Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) has become an increasingly popular mobile esports game worldwide designed to be played on mobile devices. The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa esports program, led by director Nyle Sky Kauweloa, is using the platform to bring together players from Hawaiʻi and across the Pacific region to increase the level of play, while bringing together the gaming community.
In preparation for a major MLBB tournament Kauweloa is planning for April, he and the UH Mānoa esports program hosted an offline meetup session, February 25, at UH Mānoa’s iLab. Nearly 100 attended to learn more about the game and meet directly with esports leaders.
“With our MLBB leadership at UHE, we have worked with Moonton (the video game publisher for MLBB) to actually get the UH meetup featured in the pregame announcements within the actual game so that everyone who opens the game will see our event,” Kauweloa said. “This is definitely a first for UH Esports. To put that into perspective, the game officially registered 1 billion downloads as of 2022.”
Representatives from Moonton attended, as well as OneQode, a company responsible for creating the optimal networking connections for the April tournament. Kauweloa also reached out to the Filipino Chamber of Commerce of Hawaiʻi, Filipino Jaycees of Honolulu and the Filipino Community Center to spread the word about the meetup session and tournament.
“The goal of leveraging Mobile Legends is to catalyze two conversations around esports in Hawaiʻi: 1) That mobile technologies address issues of the digital divide in ways that PCs aren’t able to, and UH Esports is here to be a pillar for that cause, and 2) this is a game that is heavily embedded in our local Filipino community, not only for competitive play but as a means of social inclusion and interactions,” Kauweloa said. “As the director of UH Esports, I am seeking to position our program as a means of extending accessibility to underserved and underrecognized communities.”
In MLBB, players compete in teams of five to defeat the opposing team’s base while controlling their own hero character. Each hero has unique abilities and characteristics, and players can choose from a wide variety of heroes to suit their playstyle. MLBB was the second and third most watched esports tournament in 2023 with a peak viewership count of more than five million.
UH Esports receives funding from the Academy for Creative Media System. Visit the UH Esports team’s X and Discord pages. More stories on UH’s esports program.
