E-sports tournament organiser and production company Mettlestate has partnered with technology giant Huawei Mobile Services to bring mobile gamers even more opportunities to shine on a competitive platform.

Mettlestate and Huawei are bringing mobile gamers in South Africa an unprecedented Garena Free Fire tournament: the Huawei Free Fire Showdown. Garena Free Fire is one of the most popular mobile battle royale games this year. A battle royale is an online, multiplayer game in which players (teams or individuals) enter an area in a battle that combines “last man standing” gameplay and survival and scavenging techniques. Garena Free Fire has over a billion downloads on Android devices alone and hit a peak of 150 million daily active users.

“Mobile gaming has experienced a surge in popularity over recent years, particularly the battle royale style games. Figures for our app platform, Huawei AppGallery, highlight the involvement of our device users and this tournament is giving them more of what they love. The talent of people playing these types of games is also commendable. Huawei wants to celebrate local excellence in this arena, another reason for this tournament. The partnership between Mettlestate, one of the leading e-sports companies in Africa, and Huawei, one of the largest mobile companies, is a perfect fit. The plan is for a long-term partnership which will boost e-sports across Africa,” says Adam Xiao, MF of Huawei Mobile Services for Middle East and Africa, Huawei Consumer Business Group.

According to research published by Techjury, at least 21% of all apps downloaded on mobile devices are games. Sixty-two percent of users install games on their mobile devices within a week of purchase of said device and 43% of time spent on mobile phones is spent playing mobile games. There are over 2.2 billion mobile gamers worldwide, and these numbers keep increasing. The mobile gaming industry is an almost untapped market in South Africa’s business sector. Huawei is breaking ground by getting involved in the mobile e-sports scene in the country. This move is both welcomed and unsurprising as 78% of mobile gamers are Android users.

This new partnership with Mettlestate perfectly complements Huawei’s app and gaming platform, Huawei AppGallery, which contains thousands of useful apps and games. A major benefit is that Huawei AppGallery is available on all Android devices, not only Huawei devices. For this tournament, gamers will need to download Free Fire from Huawei AppGallery to participate.

The Huawei Free Fire Showdown will take place over the course of five weeks. There will be four weeks of qualifiers in which teams of four will face off against others in their groups. The top squads of each group will go through to the playoffs the following week, which will determine the teams who will compete in the grand finals.

The competition schedule

16 November: Registrations open
22 November: Qualifiers start
8 December: Qualifiers end
12 December: Playoffs
14 December: Grand finals

This competition is sure to set social media ablaze. The finals will be hosted on the popular streaming site Twitch. This means that fans and friends of players can watch the games live, just like they would watch a rugby or soccer game. Be sure not to miss it, tune in on 14 December! Go to www.twitch.com/mettlestate to watch. Huawei has also brought in popular icons of the South African gaming industry to be a part of the campaign. Barry “Anthrax” Louzada, Rob Forbes, Naledi “Androva” Matutoane and Dave “SuperDave” Monnakgotla will be adding some powerful flare to the campaign. Make sure to check out their social media to get the latest news on participation and challenges.

You can sign up for the Huawei FreeFire Showdown competition and keep up to date with the qualifiers, playoffs and finals on the Mettlestate page. Just head to www.mettlestate.com.

“This competition is paving the way for mobile e-sports in the gaming community in South Africa,” says Mettlestate’s community manager, Carly Twaddle. “It’s important for big brands like Huawei to show their support for the community. It builds trust, and it shows gamers that they matter and they have the backing of the brands to whom they have dedicated their support.”