Geoguessr’s Map Creators Have Disabled Their Maps To Protest The Esports World Cup

UPDATE: 2025/05/22 16:01 EST BY JACK COLEMAN

Geoguessr No Longer In Esports World Cup

In response to the blackout, Geoguessr AB announced in a statement that Geoguessr will not be played at the Esports World Cup in Riyadh.

Summary

The creators of Geoguessr’s most popular competitive map formats have disabled their maps.
The creators have banded together to protest Geoguessr’s inclusion at the Saudi-run Esports World Cup.
They accuse the regime of sportswashing to cover up egregious human rights violations.

It has not been a pleasant couple of months for Geoguessr. The location guessing game has been review-bombed on Steam because of the game’s monetisation, which locks everything above the lowest rank of competitive gameplay behind a subscription service.

Now, Geoguessr is facing another crisis. Geoguessr’s competitive scene has been growing steadily over the past few years, driven by popular content creators like Rainbolt. The game has staged two World Championships, with this year’s event set to take place later this year in Copenhagen.

No to Sportswashing

However, the recent announcement that two qualifiers for the event would take place at the Esports World Cup in Riyadh has rattled the scene. Geoguessr’s competitive format relies on fan-made maps, as the default maps often drop players into locations which are too easy to identify. In response to the announcement, several map creators have disabled their maps in protest (thanks, Hotspawn).

“We, the creators of a considerable share of Geoguessr’s most popular maps, have decided to make our maps unplayable in protest of Geoguessr AB’s decision to host a World Championship wildcard tourney at the Esports World Cup (EWC) in Riyadh,” the statement begins.

“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.”

Two Geoguessr characters on the victory screen, one sad and one happy

The statement continues, “The blackout includes dozens of creators and their maps, including a supermajority of the most popular competitively relevant world maps. It 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.”

The organisers have also prepared an in-game challenge to accompany the blackout, placing the player in various locations in Saudi Arabia, accompanied by blurbs detailing the human rights violations of the Saudi regime.

Every single map used for high-ranked Geoguessr duels has been disabled, including A Competitive World, An Official World and A Rainbolt World.

Geoguessr AB has yet to make a statement.