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ESPN+ will offer 4,300 hours of PGA Tour Live golf streaming
ESPN+ has announced that it will offer 4,300 hours of golf coverage across 35 tournaments as part of its PGA Tour Live streaming deal.
Golf fans can see PGA Tour players’ heart rates thanks to new wearable partnership
The PGA Tour will use Whoop fitness straps to show the heart rates and other biometric data of players “during defining moments throughout the season,” it announced.
Esports tournament organizers ESL and DreamHack have merged
ESL Gaming aims to 'shape the future of esports and gaming.'
'Fortnite' Tournaments pit controller against keyboard and mouse
Fortnite's 6.10 update arrived today, and with it, a new Tournaments feature gives everyone what developer Epic says is the chance to "compete directly alongside the pros for prizes and glory." Each tournament session lasts several hours, and everyone starts with a completely clean slate. The objective is to earn as many points as possible, either by achieving high placements or eliminating multiple opponents. Each tournament has a target score to aim for -- hit it and you'll receive a shiny pin which in the future could advance you to the next level of the tournament, or qualify you to win prizes.
Official 'Fortnite' tournaments will offer $100 million in prizes
When Epic Games revealed its first, albeit limited-time, Fortnite ranked play mode last week, it promised more details on competitive play would arrive soon. We now know a little more on Fortnite's future in the professional ranks -- Epic is pumping $100 million into tournament prize pools in the game's first year as an eSport.
London councillor wants to ban 'FIFA' games after corruption scandal
Enough is enough. For one London councillor, the recent FIFA corruption scandal just crossed a line. He's calling for radical action: a ban on FIFA video games in Camden. Awale Olad told the Camden New Journal: "We should start off by hurting their business by discouraging people from buying their popular video games and put a stop to FIFA video game tournaments popping up across the borough." Exactly how a ban on local, independently-run FIFA competitions would affect football's world governing body remains unclear, however. Even banning the game outright, if such a move was possible, would probably affect publisher EA more than FIFA. Nevertheless, Olad seems determined and will be bringing the matter up at a full council meeting on Monday. Perhaps the Camden councillor is onto something though; a global boycott of FIFA 16 could grab the organisation's attention, and would it be so bad to give PES a chance this year?
SMITE world champions receive million dollar prize, new character revealed
Tempted to proclaim yourself the best SMITE player in the world? Unless you are one of these five people, there is now demonstrable evidence that you are not on top. The first World Championship for SMITE is over, and the team known as Cognitive Prime has taken home the title and half of the $2.6 million prize pool. Worldwide viewers for the stream over the weekend came out to 78,000 people, which doesn't quite compare to the turnouts at better-known competitive gaming championships like League of Legends. But SMITE's prize pool was larger than the pools for any LoL tournament; in fact, it's the third largest e-sports prize pool ever, behind Dota 2's The International tourney's 2013 and 2014 pools. Coinciding with tournament was the reveal of SMITE's newest god, Hou Yi, Defender of the Earth. He justifies this lofty title with a variety of ranged attacks, movement tricks, and a high resistance to critical hits. Check him out in action just past the break. [Thanks to Sorenthaz for the tip!]
World of Warcraft posts details on the Arena Invitational World Championships
This year's BlizzCon will feature a no-holds-barred fight to the finish. Sadly, that doesn't mean that an official MMA tournament event will be taking place; it just means that the World of Warcraft Arena Invitational World Championships will be going down, pitting teams against one another for glory, honor, and the satisfaction of taking home up to $120,000 dollars. Who wouldn't like that? The eight teams selected for play will be fighting in a best-of-seven format, starting with the Nagrand Arena and moving on to other maps at the selection of the losing team. The matches will last until elimination or until 15 minutes have passed, whichever happens first. Those unable to attend BlizzCon on November 7th and 8th will be able to stream the matches online, although no details on doing so are yet available. If you are attending, though, get ready to watch the best of the best mix it up in the arenas.
The Summoner's Guidebook: Learning how to not lose from the League of Legends pros
The League of Legends World Championship semifinals are over, and unfortunately the two teams I was hoping would advance ended up losing. The matches were good, especially the SKT1 versus NJBS matches. Definitely watch them! However, this week I'm going to get back to basics, and by that I mean guides on improving your game. I've been talking about Worlds for weeks and I'll be at the finals in LA around the time you're reading this, which would make for four weeks of straight coverage about the LoL World Championships. That feels lazy to me. I have been watching a lot of pro matches lately, both the tournament matches and just random streams and casual matches. One thing that came to mind for me was improving our losing games. We all have them, and of all the games that we should improve upon, those are the games that are the most important. Pro players take bad lanes or feeding teammates and make wins instead. How do they do it?
