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'FIFA' esports league reveals changes to 2020 season format
After two eWorld Cups, FIFA and Electronic Arts are tweaking the competition for a new season. To start, EA says it's simplifying online qualification with a new "Friendly Competition" mode. Taking a page from professional soccer, this mode will see teams and individuals play two games to determine who goes through, with aggregate goals determining the winner in case of a split series.
'Killer Queen Black' drops on Switch and PC October 11th
Nintendo announced a console and PC version of the competitive five-on-five arcade game Killer Queen at E3 2018, and Liquid Bit and BumbleBear have revealed when you can try to ride a snail to victory from the comfort of your couch. Killer Queen Black will hit Switch and PC (through Steam and Discord) October 11th. It was supposed to arrive earlier this year, but at last there's a firm release date.
Overwatch League's latest big change is great for viewers
Picture this: FIFA decides to bring in a rule that changes how every team, from World Cup squads to US Youth Soccer National League orgs, plays. They're forced to field two strikers, four midfielders and four defenders at all times, even though many top teams prefer to have more midfielders supporting one main attacker.
CBS will air the Nintendo World Championships starting August 25th
CBS is set to air the Nintendo World Championships later this month. The trio of esports tournaments -- in which Super Mario Maker 2, Splatoon 2 and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate players duked it out -- will debut on August 25th at 1 PM ET. The network will broadcast two more episodes on September 7th at 2 PM and September 14th at 1:30 PM.
Sony plans to make everyone with a PS4 a competitive gamer
Sony is hoping it can rally its PlayStation fans around esports. Today, the company announced seasonal PS4 tournaments. It's inviting users of all levels to participate in competitive online gaming through their PS4 consoles, and it's even offering cash prizes.
EA debuts eSports studio with Madden NFL 19 Challenge
EA is moving deeper into competitive gaming territory by opening an eSports broadcast studio. There are two main studios: the competitive area and a player lounge. The former includes 360-degree sets, spectator cameras and media and audience seating. The player lounge is styled like a New York loft and is kitted out with robotic cameras and directional microphones. The facility also has a control room, a green screen area and a four-person analyst desk.
'Super Smash Bros. Ultimate' has replaced 'Melee' at Evo 2019
The annual Evolution Championship Series (Evo) has revealed the game roster for its 2019 eSports tournament and there's one notable absence. Super Smash Bros. Melee for the GameCube -- widely recognized as the best title in the series for competitive play -- didn't make the cut this year. In its place is the latest entry in Nintendo's crossover beat-em-up franchise, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for the Switch. It will take its place in the finals arena along with Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition, Tekken 7, and BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle.
The first 'Fortnite' World Cup kicks off April 13th
Epic entered the world of eSports with a bang last year when it unveiled its $100 million Fortnite tournaments. It made waves again last month by staging its latest showdown at the Australian Open. Not everything went according to plan, however, with complaints by pros that Fortnite's abrupt updates were affecting their strategies. But after some fine-tuning to the game proper, Epic is now preparing for the final chapter in its debut season: the Fortnite World Cup.
'Team Fortress 2' adding competitive multiplayer mode
A big change is coming to a longtime favorite in the form of Team Fortress 2's competitive matchmaking mode. The Meet Your Match update, which has yet to secure release date just yet, has finally, officially been announced.
ESPN embraces eSports with a dedicated gaming section
ESPN is, slowly but surely, trying its best to embrace eSports. Since last year, the cable network has broadcasted multiple gaming tournaments, despite its president John Skipper once saying he didn't consider eSports to be sports. But now, ESPN's launching a section on ESPN.com that's going to focus on the world of professional gaming, a first for the Disney-owned property. Coverage will include news, original reporting, videos and profiles about influential members from the eSports community.
Hearthstone announces its sixth season and a new card back
Are you ready for the sixth season of competitive Hearthstone play? Because it's live right now, complete with a new card back for players to show off. This season offers a nautical look with the Pirate back available through September. Players who have hit at least Rank 20 or higher in ranked play mode will be awarded the card back at the end of the month. As in previous months, success in ranked play will earn you bonuses toward the next season, but even if you start at or above Rank 20 this season you'll need to play at least one ranked match to earn the new card back. Fortunately, you have plenty of time to do just that if you want your deck to tell opponents that they'd better buckle their swashes.
