Free Fire named Esports Mobile Game of the Year at Esports Awards 2021
Garena shooter Free Fire was crowned as the “Esports Mobile Game of the Year” at the Esports Awards 2021 during its annual awards ceremony held over the weekend. It won the award for the second consecutive year.
The Esports Awards 2021 was held in Arlington, Texas. The sixth rendition of the event returned to the Esports Stadium Arlington after being celebrated online last year due to the pandemic.
The annual awards ceremony rewards the achievements of esports and gaming talents from different platforms with the addition of awards for streamers, commercial partners, analysts, and many others.
Free Fire won the award after being nominated alongside numerous other big titles, including PUBG Mobile, Arena of Valor, Mobile Legends, Call of Duty: Mobile, Brawl Stars, Clash Royale, and League of Legends: Wild Rift.
Garena Global Esports Manager Justin Lye said his team was “honored and humbled” to have won the award. He said that the team had worked hard to achieve such an award. Currently, Free Fire is the top-grossing mobile game in the Google play store.
In 2021, Free Fire became the first mobile battle royale game to achieve one billion downloads on Google Play Store. It also recorded over 5.4 million peak viewers during the Free Fire World Series 2021 held in Singapore.
Winners of the Esports Awards 2021
The awards were presented in various categories. Among the notable mentions are Natus Vincere CS:GO team members s1mple and B1t who won the PC Player of the Year and PC Rookie of the Year awards respectively. Valorant was named the esports game of the year, and 100 Thieves was crowned as the esports organization of the year.
The Esports Mobile Player of the Year award was won by Chinese star PUBG Mobile player Paraboy from Nova Esports, while the award for the Streamer of the Year went to Ibai for the second year in a row. Ibai left G2 Esports earlier and developed his own personal brand, and successfully gained fame thanks to him being close to popular football players around the world.
Brazilian streamer and esports athlete NOBRU won the Esports Personality of the year award. It was largely thanks to NOBRU that Free Fire tournaments gained popularity in Brazil, regularly recording hundreds of thousands of spectators. When NOBRU’s Team Fluxo competed in the Free Fire World Series 2021 Singapore in May, the tournament attracted over a million Brazillian spectators. NOBRU is currently ranked number one in esports by Peak Viewers, excluding statistics from Chinese streaming platforms.
“Sports awards are meant to be an Oscar for players, do you understand?” NOBRU said in a video sent to the event. “I think that’s what the whole community means when it comes to this award. I think it’s a surreal thing.”
The winners of the Esports Awards 2021 are as follows:
1. Esports Organization of the Year: 100 Thieves
2. Streamer of the Year: Ibai
3. Esports Team of the Year: Atlanta FaZe
4. Esports PC Player of the Year: s1mple
5. Esports Controller Player of the Year: Simp
6. Esports Personality of the Year: NOBRU
7. Esports Play by Play Caster of the Year: Miles Ross
8. Esports PC Rookie of the Year: B1t
9. Esports Controller Rookie of the Year: M0nkey M00n
10. Esports Coach of the Year: Moon
11. Esports Mobile Player of the Year: Paraboy
12. Esports Host of the Year: sjokz
13. Esports Journalist of the Year: Kevin Hitt
14. Esports Collegiate Ambassador of the Year: Dr. Chris’ Doc’ Haskell
15. Esports Play of the Year: Virtue
16. Esports Game of the Year: Valorant
17. Esports Video Production Team of the Year: G2 Esports
18. Esports Creative of the Year: Thorsten Denk
19. Esports Publisher of the Year: Riot Games
20. Esports Supporting Service of the Year: Discord
21. Esports Mobile Game of the Year: Free Fire
22. Esports Content Creator of the Year: Ashley Kang
23. Esports Content Series of the Year: Metagame
24. Esports Color Caster of the Year: SPUNJ
25. Esports Analyst of the Year: Caedral
26. Esports Hardware Provider of the Year: Corsair
27. Esports Creative Piece of the Year: No Clue / Adidas x G2 Esports
28. Esports Apparel of the Year: 100 Thieves
29. Esports Photo of the Year: Eric Ananmalay
30. Esports Cosplay of the Year: Peyton Cosplay
31. Panel’s Choice Award: Fizzi
32. Esports Creative Team of the Year: Alex Productions w/ DrDisRespect
33. Esports Collegiate Program of the Year: Maryville University
34. Esports Coverage Platform of the Year: The Esports Observer
35. Esports Broadcast/Production Team of the Year: Riot Games
36. Esports Commercial Partner of the Year: Intel
