The German entrepreneur and serial company founder Jens Hilgers (49) received a lifetime achievement award at the E-Sports Awards in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Although he has achieved so much for e-sports, few will know him. He founded ESL and also plays a prominent role in LoL: He founded the currently dominant team in League of Legends in Europe, G2 Esports, 9 years ago.
What award did he win?
- Hilgers has now been awarded in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with a lifetime achievement award. This took place at the same award ceremony where Samantha “Rivers” Rivera won the 2024 Streamer of the Year award, which sparked significantly more discussion.
- The E-Sports Awards are presented as part of the E-Sports World Cup in Riyadh.
- The event is considered controversial because Saudi Arabia is criticized for human rights violations and is accused of improving its image with the highly endowed E-Sports World Cup. You can read more about the situation of gaming in Saudi Arabia at GameStar.
The German streamer HandOfBlood follows in Hilgers’ footsteps. He also founded an LoL team:
Hilgers is the father of the German E-Sports League ESL
Who is Jens Hilgers? Hilgers is an entrepreneur who has been active in e-sports since 1997. He first built a news portal with Gamers.de and founded Turtle Entertainment, the parent company of the e-sports league ESL, in 2000.
The ESL (Electronic Esports League) made a name for itself especially with Valve games like CS:GO or DOTA 2. Unlike other gaming companies like Riot Games (LoL), Valve allows third parties to host tournaments.
The ESL was sold in January 2022 to a company in Saudi Arabia for over 1 billion US dollars. This made ESL the first gaming company in Germany to achieve a so-called “unicorn exit” (via Handelsblatt).
Hilgers founded the dominant team in European LoL with G2
What else has he done? Hilgers founded the team “G2 Esports” together with former LoL professional Carlos “Ocelote” Rodriguez in 2015, which primarily dominates League of Legends.
Additionally, he has built more companies with Bayes and BITKRAFT Ventures.
He himself writes about himself (via LinkedIn): He loves building companies and implementing ideas. For this, he seeks out ambitious and clever people who have decent character.
The love for gaming and e-sports began on the Amiga with Quake
This is how Hilgers approaches gaming: In an interview, he explains (via YouTube): His passion for gaming originated on the Amiga. His first great love was Quake, and it captivated him as he discovered his passion for competitive online gaming.
Today, he primarily tailors his gaming to his children. This means Minecraft and Fortnite.
For his partner at G2, Ocelote, who presented himself as the opinionated frontman of the team, things did not go as well as for Hilgers. Ocelote’s nature as an impetuous and instigator became his downfall when he got himself into trouble on Twitter in 2022, endangering his career: CEO and founder leaves G2 after being seen with the wrong man for 8 seconds
