The final ceremony of the third annual Iranian Video Game League was held at the Milad Tower on 23 Shahrivar (12 September) among an audience of avid video game fans.

As reported by IRCG, in this ceremony, the finale of FIFA and Quiz of Kings was held with the audience present, with the finale of FIFA broadcast live from channel 3 of IRIB. Mazdak Mirzaei and Muhammadreza Ahmadi also commentated the game. This was the first time that an E-Sports competition was broadcast live from an IRIB channel.

The champions of PES, Counter-Strike and Clash Royale also received their prizes at this event.

There’s place for two at the top!

The finale was held at the start of the ceremony. Quiz of Kings was the most popular game of the league and more than 2400 people competed in it. in the end, it all came down to two young gentlemen named Farhad Javanmard and Ahad Naderi to go head to head for a chance at taking home the Peugeot 206, which was the most valuable prize ever given at an Iranian video game tournament.

“This is the most popular Iranian video game with more than 10 million sign-ups and 1.5 million monthly active users. Each day about 300 thousand people experience Quiz of Kings and answer about 40 million questions submitted by other users.” said Amirhosein Nateqi, CEO of Quiz of Kings, “with the help of IRCG, our game was chosen for the third annual Iranian Video Game League and was able to break the record for most sign-ups. The tournament was held over 8 days and 80 people made their way to the finale and right now we are witnessing the end stage with two competitors.”

In the tight final contest, Farhad Javanmard and Ahad Naderi answered difficult questions in the categories of general information, geography, nature, culture and art, technology and soccer. In the end, they came to a draw. According to the rules, in the case of a draw, the player who has answered most of his rival’s chosen category correctly, must be crowned winner. Since none of the players knew who had the upper hand in this regard, the presenter, proposed that if the two of them are content, they split the cash value of the 206, to which both agreed. After that, Farhad Javanmard was announced the champion of the tournament.

Irancell, offering special internet packages for online games

After the finale, Baqer Samadi, general manager of product development at Irancell made a speech and said: “we at Irancell are honored to have played a role in the third annual Iranian Video Games League as sponsor.” He went on to mention Irancell as the biggest data operator of the country and added: “we have the biggest share of the young users in the market and it’s natural for this demographic to have so much interest in video games and we try our best to serve their demand.”

“We are working on designing special internet packages dedicated to online video games, so that people who play online games as a hobby, can do it without worrying about their speed or their credit running out.” Samadi promised.

First time ever live broadcast of FIFA on IRIB!

Then, time came for the most enthusiasm inducing part of the ceremony, meaning the finale of FIFA. It was the first time ever that the national TV of Iran (IRIB) would broadcast an E-sports competition live. So one could only imagine how tense the atmosphere was. With the lively audience presence and live commentating of Mazdak Mirzaei, it turned to be a night to remember.

This was the third consecutive time that Muhammad Alizadeh and Navid Borhani went head to head to become the champion of the league. At last year’s finale, Borhani succeeded in defeating Alizadeh 2 to 1.

For this battle, Borhani picked Bayern Munich, and Alizade’s choice of team was Manchester United. Both started very carefully. Not long after starting, Bayern Munich shook the goalpost of its rival. In the second half, it was Man. United that had the ball most of the time. Unfortunately, the efforts of the two athletes didn’t bear fruit and they finished the 90 minute game with a nil-nil draw.

In the extra time and on the 103^rd minute, Navid Borhani scored a goal with Thomas Mulller of Bayern Munich and once again became the champion of the league. It is very likely that he will be sent to represent Iran at the FIFA competition of ESWC.

In the end, Borhani took the champions cup and raised it above his head amidst the cheers of millions of live audience both present and at home.

Iran’s representative at Clash Royale announced

As another highlight of the ceremony, the representative of Iran to compete in ESWC for Clash Royale was announced. It was Saeid Afsardir, who became the champion of Clash Royale. But since it wasn’t feasible for him to leave the country, the runner-up, Abolfazl Hassan-Nezhad will be sent instead to take part in ESWC.

Let us believe in the potential of our youth!

Then, Hassan Karimi Qodusi, CEO of Iran Computer and Video Games Foundation went on stage. “Entertainment as a pastime of our youth, holds a very important place in our minds. That’s why we decided to hold this event in the summer”, Karimi Qodusi said.

He further elaborated that this tournament was met with a warm welcome and more than 7000 people took part in it. “The greatest thing about this is that this event attracted the most attendees for an Iranian competition. Based on this, we can conclude that even though the video game industry in Iran is relatively young and has some catching up to do with the world, it has numerous fans in Iran and we should believe in the potential of the Iranian youth in the field of video game development.”

“Apart from concentrating on the subject of video game development, we are also attentive to the gamers and we try to service them by introducing them to suitable video games and holding different types of competition”, Karimi emphasized.

The prize-giving and commendation of regional representatives

At the end of the ceremony, general managers for the branches of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance of those provinces that had the most sign-ups for the league, were commended. Alborz province with 564, Isfahan with 199, and Khuzestan with 168 sign-ups, had the boldest presence in the tournament.

Later, Reza Nobakht won the first prize for the PES and the top prize of Counter-Strike went to the Last Try team.

In the end, the firm of Rayan Tejarat Rozhin, with the Console Store brand as an sponsor of the event, randomly chose some members of the audience and gifted them with 2 Play Station 4s, 3 Xbox Ones and 5 hard copies of PES18.