Esports illustrated

GeoGuessr Community Protests Esports World Cup by Disabling Popular Maps

After rising esport title GeoGuessr announced its participation in Saudi Arabia's Esports World Cup, community creators are going rogue and privating the game's major maps in protest. Here's everything we know.

Gabby DeSena

The GeoGuessr community is protesting the Esports World Cup with a blackout.
The GeoGuessr community is protesting the Esports World Cup with a blackout. / Esports World Cup

UPDATE: GeoGuessr has officially withdrawn from the Esports World Cup

On May 17, the Esports World Cup announced GeoGuessr would join its lineup. Now, the community is protesting and has disabled most major maps in a 'blackout', saying they will only restore them once GeoGuessr withdraws. Let's explore everything we know about the ongoing situation.

  1. What is GeoGuessr?
  2. GeoGuessr Joins the Esports World Cup
  3. GeoGuessr Creators Going Rogue: Major Map Blackout

What is GeoGuessr?

GeoGuessr is a competitive game where players try to guess a location based on a 360-degree image. Users receive points based on accuracy. The title went viral in 2023, and has since spawned a large esports circuit that even has a World Championship.

GeoGuessr Joins the Esports World Cup

The Esports World Cup is an esports competition and convention held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It is funded by the Esports World Cup Foundation (EWCF), a nonprofit organization established in 2023 by Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The tournament has the largest combined esports prize pool in history at over 70 million USD.

On May 17 2025, GeoGuessr announced it would participate in the Esports World Cup's Festival portion. The game planned to host a high-staked Wildcard tournament event, which would grant qualification to the 2025 GeoGuessr World Championship.

Related Article: GeoGuessr is an Esport Now - Esports World Cup Festival Lineup

GeoGuessr Creators Going Rogue: Major Map Blackout

On May 21 2025, four days after GeoGuessr's original Esports World Cup participation announcement, the community's Discord server sparked with conversation. The game's most significant map creators posted a joint announcement, revealing they would privatize "a considerable share of GeoGuessr's most popular maps," making them "unplayable." The post states that the decision is a "protest" due to the Esports World Cup's sportswashing allegations, which claim the Saudi Arabian government has used the event as a distraction from human rights violations.

The post's author shared a statement from the protesting creators:

"The EWC is a sportswashing tool used by the government of Saudi Arabia to distract from and conceal its horrific human rights record. [...] By participating in the EWC, GeoGuessr is contributing to that sportswashing agenda, which is designed to take away from Saudi Arabia's human rights violations."

The announcement also details its plan to 'black out' the game ahead of the Esports World Cup:

The protest reportedly includes "dozens of creators and their maps, including a supermajority of the most popular competitively relevant world maps." The creators say their blackout will continue "until we see action from GeoGuessr; specifically, we demand that GeoGuessr cancels its Wildcard event in Saudi Arabia and commits to not hosting any events there as long as it continues its oppressive regime."

In addition to the post, hundreds of community members are currently spamming the GeoGuessr Discord chat with "Cancel Riyadh event." X.com user @RhinozzCode claims "a low-end estimate of the total plays on blacked-out maps is 23.6 million," and also confirms that many of these blacked-out maps are in GeoGuessr's competitive circulation.

The event is scheduled to begin in just two months on July 21. The GeoGuessr developers have not commented on the situation.

Esports Illustrated has reached out to the Esports World Cup for comment.

feed

Published
Gabby DeSena
GABBY DESENA

Home/News