E-sports event RAGE 2019 SPRING held at Makuhari Messe
4 games’ tournaments held at the same event
Team GACKT also took part in PUBG Mobile

RAGE 2019 SPRING was held at Makuhari Messe on 17 March. RAGE is a gaming event that is organised by CyberZ, Inc. and avex entertainment. It hosted tournaments for games like Shadowverse and Street Fighter V Arcade Edition and was also live broadcast on AbemaTV.

In this time’s RAGE 2019 SPRING, a few esports online event tournaments were also being held at the same time. The tournament matches for the 4 games; Shadowverse, Brawl Stars, PUBG Mobile, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (SSBU), were held.

RAGE Shadowverse 2019 Spring GRAND FINALS had a tournament match between 8 finalists who won the preliminary rounds. The top prize was a whopping 4 million yen.

Brawl Stars is the latest mobile release by Supercell, which manages Crash Royale, that was launched last year. This is its first offline event held. People could also register on the day itself to take part, making this a good opportunity for people who want to try their hand at esports events.

And SSBU is the popular game from Nintendo that needs no introduction. A tournament battle was held between eight players who won the preliminary round.

Team GACKT takes part in PUBG Mobile!

Above all, the star attraction this time is Japan’s first invitation-based offline competition for PUBG Mobile. In this tournament, 16 teams compete in a total of 4 rounds in their squads (teams of 4 players) and their overall rankings will be determined by points obtained via survival rankings and kill counts.

PUBG is a battle royale game where items in the game are used to fight until only 1 person or team is left.

The reason for this being the star attraction is because the name “Team GACKT” has appeared among the teams that will be taking part in this tournament. That’s right, this is a team led by GACKT-san who stars in the popular movie Tonde Saitama.

Not only is GACKT-san the leader of the team, but he is also taking part as a player. Furthermore, in the 4th match, he was ranked 3rd for his 3-in-a-row kills.

During the awards ceremony, GACKT-san shared his thoughts on the tournament, saying, “I knew that we were lacking in ability compared to other teams. That’s why we thought of collecting points by staying alive without getting into skirmishes. I think we managed to get 3rd place because that went well. The good thing about this game is that results can be achieved with strategy. Also, this is the first time that I’m actually meeting the members face-to-face. We’ve always been playing online, so at the start, I was looking at them and thinking, “So this is what this guy’s face looks like”. I know that PUBG is a game that you’ll get hooked on when you start playing it, so even though I tried to hold back, I ended up getting addicted. Going forward, I would like to continue working with PUBG to spread the word of it more”.

Also, GACKT-san said that he deliberately flew back from France for this tournament. As it is something that he loves, it surpasses time and monetary costs.

E-sports is where professional players compete with high-level skills and spectators enjoy watching them. However, at the same time, it possesses an attractive point where anyone and everyone can take part in it. An interesting feature that is unique to e-sports is that a person can become teammates with or play against famous people that they would otherwise have no relation to.

Potential to enjoy it like a music fest

At RAGE, 4 events were being held at the same time which was similar to how music festivals are set up. One may watch the game that you enjoy throughout, or choose to make a move in anticipation of the timing when your favourite player appears, or even choose to only watch the finals.

If the matches you wish to catch overlap each other, you probably have to give up one for the other, but you’ll be able to watch it as an exciting event somewhere else without getting tired of it too.

It’s alright if you just watch only the matches of one game, but in an event like this where you can enjoy multiple games, you may even start to gain an interest in a game that you’ve never been particularly interested in until now.

Source: News Insight

Translation: GACKT ITALIA Team

Translation © GACKT ITALIA