Blinky claims GeoGuessr champion title as World Cup attracts fans far and wide

The second champion of the GeoGuessr World Cup has been crowned today with French competitor Mathieu “Blinky” Huet going one better than his 2023 campaign, ascending the top step with a 3-2 win over American player MK and taking home a cool $25,000 prize.

The runner-up of the inaugural 2023 World Cup wasn’t to be stopped this time, with the French player flawless through the group stage and playoffs. He led 2-0 in the grand final and was one game away from going undefeated at the event until MK bounced back and threatened a reverse sweep, but Blinky held on to win out the final and the prize in front of a packed-out Stockholm City Hall in Sweden.

There was an even larger audience online: Over 200,000 people tuned in for the finals, absolutely smashing last year’s proof-of-concept event which peaked at a little over 70,000 concurrents according to Esports Charts. Average viewership for the weekend was up by double last year’s numbers, proving the GeoGuessr World Cup is surely here to stay.

“I’m happy, now it’s done, I don’t need to think about what happened. I got a lot of luck!” Blinky said following the win and before lifting the trophy, referencing last year’s narrow defeat in the final to Dutch champion Consul.

GeoGuessr is a browser-based game that utilizes Google Maps’ Street View, dropping you into a random place in the world—your job is to work out where you are and outscore your opponent based on distance to the location. It’s grabbed the attention of many; from casual geography fans to hardcore competitors looking to make a name for themselves, it’s truly become an esports fan’s favorite esport.

“It’s an amazing thing they’ve built organically; who would have thought we would be playing Google Maps for money?” esports caster Mohan “launders” Govindasamy—better known for his work in Counter-Strike—said following this year’s World Cup. “What a fantastic game, what a fantastic community. I had no idea, I said no at first but I had no idea what I would have missed out on.”

This year’s edition of the World Cup saw 24 competitors qualify from across the globe, with the $55,678 prize pool including a little over $5,000 crowdfunded from the game’s community. A further $1,000 prize was given to GeoGuessr‘s Content Creator of the Year, Aussie Oscar “zi8gzag” Pearce.