ipl
Latest
IGN Pro League technology purchased by Blizzard
Do you like eSports? Blizzard Entertainment clearly does, as the company has just purchased the technology and assets of IGN Pro League. Several employees came along with the acquisition, including former IPL general manager David Ting. The hard assets will be used to promote various events centering around Blizzard's online games, while the staff members are joining Blizzard's internal eSports teams according to initial reports. Needless to say, this marks the end of IPL's competitive gaming coverage, which has in the past included games such as League of Legends and StarCraft II. The brand does not go with these employees or assets, meaning that last weekend's $100,000 Shootmania launch event was the final broadcast for the IPL. It remains to be seen what will be launched from the expanded Blizzard team, but representatives from the company were quite clear in stating that this is a move meant to promote the company's online and eSports presence.
Blizzard acquires IGN's Pro League tech, staff
Blizzard has purchased the IGN Pro League (IPL) technology and assets from IGN. The developer has also hired members of the IPL staff to create high-quality content in support of Blizzard's eSports. IGN will now go "agnostic" in its competitive gaming coverage, seeking to partner "with multiple organizations" to cover the events."This is a team of passionate gamers with a proven track record, and we're looking forward to now leveraging their expertise and technology to support a variety of online efforts," said Itzik Ben-Bassat, Blizzard's EVP of publishing.The IGN ProLeague 6 event, scheduled for late March, was officially canceled early last month. IGN is currently going through a review of resources following its acquisition by Ziff Davis.
The Summoner's Guidebook: IPL's League of Legends a paragon of tournaments
I feel a bit tuckered out from League of Legends tournaments. I love the game, and I love the pro scene, but sometimes I'm just not in the mood to watch hours and hours of gameplay and then try to digest it all. As a columnist, I have to watch tournaments with a different eye than a normal spectator, which can be exhausting, so I wasn't really looking forward to IPL 5. My favorite team (Dignitas) wasn't playing, and all my tournament hype was spent watching the Season 2 finals. However, IPL did a lot to keep my interest. Normally, I'm not really into IGN's LoL coverage, as it's heavy on entertainment and presentation value and low on information. This time, not only were the matches interesting, but the format was excellent, the commentary was good, and the space between matches was filled with tons of informative content. I really couldn't have asked for a better LoL tournament to end the year. Every other tournament this year paled in comparison.
Dead or Alive 5 Plus announced for Vita, coming early 2013
Dead or Alive 5 Plus, a PlayStation Vita port of September's Dead or Alive 5, has just been announced by Team Ninja head Yosuke Hayashi. Details are slim at the moment, although we do know that the port is expected to hit Sony's handheld sometime during the early part of 2013. An update to the console version of DOA5 is also expected sometime next year.The reveal, made on the official IGN Pro League YouTube channel, comes shortly after the announcement that Dead or Alive 5 will be added to IPL's official stable of e-sports titles. Starting in 2013, DOA5 tournaments will be held alongside IPL's other events, which currently include Starcraft 2 and League of Legends, among others.
League of Legends IPL swings into Sin City
Las Vegas is welcoming League of Legends players with open arms as the best of the best compete in the next step of the Challenger Circuit: IPL 4. With $5 million on the line for the season, you can bet that League of Legends players are doing anything and everything they can to get a piece of that action. IPL 4 is taking place from today through Sunday at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Sin City. Over the weekend, eight teams will compete for rankings and a $50,000 pot. The challengers are Team Dignitas, EpikGamer, Counter Logic Gaming, Team Solomid, v8 eSports, Against All Authority, Monomatic eSports, and Curse Gaming. Riot Games says there are still IPL 4 tickets available for those who want to attend in person. For those who can't, there's always the official IPL YouTube channel for long-distance spectating.
YouTube nabs live sports streaming rights
Alright, before you jump on your sofa Tom Cruise-style, these rights don't relate to the NBA, NFL or anything else quite so exciting to the Western viewer. Google's master plan for getting into the cutthroat sports broadcasting world is to start with... Indian Premier League cricket. Oh sure, you don't know what that even is yet, but plenty of people in the Eastern hemisphere live and die by the stuff and YouTube's slated to start broadcasting live matches from March of this year. What should be tantalizing for all of us is that Google seems to be taking this as a pilot venture which, if successful, could be the harbinger of plenty more live streaming content to come. Cricket at the vanguard of modern content distribution -- who could've expected that?
