Erangel Production Limited Liability Company was established in August 2019 to hold various types of hi-tech events in Azerbaijan.
The head of the company, Zaur Orujov, told Trend.
According to his statement, hi-tech events include cyber-sport games, robotics, game development, bringing innovative ideas and revolutionary innovations of modern times to Azerbaijan and propagating them in front of our young audience:
"Our main goal is to reveal the young talents of our country, to make them spend their leisure time more productively, increase their outlook, create teams to participate in different types of cyber-sports and robotics competitions at a high level and promote our country in the world hi-tech arena. We are currently working intensively for the purposes I have listed, and our people will be aware of all the innovations in the near future.”
Orujov also spoke about the company's projects:
“Our company is divided into two segments for the implementation of our planned projects. Erangel Events and Erangel Gaming (game development).”
Speaking about Erangel Events, the head of the company noted that “Player Unknown's Battle Ground”, which is a game that is loved and enthusiastically played by the young locals. In the first stage, it is planned to organise a PUBG mobile championship in Azerbaijan and subsequently, a world championship at the second stage.
"For this purpose, we have signed a contract with Starladder Limited, a world-renowned organizer of cyber-sports events. We have invited world-class singers to perform in front of a large audience in order to make our event more unique. The qualifying rounds of the championship will be held at the Baku Sports Hall with 1,500 players and the final stage with 64 players will be held at the Baku Crystal Hall on a stage designed with modern technology in front of an audience of 15,000-20,000 people. We also will have different types of entertainment/fan zones for spectators. The winning team will receive 20,000 Azerbaijani Manat. This format is being held in Azerbaijan for the first time, and in the second stage we will hold the world championship in the same format next year in our country. This will also affect Azerbaijan's developing tourism sector. The championship will be broadcast live in front of millions on game portals such as TWITCH.TV and Youtube Gaming, and the tourism potential of our country will be promoted through promo videos. The importance of holding our event was emphasized and supported by the Cabinet of Ministers, the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies, the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the State Tourism Agency. The championship was scheduled for March-April, but due to a known global COVID-19 pandemic, we had to postpone the project till the end 2020 in order not to put our citizens at additional risk of infection with the virus. We will provide additional information to the public at a later stage.
As Erangel Events, our second project, supported by the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies of Azerbaijan Republic, is the BattleBots championship, which the majority of young people across the world follow with enthusiasm. The main purpose of the competition is to show the power of robots, built by robotic engineers in a certain format, fighting in a predefined special arena. BattleBots, produced in the United States, currently takes place in various US states and is broadcasted on the world-famous Discovery Channel. In late February 2020, while in San Francisco, California, I met with the managers of the BattleBots project and agreed to hold the project as the first world championship outside of the United States in Azerbaijan, as well as to broadcast the event on Discovery Channel. We plan to hold this competition together with the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies as part of the Innovation Week, and we have already started the process of more detailed negotiations with project managers to start organizational work in this area. Of course, additional information will be provided in this regard as well. Most probably and unfortunately this event also will be postponed to the year 2021 because of COVID-19."
Speaking about Erangel Gaming, Orujov mentioned that if we look at the global gaming market, we come across with huge turnover figures:
"Yes, these are realistic figures. For example, according to the analytical portal NewZoo, in 2019 alone, the global gaming market had a turnover of 152 billion US dollars, and according to statistics, this figure is growing by an average of 9% annually. The main share in this turnover belongs to console games, and the second place belongs to mobile games. Taking into account this trend, our own strength and potential, we have already decided to become one of the new strong players in this market and take our place in this ranking. As a team, we have great ideas and plans for this, which we have already begun to implement. As of now we are negotiating with potential investors in order to step to next level of game development."
The head of the company added that, in January 31, 2020 Global Game Jam organization launched its following event in 2020 by implementing a 48-hour game-building project with 40,000+ participants in 113 countries and more than 900 locations around the world.
"We, in addition, were invited by the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies to support the organization of the project, and also attended the project as a participant with our team. Very interesting game projects were prepared by the teams from Azerbaijan, and it was confirmed that a strong generation has grown up in our country in the field of game building. The game that our 7-man team created from scratch in 45 hours was one of the favorites and was very popular. This year's theme was "repair". Repair can be explained in different ways. For example, the physical repair of something, the repair of health, the repair of relationships, and so on. Thus, there are ample opportunities for fantasy. The subject we were thinking about was the cleansing and restoration of the earth from the viruses that have become today's problem. Our hero, Dr. Renstein, a former special forces soldier and scientist, must search for and restore parts of his house that were destroyed by a meteorite carrying an unknown “canoravirus” (fictional name), while killing monsters with antiviral bullets. Our team did a great job in 45 hours, created this game from scratch and laid the foundation for our future projects.”
Orujov also shared his views on game building:
“As I said, we have already started the initial game-building work with our young team of 10 people with special knowledge. To develop the alpha version of our game, our team includes several highly qualified programmers, 3d specialists and graphic designers. Once the alpha version of our game is ready, we will start working on the full version, bringing our team to 50-60 people. The format of our game is very popular and loved in the world game market, and is the first experience among the developers of Azerbaijan. As mentioned earlier, we are negotiating with potential investors in order to start second level of our development. Our goal is to enter the world gaming arena and develop a project that is very popular and played among gamers, to be at the forefront of global rankings and to write the name of Azerbaijan with the golden letters in the global game industry.”
