Highlights
Esports becomes a medal sport — PON XXI Aceh–Sumut 2024
The first PON where esports carried medals: 260 athletes competed at the Medan International Convention Centre. A hybrid production, as in Papua.
Medan International Convention Centre, Medan, Sumatera Utara
In September 2024, for the first time, an esports match at Indonesia's National Games ended with someone receiving a medal.
PON XXI Aceh–Sumut awarded medals in five esports titles, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Free Fire, PUBG Mobile, Lokapala, and eFootball, at the Medan International Convention Centre from 13 to 19 September 2024. The Minister of Youth and Sports opened the first match in person. 260 athletes competed, and the results went into the official record.
When the results count
A medal changes what a broadcast is for. An exhibition can absorb a mistake. An official result cannot. Scores, replays, and the record of what happened all had to stand up to scrutiny, because a medal depended on them.
Mfalme Studio produced the esports broadcast from Medan, in the same hybrid format as Papua three years earlier: part on the ground at the venue, part virtual, one show.
This closes a set of three stories. First PON XX Papua 2021, when esports entered PON as an exhibition. Then the IESF World Championship in Bali, when the standard went international. Medan is when the results started to count.