electronic-sports-league
Latest
CBS looks at the rise of spectator e-sports
In a "Game On" segment, CBS Sunday Morning featured an in-depth look at e-sports and the spectator community that has grown up around them. It showed how games like StarCraft II and League of Legends have packed stadiums full of people who watch and cheer on their favorite teams of gamers. "I think I'm too old to understand what's going on in online gaming now," the reporter comments at one point. Our dear friend Research Analyst Michael Pachter replies, "You probably are." You can watch the entire eight-minute segment after the jump. [Thanks to Sorenthaz for the tip!]
Guild Wars 2 takes another stab at e-sports
Guild Wars 2 is once again dipping its toes into the world of competitive e-sports, this time in association with the Electronic Sports League. ArenaNet is sponsoring the Go4GuildWars2 Cup as a result, challenging PvP players to fight over weekly cups for money. The weekly prize for the cup is $500 or €500 per region, with a lead-up to the grand monthly prize of $1,500 or €1,500. Top winners from each weekly cup will be invited to participate in the monthly finale. The cups will take place every Sunday with the first beginning on November 2nd. It's open to everyone who would like to sign up and can be watched by all. "Our hope is that these weekly cups will help drive our players forward in terms of skill, strategy, and teamwork," ArenaNet stated.
Hands-on with Blacklight: Retribution's biggest update yet
February 27th will mark one year since Blacklight: Retribution threw the doors of its beta wide open. Since then, it's ranked among Steam's 50 most-played shooters. For the game's first anniversary, publisher Perfect World Entertainment is hoping to keep the free-to-play shooter's success story going with an update called Onslaught, its biggest content push to date. I recently attended a preview event for Massively to sample Onslaught for myself. Let's start with the small and work our way up.
Firefall tournament to be held at Gamescom, sponsored by ESL
Red 5 Studios will be holding a Firefall beta tournament at Gamescom next week, so if you're in the neighborhood you could jump in and play in the ESL-sponsored tournament for a total of £10,000 in winnings.Qualifying matches will be held on Thursday and Friday, August 16 and 17, after which semi-finals and finals will be held on Saturday with a final 5v5 Team Deathmatch. Players will be able to register on Red 5's own website, so stay tuned for that.Red 5 just recently hit 500,000 registered beta users, so it can't be long now until we see an open beta and a full public release for the long-awaited free-to-play shooter.
Firefall beta tournament to debut at gamescom
What do Firefall, 10,000 euros, and Gamescom have in common? Europe's first Firefall beta tournament! Red 5 Studios is partnering with Electronic Sports League (ESL) to bring attendees of gamescom 2012 the opportunity to participate in this tournament and battle it out for a grand prize of 10,000 euros. Registration and the tournament qualifiers will start on Thursday, the 16th of August, at the ESL Arena and continue through the 17th. On Saturday the 18th, the qualifying players will compete for the prize money on the ESL stage in front of spectators. Fans who are anticipating the free-to-play shooter but are unable to attend can watch the finals streamed live at www.esl.tv. [Source: Red 5 Studios press release]
eSports draw record viewership numbers at Gamescom
Last year, 254,000 individuals attended Gamescom. This year that figure grew to 275,000 and amongst those attendees, 223,000 stopped by the ESL (Electronic Sports League) arena to check out competitive gaming live in both StarCraft 2 and League of Legends, as well as several console titles. Perhaps more impressive was the ESL's live feed, which was visited by 500 percent more people than last year. Turtle Entertainment, the organizer of ESL at Gamescom, is clearly happy with the turnout of what was the first stop on the ESL Pro Series Winter season 2011, Germany's national video game league. "The response of the visitors in our hall was overwhelmingly positive," said Turtle Entertainment's managing director Ralf Reichert. "Gamescom has proven once again that eSports has thousands of enthusiastic followers, not only in the world but also in Germany."