The Summoner's Guidebook: LoL World Championships finally enter the quarter finals
I will be completely honest. I was really getting sick of the group stage of the League of Legends Season 3 World Championships. It was dragging on for too long, especially when the advancing teams had been virtually locked in well in advance. Only Gambit and Ozone were in a position to actually fight for a top spot. OMG, SKT1 and Fnatic had locked in their spots and we were subjected to matches where pros ran goofy compositions and stopped trying to win. Now we're in the actual tournament portion of the event, and the eight teams in the top spots all really deserved their places. With the exception of one matchup, all of the quarter final matches were extremely close, nail-biting games. It is easier for for me to point out which matches are not worth watching than it is to point out the really incredible matches because the majority of the games were utterly fantastic. I was on the edge of my seat constantly.
PAX Prime 2013: Riot Games' Whalen Rozelle on LoL Season 3
I was really excited to step into Riot's press room on Friday at PAX Prime. We had just finished the first series of matches of the day, and it was pretty exciting to talk to people about the matches yet to come. But I don't think anyone was more excited to talk about League of Legends' e-sports scene than Whalen Rozelle, or RiotMagus as he's known on the internet. As the senior e-sports manager at Riot, he's tasked with making sure that events run smoothly, and I took the opportunity to ask him about the format for Season 3 -- especially improvements over Season 2 and the lessons Riot will be taking into Season 4.
PAX Prime 2013: SMITE's graphical updates, 10v10 mode, and e-sports
I found myself in unfamiliar waters as I waded into the Twitch booth at this year's PAX Prime. All around me were gamers -- but not just any gamers. These guys were wearing jerseys with sponsorship logos and carrying custom gaming mice and headsets. These guys were pro gamers, and they were there to play SMITE. I had a different agenda, so I tracked down Hi-Rez chief operating officer Todd Harris to talk about upcoming changes to the game. He admitted to me that his team isn't doing a lot of big changes, but that is largely due to the game's continuing success. He did have a few things to show me, though.
World of Tanks celebrates July 4th via a big tank tournament
Tomorrow is the fourth of July, and if you're not aware, in the United States that date is kind of a big deal. So the staff behind World of Tanks decided that the best way to celebrate America's independence day is by having a bunch of armored vehicles take potshots at one another for big prizes. A tournament is running through the weekend for Tier III through Tier X tanks, with a big package of microtransaction cash going to the winning teams. All teams will be paired up into groups, fight other teams in the same group, and be scored according to victory or loss. Battles will be limited to 10 minutes maximum. The big winners will be the teams with the highest score after the dust settles. If this sounds like it's your sort of celebration, there's still time to gather your team and register; if you'd rather just play the game, there are also plenty of promotions running over the holiday weekend just the same. [Source: Wargaming.net press release]
ArenaNet ceases Guild Wars 1 live development, automates game
Guild Wars 1 has seen the end of an era of live development today, as ArenaNet stated that it is switching the game over to automation. The studio said that players should not expect any further content other than the systems being put into place to keep the game running on auto-pilot for the foreseeable future. "Over time, our focus has shifted to updates that not only help maintain Guild Wars but help the game maintain itself," ArenaNet posted. "With this focus in mind, we'll no longer be releasing any new content for the live game except in support of automation. Our goal is to get the game to a place where it can continue to run and be available to all of our fans. We have a lot of love for Guild Wars -- it's the game that made us what we are today -- and we want to continue sharing it with everyone!" Tournaments, events, and birthday prizes will be moved over to automation during this transition. The studio said that automating the game will keep it running longer and that it will keep a live team on Guild Wars to handle critical fixes and troubleshooting.
Guild Wars 2 frees up tournaments for all
It's time to stop paying money for the right to prove that you're better than your enemies. Starting with tomorrow's update, Guild Wars 2 is abolishing Paid Tournaments altogether, replacing them with Free Tournaments. Free Tournaments will be available in 1-round and 3-round formats for players, with the winning team in a 1-round tournament receiving a reward chest. Any unused Tournament Tickets can be redeemed for special reward boxes from a Ticket Merchant NPC. Why the change? Originally the whole split between Paid and Free Tournaments was meant to allow the best players to compete against one another while allowing more casual players fair matches, but with the addition of a full ranking system, the split was no longer needed. Matchmaking and ranking will be separate between the 1-round and 3-round tournament formats, ensuring that anyone can play one format or the other as desired. So take heart and take up arms against your enemies because as of tomorrow, you can do so for free.
