Highlights
Esports enters PON for the first time — PON XX Papua 2021
Esports ran as an exhibition sport at PON XX Papua: five titles, 21 provinces, broadcast out of Jayapura. A hybrid production — part virtual, part on-ground in the stadium.
Stadion Hoki Indoor Doyo Baru, Jayapura, Papua
In 2021 esports arrived at Indonesia's National Games for the first time. Not yet as a medal sport, that came three years later in Medan, but as an exhibition, and that was enough to make history.
The venue was not an esports arena. It was the Doyo Baru indoor hockey stadium in Jayapura Regency, from 22 to 26 September 2021, with contingents from 21 provinces competing in front of a crowd that had never seen anything like it at PON.
Because it had never been done, there was nothing to copy. No proven gallery layout, no house graphics package, no agreed hand-off. Everything had to be designed for the first time, and designed in Jayapura.
A hybrid production
Mfalme Studio produced the esports broadcast. The format was hybrid: some matches played on the ground in the stadium, others played virtually, and both had to come out as one and the same show. The audience should never need to know which was which. That was the standard.
Papua was the first of three tournaments that shaped how we broadcast esports at national and international scale. It continued with the IESF World Championship in Bali in 2022, then PON XXI Aceh–Sumut in 2024, when esports finally competed for medals.