G2 Esports has partnered with Theta Labs to launch “Sami,” a next-generation AI agent designed to enhance fan engagement across multiple competitive esports titles.

The AI-powered assistant will provide G2’s global fanbase with instant access to match schedules, player stats, team rosters, tournament standings, and real-time competitive updates. Sami supports major titles including League of Legends, Counter-Strike 2, VALORANT, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, and Call of Duty.

Accessible via the official G2 website and Discord starting February 17, Sami is built to deliver accurate, always-on responses to fan queries in natural language. From tournament updates to player performance metrics and G2-specific trivia, the AI agent reflects the organization’s unique brand voice and competitive culture.

AI-Powered Fan Engagement at Scale

Sami is trained and deployed using Theta EdgeCloud’s hybrid cloud-edge infrastructure, which integrates over 30,000 distributed edge nodes with cloud services from Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services. The system delivers approximately 80 PetaFLOPS of GPU compute power, enabling real-time processing and analysis at significantly reduced costs compared to traditional centralized cloud platforms.

The AI infrastructure dynamically assigns workloads to high-performance GPUs, including NVIDIA A100 and H100 cloud GPUs, as well as RTX 3090 and 4090 desktop GPUs, optimizing performance and cost efficiency. This decentralized architecture allows G2 to scale fan engagement globally while maintaining low latency and high reliability.

Strengthening Esports AI Innovation

Theta Labs has rapidly expanded its presence in the esports industry, powering AI-driven fan experiences for organizations such as Cloud9, FlyQuest, Evil Geniuses, NRG, Gen.G, Dignitas, 100 Thieves, Method, and Team Heretics.

According to Mitch Liu, CEO of Theta Labs, esports fans increasingly demand instant access to team data and competitive updates. AI agents like Sami enable organizations to provide 24/7 automated engagement while maintaining a unique community personality.

Sabrina Ratih, COO of G2 Esports, emphasized that Sami is more than a standard chatbot. Built to reflect G2’s playful and competitive tone, the AI assistant combines advanced machine learning with brand-driven communication to deliver both entertainment and functionality.

The Future of AI in Esports

The launch of Sami positions G2 Esports at the forefront of AI-driven fan engagement in competitive gaming. By leveraging decentralized GPU infrastructure and blockchain-powered cloud computing, the partnership with Theta Labs signals a broader industry shift toward scalable, cost-efficient AI solutions for esports organizations.

As AI integration becomes a competitive differentiator in esports, solutions like Sami are expected to redefine how teams interact with their global communities in real time.

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Player concerns in Web3 gaming are shifting away from external market forces like token volatility toward internal game fairness and design, according to recent survey data from 51 Games.

Despite frequent industry focus on crypto market cycles and price spikes, nearly 30% of Web3 gamers identify pay-to-win mechanics as their top issue, while only about 19–20% point to token inflation or economic instability as their greatest fear — signaling a deeper worry about gameplay integrity.

More than half of respondents (51–52%) believe that effort should directly translate into reward, making transparency and merit-based progression central to long-term engagement. Players are competitive by nature: when asked how they respond to others earning more, 40% feel motivated to catch up and 27% want to understand the strategy behind others’ success, while only a small minority feel frustrated or believe outcomes are unfair. This suggests that gamers reject systems where earned skill is overshadowed by spending power.

These preferences help explain why pay-to-win concerns resonate more strongly than market volatility. Players accept market fluctuations — which lie outside their control — but react negatively when in-game advantages appear tied to wealth instead of effort or mastery. While market and token risks still matter to around one in five respondents, fairness consistently ranks higher on the priority list.

Matvii Diadkov, Founder of 51 Games, notes this shift clearly: “When players say they fear pay-to-win more than market volatility, they signal that they want rules that reward effort, not spending power.” For developers, this means refocusing from purely token price issues to economic game design that fosters trust, progression clarity, and balanced incentive systems.

Fairness now functions as a key retention driver. Games that offer skill-based progression with visible, fair rules tend to build stronger player loyalty and long-term investment. Aggressive monetization may lure short-term users, but it can undermine trust and engagement when players feel outcomes depend more on spending than skill. Overall, Web3 gamers demonstrate strategic economic awareness: they evaluate reward structures, compare value propositions, and seek systems where effort, not spending, defines their success.

In a rapidly evolving industry, aligning internal game economies with player expectations for fairness, transparency and merit-based advancement appears to matter more than managing external token volatility — a crucial insight for Web3 developers seeking sustainable engagement.

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