Geoguessr, the global location guessing game, has withdrawn from the Esports World Cup. The move comes less than a week after GeoGuessr was announced as part of the Esports World Cup Festival.
Revealed on May 19, the GeoGuessr would have hosted a “Last Chance Wildcard Tournament” during the EWC Festival, a secondary “series of competitive events held alongside the Esports World Cup 2025 .” Now, GeoGuessr becomes the first title to have actively withdrawn from the EWC – a move no other developer or game has taken.
Image Credit: GeoGuessr
GeoGuessr Withdraws From EWC After Fan Backlash
In posts on Twitter/X and their own Discord made on May 22, the GeoGuessr team outlined the reasoning for their withdrawal. The developers limited their statement, saying only that participating in the EWC “does not align what GeoGuessr stands for.”
The move came following significant fan backlash within the GeoGuessr community. On May 21, a group of the games most prolific map creators (and the people behind the maps used in competitive GeoGuessr play ), released a statement of their own on the GeoGuessr discord. In it they outlined their issues with GeoGuessr’s EWC participation:
“The EWC is a sportswashing tool used by the government of Saudi Arabia to distract from and conceal its horrific human rights record.”
“Groups targeted by the government include women, LGBTQ people, apostates and atheists, political dissenters, migrant workers in the Kafala system, religious minorities, and many others. The subjugation of these groups is extensive and pervasive. Members of these groups are routinely subjected to discrimination, imprisonment, torture, and even public executions. These severe human rights violations are well-documented and indisputable.”
The post concluded by stating all map creators associated with the statement would be instituting a “black out,” scrambling their maps and making them unplayable. This would in effect cripple any attempt at playing GuoGuessr using these competitive maps.
A day after this post was made, GeoGuessr withdrew from the event entirely. Whether motivated by the community backlash, or the fact its competitive scene had been crippled by the protest of its top creators, the move is still significant, as it marks the first major protest against the EWC by a developer at any level.
Saudi Arabia’s human rights record is decidedly terrible, as detailed and documented by international human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
The EWC’s link to the Saudi Arabian state is tangible and real. The Esports World Cup is operated by ESL FACEIT Group, which is owned by Savvy Games Group – a part of the Saudi Arabian PIF, the sovereign wealth fund of the Saudi Arabian state.
While this protest by GeoGuessr may be the first, it could potentially not be the last. Esports.net has reached out to EWC Foundation representatives for comment.