Riot Games starting programs to help support retired e-sports players
So what do you do when you're too old to play e-sports on a professional level? Do you accept that you had a good run being treated like a rock star for playing a lot of games and move on with your life? Heck no. You need to start worrying about leveraging your brand and your media training. That's the sort of material covered by a new program headed by Riot Games, guiding professional League of Legends players on the path from the start of their career to their expected retirement at around age 27. The accepted retirement age for professional players is due to a decrease in fine motor control and reflexes, which means that as in physical sports, it's impossible to continue playing as you get older. While the symposia Riot is offering don't yet go into detail about what players can do after playing, they are meant to help keep professionals in the spotlight and support them when they can no longer keep up with the events. It's useful training for professional e-sports players looking to move through their career and have some direction for after the game.
Hearthstone tournament now open to all
Yesterday we reported about the oddity of a Hearthstone tournament that didn't allow women to compete. The reason? The International e-Sports Federation wanted gaming to be recognized as a "true sport," and was following the professional sports model of gender division. With fewer women competitors than men, this led to tournaments with a large selection of gaming events for men, but few for women -- in the case of this tournament, Hearthstone, Dota 2, and Ultra Street Fighter IV were all men-only events. While e-Sports are often gender-divided (competitive StarCraft is notable in this regard), the idea of a men-only Hearthstone tournament was apparently the straw that broke the camel's back. Among many others, Blizzard spoke out against IeSF policy, telling VentureBeat, "One of our goals with e-sports is to ensure that there's a vibrant and also inclusive community around our games. We do not allow the use of our games in tournaments that do not support this, and are working with our partners to ensure they share the same goal." The end result is that the IeSF has reversed the policy, and offers events open to all genders as well as women-only events to encourage the participation of women in the male-dominated field of pro gaming. It's a setup that's similar to the competitive chess scene, which has both a World Chess Championship in which anyone can compete and a Women's World Chess Championship. Now, at the 6th e-Sports World Championship BAKU 2014, men and women will be able to compete together in StarCraft 2 and Hearthstone tournaments, while there's also a women's only StarCraft 2 tournament. Time to get your game on!
SMITE announces world championships for 2015
Are you the best SMITE player in the world? Are you sure about that? If so, maybe you should go ahead and take part in the SMITE World Championships. The company has just announced that the championship tournament will take place January 9th to 11th, 2015, along with qualifier dates for North America and Europe, all of which can be found just past the break. Players will be competing for a grand prize of $600,000, a pool which is expected to grow over the next half-year in the lead-in to the event. You can check out the official e-sports site for the game to find out how to register your team and try to make it into the big leagues, or just check out the trailer below. Maybe you just like to spectate, after all. It's cool.
The Soapbox: Actually, that really isn't an MMO
In last week's edition of The Soapbox, Mike Foster argued that online gaming has evolved over the past few years and that the term MMO should be expanded to cover other online games like MOBAs. He examined the blurred dividing line between new online games and the classic MMOs of yesteryear, and he made the controversial argument that Call of Duty and League of Legends should now fall under the MMO umbrella. I found myself disagreeing with many of Mike's arguments and wanting to make additional points of my own, so this week I'd like to offer a few counter-points on the same topic for debate. The MMO market has certainly evolved since Massively was founded, with some pretty big innovations in gameplay and new ideas like the free-to-play business model taking hold. As much as people like to complain about a lack of innovation in the games industry, the same level of experimentation and evolution has hit industry-wide. Call of Duty has borrowed unlock and XP systems from the world of orcs and dragons, and League of Legends came from nowhere to be at the forefront of a global MOBA revolution, but neither of them is an MMO by any stretch of the imagination. In this in-depth opinion piece, I break down the definition arguments surrounding the term MMO, offer a reasoned view of where the line can and should be drawn, and look at why Massively covers games other than MMOs.
