The Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC), Saudi Arabia’s digital regulator, has named STC as winner of ‘The Platinum Game Operator Award’ for 2021.
The award recognizes excellence by service providers in the delivery of some of the most popular video games in the Kingdom.
H.E. Dr. Mohammed bin Saud Al-Tamimi, Governor of CITC, presented the award to STC Group CEO Eng. Olayan Mohammed Al-Wetaid, in the presence of HRH Prince Mohammed bin Khalid Al-Abdullah Al-Faisal, Chairman of STC's Board of Directors, and HRH Prince Faisal bin Bandar bin Sultan, President of the Saudi Esports Federation (SEF); at the global technology conference LEAP22, which is taking place in Riyadh from 1 to 3 February.
Al-Tamimi underlined the importance of the award by emphasizing that: “Assessing performance and encouraging competition is essential to the development of our communications and information technology sector, and online gaming is a very useful indicator of progress, also working to create a first-class e-sports space.”
STC's victory was the result of high scores across a wide range of areas, including hosting video games locally, reducing latency for the most popular titles, the provision of technical support for players all over the Kingdom.
The award is part of CITC’s Game Mode initiative, which aims to boost service levels and innovation in the industry by encouraging competition. The initiative also includes quarterly reports that compare response times among service providers across some of the Kingdom’s most widely used games. Since Game Mode’s launch, the average response time (ping) has improved by 82%, as well as sponsoring 6 of the largest e-sports tournaments, offering gaming-friendly packages to over 6 million players, providing technical support to more than 100,000 players and direct payment to 5 e-games.
As one of the International Telecommunication Union’s top-tier ‘fifth generation’ regulators, CITC is working to raise the level of transparency in the ICT market by publishing data and survey results on a regular basis.