Sixteen teams and not a single seat — H3RO Esports 5.0

No venue. No audience in the room. Sixteen teams playing from wherever they were, and what the viewer at home saw was an arena.

H3RO Esports is the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang tournament run by Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison through its Tri brand. Its fifth edition ran entirely online in May 2024: a group stage from 13 to 16 May, playoffs from 22 to 26 May, and a Rp300 million prize pool. Fnatic ONIC beat EVOS Holy in the grand final, and both went through to Indonesia's national selection for IESF. Fnatic ONIC went on to represent Indonesia at the World Esports Championship 2024 in Riyadh.

The broadcast as the arena

Mfalme Studio produced the virtual broadcast. When a tournament has no venue, the broadcast becomes the venue: casters, overlays, the breaks between matches, and a virtual stage that makes games played from sixteen different rooms feel like one room.

It is the purest form of the esport streaming we do: a tournament run from group stage to grand final without a single seat in the house, just a broadcast that looks like an arena.