EVE Evolved: Alliance Tournament XI Grudge Match
The largest alliance war in EVE Online's history is currently underway, with the latest battle to hit the news reaching over 4,000 players and shattering the world record for players involved in a single PvP battle. While massive battles like are becoming a regular occurrence in EVE and have dominated the news lately, the strategy of just throwing thousands of ships at the enemy and seeing if it works doesn't work in every corner of New Eden. Wormholes, for example, limit the mass of ships entering a hidden Sleeper star system at once, promoting smaller-scale conflicts that are more about deep strategy and execution than scale. So it is for EVE Online's annual alliance tournament, a fairly matched drawing that attempts to simulate what would happen if small squads of ships from opposing alliances met on equal terms. Teams are drawn randomly against each other and put together squads of ships within the bounds of an imposed point limit. This year's tournament involved only 64 teams and had no elimination stage but still managed to pump out 128 action-packed matches with full commentary and studio coverage. The grand final even played host to the biggest grudge match in Alliance Tournament history as Pandemic Legion faced off against Hydra Reloaded. In this week's EVE Evolved, I round up all the matches in this year's massive Alliance Tournament and discuss the explosive final that saw old tournament rivals face off for glory and huge in-game prizes.
Guild Wars 2 discusses upcoming arena changes
Guild Wars 2 isn't always about stories or elections or even dynamic content. Sometimes it's just about players getting into an arena and smashing each other to pieces. Players fond of the game's Rated Arenas can look forward to some upcoming improvements and additions, starting with a split into solo and team formats rather than the current catch-all header. While the game mechanics will be identified as both, Solo Arenas are composed solely of people queueing up alone, thereby ensuring that both sides of a match are thrown into a random group rather than a premade team facing several assorted members. The arenas will also implement a 72-hour debuff for players who abandon their matches, with five stacks preventing players from queueing up again. The full discussion of these changes goes on to promise more map randomization, spectator mode, and new permanent finishers for fans of rated PvP. It's good news for everyone, unless you made a long habit of joining rated games and then leaving for no reason.
Owner of e-sports team charged with participation in massive hacking operation
What do League of Legends, Dota 2, and Counterstrike have in common? If you answered "all three games were played by eSports team Moscow 5," you are remarkably well-informed and also correct. And if you're that well-informed, you also probably know that the team owner, Dmitry Smilianets, was arrested a year ago as part of an investigation by the FBI. What you might not be aware of is that Smilianets has now been officially charged with taking part in a massive hacking network along with five other Russian and Ukranian nationals. According to a statement by U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman, this represents the largest such case tried in the US, as Smilianets and his accomplices are charged with stealing at least 160 million debit and credit card numbers. Smilianets is in custody, as he was arrested while sightseeing in the United States, and is expected to be in federal court next week.
Guild Wars 2 ramps up for the first Invitational Tournament
Do you think you've got what it takes to be a champion? Guild Wars 2 is hosting its first Invitational Tournament and invites all players to take part in the matchup. With $7500 for the winning team and a studio tour for every qualifying team, there's plenty of reason for experienced players to gather allies and fight for the right to be the best team across North America and Europe. The rules are fairly simple. Each team of five must register on the official site to take part in the Regional Qualifiers, which are July 27th and 28th for European players and August 3rd and 4th for North American players. The actual tournament is on August 31st in Seattle. Both tournaments are single match elimination, with the qualifiers playing for best two out of three and the invitational playing for best three out of five. If you've got a team ready to go, head on over to the official site and get ready to play for the prize.
Fates Forever is MOBA enough for PC but made for a tablet
The MOBA market is pretty full these days, but Hammer & Chisel is trying to find a unique angle with Fates Forever. It's meant to have everything you'd expect from a MOBA, with the game outright calling itself a re-imagining of League of Legends. But you can't play this game on anything less than a tablet. No smartphones, no consoles, no computers, a competitive MOBA designed only for use on tablets. So what makes it uniquely designed for tablets? Fine touch controls, for one thing. Instead of clicking, you can use gestures to direct your heroes, and you can also activate special attacks specifically via the touchscreen. That opens the door for controls that would be tedious or unworkable on a PC and cumbersome on a smartphone. How successful this approach will be remains to be seen, but the game is aimed for a release later this year. [Source: Hammer & Chisel press release]
