring in more animation to the South African audience.
“It’s a mix with eSports and they have this comfortable home together. We saw it as an opportunity to give greater access to our audiences to the Comic Con world but also to get people to understand a lot more about what we do from eSports,” said Telkom’s Executive of Content and Spokesperson for VS Gaming Wanda Mkhize.
With Comic Con Africa taking place from Saturday until Tuesday, Telkom VS Gaming is the official connectivity partner.
“VS Gaming is the largest eSports league in Africa. We have been around for the last 10 years. We run tournaments, we take the most popular eSports games in SA and we basically run a masters and championship league. At Comic Con we will be hosting our masters league where we are basically having 16 teams competing to be crowned the masters of CS: GO as well as Dota over the four days.”
Mkhize said there were many opportunities available for people who were interested in gaming and wanted to take it on professionally.
“It’s quite a variety, a lot of people look at it either from a playing perspective- with VS Gaming we give away almost R3 million in prizes across our league- or to join teams and get to play internationally. There’s also opportunities within coding, creating games and hosting. We need to look at eSports as a whole value chain and the opportunities that is within it. It is one of the fastest growing sports in the country, growing in double digits- from prize money to the amount of opportunities available in the sport.”
Comic Con is known for its celebration of geek culture of all genres and media, and features comic books, toys, anime, manga, films, novels, gaming, and TV shows.
This year’s edition will be taking place at Gallagher Convention Centre from September 21-24.