Paper Rex: A Great E-sports Team, and an Even Better Business Venture

In venture capitalism terms, one could describe Paper Rex, shortened as PRX, as a company that has good long-term value. The e-sports organisation only competes (for now) in Valorant, a colourful first-person shooter (FPS) game. But, despite being a relative newcomer to the e-sports scene, having been founded only in 2020, they are in a good position to be an internationally recognised entity. That’s a rare statement for any Southeast Asian country, and even rarer for something that’s only been alive for two years.

What’s even better is that PRX knows what they got with their current superstars, and that’s no misnomer. Jing Jie “jinggg” Wang and Jason “f0rsaken” Susantoo are legitimate name-takers in the Valorant competitive circuit. They are regularly ranked as some of the best players in the world, and they possess the most entertaining form of gameplay in FPS existence. The duelist duo is backed by world-class in-game leader Benedict “Benkai” Tan, Aaron “mindfreak” Leonhart (Asia’s best smokes player, by the way), and initiator extraordinaire Khalish “d4v4i” Rusyaidee. They are all renowned names in the scene, allowing PRX’s brand to grow faster than could have anticipated.

The genuine excitement around their team translated into some wild hype out west where most Valorant events are held, which is amazing to see. But, what really turned people’s heads, other than their S-class level of Valorant gaming, are two things: Benkai’s costumed match entrances, and that amazing jersey. There’s honestly no other Valorant team that gets people excited more than PRX, and that’s saying something.

Okay, we recognise that this is quite a peculiar description for a good business move. Nonetheless, all the antics, match results, and some truly memorable in-game moments gained the organisation a following that’s unrivalled in Asia. And that has resulted in them very possibly doing good business in selling merchandise. When someone starts selling team-branded socks, you know they got frequent customers.

More than that, it’s not hard to see Paper Rex having much bigger ambitions. They most definitely would want to expand to other e-sports scenes. The Mobile Legends crowd in Southeast Asia is one that is local and has a huge following and would make sense business-wise. In addition, who wouldn’t want to see proprietary PRX peripherals like what Fnatic is doing? With Singapore enjoying good relations with China, it’s not such a foggy idea for the brand to expand to keyboards, mice and other gaming-centric devices.

As mentioned, they’re already positioning themselves as a lifestyle brand. So, you know, they have ambitions like 100 Thieves, one of the biggest e-sports orgs in North America and one that has a singularly strong apparel game. Soon enough, they’ll have a crop of content creators who will expand their brand, which would gain them sponsors that would lead to more projects and so on.

More than anything, though, they are in the perfect place to do it. They already got into the premier tier of the upcoming Valorant season, and if they play their cards right, this can be the start of a dominating run that will grow this young e-sports team to a continental powerhouse.