A Dota 2 tournament is to be held on the high seas of the Pacific as Chinese teams compete on a cruise ship for a $50,000 prize pool broadcast by a rented satellite.
See the best Dota 2 heroes you could be watching walking the plank.
Admiral Kunkka will feel right at home aboard the Sapphire Princess, with a total guest capacity of 2,678, sailing from Shanghai to Jeju, South Korea via Fukuoka, Japan on October 13 while four Chinese teams fight for the Nanyang Cruise Cup.
The International 2016 champions Wings Gaming have already accepted their direct invite, as have Newbee, with the final two slots to be decided by qualifiers this week.
Tournament director Wang Zilin said the idea was to combine tourism and competition seamlessly for both players and spectators on board.
“Cruises are not very popular among young people, no internet on the high seas, slow pace of life etc. We decided if we could solve the internet problem, and add some activities that young people like, the cruise journey will be interesting,” Zilin told joinDota.“As far as I know there have been some attempts to use a satellite for an online stream, but no one has ever tried to host an Esports tournament and Esports Festival on a Cruise ship before.”
The production company, KeyTV, is perhaps best known as the original production company of the maligned Shanghai Major earlier this year before Gabe Newell fired them for technical incompetence.
Lets hope hiring a satellite to stream a broadcast-quality tournament from a boat in the middle of the East China Sea is easier than it sounds, then.