Guardians of Middle-Earth brings competitive MOBA gaming to consoles
It seems as if the world has gone MOBA-mad in recent years, with Dota 2 launching the first ever million-dollar competitive tournament and League of Legends becoming the most played game in the world. While there are plenty of PC games following in the competitive footsteps of classic DotA, the console market has remained largely untested. Today that changed with the launch of Guardians of Middle-Earth, the first 3-D console MOBA to be designed for classic DotA-style competitive matches. Guardians of Middle-Earth gives players control of iconic characters from the Lord of the Rings lore, like Gandalf and Gollum. Each character has an array of special abilities, and teams of five players battle against each other in short competitive matches. A streamlined item system and directional attacks adapt the game for the controls and faster pace of gameplay console gamers expect, but it remains to be seen whether the console audience will form a hardcore competitive tournament scene. The game went live on the Playstation Network today and goes live on XBox Live Arcade tomorrow.
District 187 pulls the trigger and launches
PlanetSide 2 isn't the only MMOFPS to launch today, as CJ Games' District 187 decided to pop out of the digital womb on the same date. The free-to-play shooter included a large day one patch with the launch, including its cash shop, new maps and weapons, and additional game modes. Producer Jon-Enée Merriex hopes that trigger-happy players will give this title a chance: "This update is a testament to our global team's dedication to making District 187: Sin Streets the most robust, original and fun shooter on the market. Whether players have just started playing PC games or are old farts like me, there is something for everyone to love in this game!" District 187 takes place in a dystopian future when SWAT players take on gang members on the street. CJ Games says that it's planning to focus heavily on the game's budding e-sports nature with tournaments coming next year. [Source: CJ Games press release]
ArenaNet explains upcoming Guild Wars 2 PvP features
Guild Wars 2 has a pretty active and dedicated sPvP community. ArenaNet's Jonathan Sharp took to the blog today to talk to that community (and the rest of you peasants, too) about some upcoming goodies for PvP. Right now, players are able to compete in structured automated tournaments. These free tournaments pit eight teams of five against each other, with reward chests, glory, and rank going to the top four teams. Soon, players will also be able to participate in paid automated tournaments. Tickets for entry can be found in reward chests from free tournaments, bought in the gem store, or received whenever a player hits a new sPvP rank. Every team in the paid tournaments will receive a reward, but the four teams with the best performance will get better loot -- including gems. What better way to hone your skills for paid tournaments than by renting custom arenas in which to practice? Custom arenas can be rented by players with options for password protection, scrimmage hosting, and setting a custom map rotation. Sharp promised more information about custom arenas in a future blog post, and said that after paid tournaments and custom arenas come online, the team will turn its focus to other key features for making Guild Wars 2 sPvP even better.
Capcom launches TwitchTV channel for official Street Fighter tournaments
Fighting game tournaments are exciting and fun and everything, especially when we're talking about big-ticket international stuff like Capcom's 25th anniversary Street Fighter tournament series, but finding the livestreams for each event can be a bit of a crap shoot.While tracking down that obscure sunday night ranbat may still be a pain, watching Capcom events has at least gotten a bit easier thanks to Capcom Fighters; an official Capcom TwitchTV channel that is now the dedicated home of all official Capcom tournaments.The channel's next live event will be the Street Fighter 25th anniversary series qualifier in San Paulo, Brazil on October 12 - 14, though the station is streaming reruns of previous 25th anniversary qualifiers all weekend to celebrate its launch.
Uncharted 3's v1.13 update adds tournaments, micro-transactions, more Drake dress-up
You know that new content Naughty Dog teased? Well, aside from the usual balance fixes that come with a game patch, the 1.13 update for Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception installs a pipeline for weekly DLC updates to the multiplayer side. Each week will bring a new flood of items and other goodies, either unlockable in-game by leveling up and completing certain actions, or purchased directly through the game with micro-transactions.There's also a new Sniper/Pistole game type for online matches, and a Tournament feature where players will be gifted 10 tickets each week that can be used to participate in special tournaments – don't worry, if you run out of tickets, you can always purchase more with real-life cash.Naughty Dog released a pair of video overviews showcasing this new content – one above the text here, the other just past the break.