We who are about to PvP salute you: Guild Wars 2 to partake in e-sports at Gamescom
If we aren't warring between guilds, it's not a Guild Wars title, right? Fortunately, ArenaNet thinks so too, and the studio has great plans for the PvP portion of its upcoming Guild Wars 2. Conventioneers heading to this month's Gamescom will not only get to check out the game in its shiny glory, but have the opportunity to participate in bloodthirsty PvP matches for the world to see. The Electronic Sports League (ESL) will be hosting PvP matches of Guild Wars 2 in its arena during the trade show, and everyone is invited to tune in to watch. Matches will take place between individuals and guilds, with a few developers mixing it up as well. These PvP bouts will then be broadcast on the ESL website, and developer showmatches will be followed by Q&A sessions about the PvP portion of the game. Guild Wars 2 has a busy schedule at Gamescom, with plenty of developer panels, demos, and prize giveaways planned.
World of Tanks becomes an e-sport
The phrase "serious business" is often used to poke fun at gamers who take their MMORPGs, well... too seriously. World of Tanks players are having the last laugh, though, as their game is now officially an e-sport with the potential to repay their time investment with a bit of real-world cash. Wargaming.net's latest press release has the details, which include the fact that WoT is now a part of the Electronic Sports League Major Series -- also known as the largest gaming league in Europe. ESL boasts over 3 million registered members and upwards of 740,000 registered teams, making it a good fit for the hardcore World of Tanks community which holds the single-server player concurrency world record. Head on over to the ESL World of Tanks portal to sign up for the first official event.
Korean team H O N takes the trophy at ESL's Global Arena Tournament
The Electronic Sports League's Intel Extreme Masters Global tournament has ended, and Korean team H O N have come out on top. And according to World of Ming, they completely impressed every player at the tournament -- while they were one of four teams taking the Rogue/Mage/Priest combination to the upper brackets, they apparently played that comp in a way that just rolled on through any competitors (including having their mage, Orangemarmalade, apparently keeping a match alive even after his teammates dropped). Everyone's expecting the RMP domination by the time the next Arena season rolls around, but for now, RMP is where it's at in professional arenas.Unfortunately for us Americans, the US teams didn't put on much of a showing -- they dropped out quick, and WoM reports that their behavior after the losses was less than classy. They apparently blamed a teammate for dropping out, and it doesn't help that, unlike the Korean teams who have played the same classes and characters for a long time, the Americans apparently came up with their teams and tactics only recently. Looks like they'll have to do a little reforming and rebuilding before this year's BlizzCon.Congrats to all the teams who walked away with victories in the ESL's Arena tournament. Even from Ming's commentary, it sounds like it was an exciting few days for Arena players.
Electronic Sports League's Intel Extreme Masters going on this weekend
We haven't been paying much attention to the big Electronic Sports League WoW Arena tournament going on over in Europe this week, but World of Ming has been doing a great job covering the event and what's been happening over there. He's got predictions of the matches to come (ESL's site has all of the fights set up for this weekend), and a translated interview with a player from SK Gaming's Korean team.All in all, the old RMP (Rogue-Mage-Priest) combination still seems to be the team to beat, as Ming has most of his predictions headed that way. But we'll see how it all pans out -- you can watch live results from the tournament come in on ESL's website all weekend, and we'll try to have a wrapup for you here when all is said and done.
ESL Arena tournament Finals kicks off in Germany
The Intel Extreme Masters World of Warcraft Arena tournament will be culminating at the CeBit in Hanover, Germany from March 3rd to 8th, featuring the European Continental Finals as well as the Global Finals, which will determine the overall winner of the 3v3 Arena tournament. The event closes the third season of a globe-hopping event that spanned Dubai to Chengdu to Los Angeles, and a total of $280,000 in prizes is ready for the taking.The event in Hannover is significant in that it will be the first Level 80 tournament on the pro level, with special rules changes to reduce the effects of RNG. One example is banning speccing into talents like Hunters' T.N.T., Mages' Impact, or Priests' Blackout. ESL has also elected to exclude the new Arena maps -- the gimmicky Dalaran Sewer and Orgrimmar Arena -- from the tournament. This should make the competition notably different from live realms.The Electronic Sports League will feature live streaming videos of the matches throughout the event, with live commentary from the ESL hosts. Archives of matches throughout the tournament can also be viewed on the site or on youtube, even including popular clips outside of matches such as Swarm's infamous nerdrage breakdown. The program can be viewed through the ESL TV, as well as the live stream of all the matches. All games will be broadcast in English.
