The Gaming Intern is a series that follows *SCAPE’s Intern Kay as they go around interviewing the leaders of various local esports communities. It aims to achieve a deeper understanding of esports topics, and allows us to see them through the eyes of the leaders themselves. In this article, we interviewed the leaders of the Sovereign community.
Sovereign is a new esports community onboarded with *SCAPE, for the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) players in Singapore, a popular mobile game that allows players to compete in teams of 5. Together with *SCAPE, Sovereign has been holding physical MLBB tournaments and events for the local community. Sovereign is constantly trying to grow and reach out to more Mobile Legends players in Singapore, and strives to foster a welcoming environment for players sharing the same passion.
For youths who are interested in participating in their tournaments, do look out for their tournament announcements via our *SCAPE esports Discord [Join here! https://discord.gg/gK6zaS8m3y]
What are your roles within the Sovereign community?
Danny: I am the community lead of Sovereign. I am currently trying to help to grow the community and engage more people in the MLBB scene.
Min Yi: I mainly handle the events for Sovereign, and am also in charge of the overall management.
Give us a unique fact about yourself to let the audience know you better.
Danny: I have a cat.
Min Yi: … That’s not unique
Min Yi: For me, I don’t actually play MLBB, I just like to do events.
Please tell us what kind of events Sovereign intends to have.
Danny: Ah, the shameless one. *nudges Min Yi* Go.
Min Yi: Me? Shameless? Not you? Anyway, for our upcoming tournament it will be a 5v5 Brawl. We also have Magic Chess and the standard 5v5 Draft upcoming, along with a viewing party at the end of 2022.
What is Sovereign’s origin story?
Danny: Sovereign started around February 2022, so it’s still a relatively new community. It began because I wanted to give something back to my TikTok community. As a TikTok content creator, I felt that there were more ways for me to give back, such as in terms of giveaways or in terms of engaging the audience and followers. I woke up one day and decided to create a Discord server, and that’s pretty much how everything started.
Min Yi: For me, it’s a little different. I thought that we should all meet up one day, and I was just letting Danny know that I have esports events experience from *SCAPE, from the program called Elevate. That was how I started the events management team, with Elevate, since it allowed me to get to know people and get experience. Danny was like, “Oh, why not come and help me?” and I agreed.
Danny: Friends that we were playing with consistently decided to join in as well, and that is how the community leaders came about for Sovereign.
What is an essential for constructing a community? What differentiates a fanbase from a community?
Danny: The most important part is in engaging the audience. A fanbase is very one-sided where I am just publishing content which people might like. However, for a community, it is more important to engage people and try to talk to them. I believe that that is the main difference between the two.
What are your plans for Sovereign in the long-run?
Danny: We do hope to grow the community whereby we can become a platform where people can come in and know that this is a place for people to make friends and socialise. Ultimately, we hope that the community can become automated. For example, when I enter the [Discord] server, I would see that there are always people talking, or people making friends. I would hope for Sovereign to be a wholesome and welcoming environment for them.
Min Yi: In the long-run, I would like to see more participation, and not just because we [Sovereign’s community leaders] push for it, but because they want to join it on their own accord. It would also be important to see them having fun. Another goal is to nurture anyone who is interested in doing esports events.
Before we end off, please promote Sovereign one last time.
Danny: Do join our Sovereign Discord channel! You can get the link via my TikTok, @ Kizumi.mlbb, yes. Shameless plug, yes.
Min Yi: We will probably have other forms of social media coming up soon, so keep a lookout for those! But for now, please join our Discord, and play some games with our server friends. We hope to see you guys there!
Gaming Intern’s In-A-Nutshell:
A final word and insight from Intern Kay
Currently the youngest esports community onboarded with *SCAPE, it was certainly interesting to hear about how the Sovereign community came to be. Danny does highlight an important truth behind gaming communities: they are easy to start, but take a lot of work to sustain.
Indeed, starting a community can be very casual. Like the Sovereign leaders themselves had pointed out, it was a random decision. However, it does take a lot of time and commitment to be able to turn that initial starting point into something solid and sustainable. While the inception of Sovereign might be easy, the process after that- of maintaining and creating a sustainable esports community- is more certainly not. A lot of work has to be put in in order for their gaming community to become a bustling and growing one.
A fanbase and an active esports community are 2 different things, and while they do share their similarities, the differences certainly show in the amount of effort needed to be invested into them. A fanbase is easier on the content creator, whose only concern is to produce content that their audience will like. A gaming community, on the other hand, requires the community leaders to drastically ramp up the amount of engagement between themselves and the other community members, alongside fostering an environment that is conducive for members to communicate within themselves.
What this does is that it shows the dedication from the Sovereign leaders, along with other esports community leaders, for they are willing to put so much time and effort into giving back to a game and its community members, which is highly commendable.