15 Minutes of Fame: e-sportscaster tracks WoW tournies Part 2
WoW as an e-sport currently is actually pretty awful. Two, for example, are the Electronic Sports League (ESL) who have a world wide tournament, the finals being in March 2009, and Major League Gaming, a console-centric league who expanded to PC earlier this year with WoW. There are not a lot of amateur tournaments out there for WoW.
15 Minutes of Fame: e-sportscaster tracks WoW tournies
15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about. First off, let's establish this for the record: yes, there are people out there who play World of Warcraft professionally. There are pro teams, well known player personalities and an entire tournament scene. And behind it all, there are podcasters – "e-casters" – reporting on every twist and turn.Meet JP McDaniel, a 22-year-old college journalism major and podcaster for ArenaCast. JP has combined the game he loves with school and work in what he hopes will be a springboard to a print journalism career in gaming. He's managed to roll his main up to 80 in the midst of podcasting, news updates, tournament travel and his studies. We talked with JP about his road into e-casting and his perspectives on where e-sports -- and competitive WoW, in particular -- are heading.
ESL replaced Warcraft 3 with WoW
In its previous two seasons , the Intel Extreme Masters (from the Electronic Sports League) focused on two main eSports disciplines --- Counter-Strike 1.6 and Warcraft 3. Now, however, that's changing. They've announced that World of Warcraft will take over the spot from Warcraft 3, based in part on the success of previous WoW tournaments. While ESL doesn't explicitly say it's an Arena tournament, I think we can safely assume that to be the case. This is just part of the ongoing eSport effort, and I think we'll hear about a lot more tournaments in the coming months. I don't know if Blizzard meant to bump its own game from some rosters, but I suppose there's only so much room at each tournament. There's also $750,000 (US) in prize money for the victors. They've not announced how much will specifically go to World of Warcraft, but it'll definitely make it worth winning. [Via Arena Junkies]
Blizzard working with ESL on offline tourneys
Lots of people (including MMO Champion) reported over the weekend that according to this interview with David "Shawn" K of the Electronic Sports League, Blizzard is lending their support to get offline tournaments up and running. Blizzard apparently gave ESL a special event realm to run their tournaments in (Upper Deck has also used an event realm to run online tournaments and instances at their TCG events), accounts on those servers with tons of gold and PvP gear per player, and has also implemented special UI modifications for observers.Interesting. So it seems that the ESL might be stepping up to fill in the space that the WSVG abandoned when they fell apart. In our interview with then-WSVG president Matt Ringel, he also mentioned that they were getting support from Blizzard in the form of special realms and UI mods. So it looks like ESL is now benefiting from the work Blizzard did there.Of course, the other question we have about these types of updates is when, if ever, they'll be placed in player hands as well. Players have wanted an observation system for PvP, especially in the Arenas, for a long time, and it's not a stretch to think that if Blizzard is developing tools for professional tournaments, they might also have a plan to get those tools into player hands in some form. But even if we don't see them in the game for a long time, it's good to know that tournament development on Blizzard's end didn't die off completely with the WSVG.
Fury added to the Electronic Sports League in Europe
It may not have had the most critically well-received launch, but Fury has now been added to Europe's Electronic Sports League. Fans of the game (we know they are out there) will be able to compete in the ESL's new Fury ladders, which are separated by group size.There are currently ladders for 1v1, 2v2 and 4v4 matches, and plans to add 8v8 if there is enough interest. It currently looks like the 1v1 ladder has the most registered players. All ladders will share the same maplist of six battlegrounds, which includes Colosseum, Courtyard, Mausoleum of Thodrus, Cloudrider Temple, Winnowing Pass and Mistwood.
