One of the many nice things about Heart of the Swarm has been how it’s made the Zerg a much more flexible and interesting faction to watch. That really hit home for me yesterday watching the first group of the WCS America round of 16, where Norwegian Zerg Jens “Snute" Aasgaard showed off the variety of play with Heart of the Swarm Zerg, and his own resilience as a player.
You can watch last night’s play over on Twitch: his series against NesTea starts at 9:30, and his series against Alicia (highly recommended) starts at 2:15:30. The MLG-operated WCS America continues tonight (and every night this week save Friday) at 11 PM UK / 6PM Eastern. Tonight, however, the WCS America broadcast is preceded by the first-ever SHOUTcraft America Grand Finals, between Sam “Kane" Morrissette and Ryan “State" Visbeck. It starts at 8 PM UK / 3 PM Eastern and streams via TotalBiscuit’s Twitch channel.
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Papa John’s are offering eSports fans 50% off if they order using the promo code “PIZZAGG", and major eSports organizations like Evil Geniuses, Team Liquid, Onemoregame.tv, and ROOT Gaming are all participating in the chain’s eSports initiative. It’s clearly a significant moment for eSports, since Papa John’s is a massive pizza chain and exactly the kind of mainstream brand that many eSports stakeholders want to attract. Over on TeamLiquid, a statement from EG, Liquid, and ROOT suggests, “If you feel like eating a pizza (or two or three or ten) this week, please consider using Papa John’s and help us show them what we can do!"
The reaction from other members of the eSports community, however, has not been quite as universally enthusiastic. What’s interesting is that the objections aren’t about “selling out" or the highly debatable quality of Papa John’s pizza, but about values. It’s a debate that may have ramifications for how eSports culture differs from that of traditional mass-entertainment.
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Poor DreamHack, we all cried. Left out of the StarCraft 2 World Championship Series, shunned from the cool kids’ table where Blizzard and its new pals MLG, ESL, and OGN / GOMTV were planning to revolutionize StarCraft 2.
Now, after weeks of confusing mixed-signals, a troubled North American qualifying tournament, and some problematic tournament rules that may quash the kind of vibrant regional play the WCS was supposed to encourage, DreamHack is looking like a pretty great alternative. While Blizzard and its partners put the WCS back on the rails, StarCraft fans can spend this weekend enjoying the start of the 2013 DreamHack open series in Stockholm. Play starts at 10 AM UK / 5 AM Eastern on the DreamHack Twitch stream.
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The first stage of the League of Legends Championship Series has concluded, and this weekend 12 of the LCS’ s 16 teams will compete in the Spring Playoffs for a share of a $100,000 prize pool ($50,000 for first place) and, for eight of these teams, a last-chance to avoid relegation.
The European division playoffs begin Friday the 26th at 2 PM UK / 9 AM Eastern, while the North Americans begin play at 11 PM UK / 6 PM Eastern. As usual, you can watch the streams live at the LCS website.
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"eSports is an area that we are very interested in," said DICE general manager Karl Magnus Troedsson, during an interview with YouTuber Leutin09. While he did not enter into specifics, Troedsson acknowledged the rise of eSports and said that the studio saw Battlefield as a "competitive" series. At the same time, he also stated that there would be no co-op mode in Battlefield 4.
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This evening at a press conference in Korea, Blizzard announced the new format of the 2013 World Championship Series, substantially revising how competitive StarCraft 2 works around the world. The restructuring places the US’s Major League Gaming, Europe’s Electronic Sports League, and Korea’s GSL and Starleague inside Blizzard’s overarching WCS. It is a major step toward Blizzard’s longstanding eSports goal of creating a sensible international tournament series that can credibly identify the world’s greatest player.
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YouTube's a gigantic swishling pot of gameplay videos, as you might have noticed, but it's about to become even more gigantic and slightly more swishling with the addition of a new live-streaming API for developers. Announced at GDC and reported by The Verge, the new streaming tech will allow devs to broadcast video directly from within their games and on to YouTube, which sounds awfully like something you'd assumed they could already do.
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Heart of the Swarm launch week concludes, fittingly enough, with the first MLG Heart of the Swarm championship in Dallas. League of Legends will also be broadcasting this week’s North American division LCS games from Dallas, as well as the North American Summer Promotion Qualifier and an international exhibition tournament. The streams begin at 6 PM Eastern and the games start a half hour later, at 6:30 Eastern / 10:30 UK.
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![Blizzard’s 21-hour Heart of the Swarm launch broadcast begins now; Day[9]’s King of the Beta tournament to come later](http://www.pcgamesn.com/sites/default/files/heart%20of%20the%20swarm%20launch%20events.jpg "Blizzard’s 21-hour Heart of the Swarm launch broadcast begins now; Day[9]’s King of the Beta tournament to come later")
Top StarCraft 2 players have been embedded in Blizzard’s Irvine headquarters today in anticipation of Heart of the Swarm’s staggered global release across the next two days. Under the seasoned eye and inspired commentary of Sean ‘Day[9]’ Plott, they’ll clash in King of the Beta tournament matches, to be broadcast alongside international launch events and community-created videos in a 21-hour stream on Twitch.
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Last Friday, while rumors swirled that IPL 6 was definitely cancelled and the LCS “super week" continued its marathon, a small audience gathered on the second floor of the Boston Convention and Exposition Center to hear the heads of Blizzard, MLG, Twitch, and the Houston Rockets basketball team talk about how eSports have grown in the last two years.
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The fourth week of the League of Legends Championship Series, the “Super Week" was a real test of whether or not League fans could get too much of a good thing. With 20 matches apiece in the North American and European divisions, following all the action in the LCS was a test of endurance and commitment. I was still catching up on matches throughout Monday, seeing what I’d missed while distracted by things like sleep and sustenance.
Super Week was a success: probably the single clearest sign that Riot have, indeed, struck upon a winning formula for eSports competition and broadcasting. Here are five lessons and highlights of Week 4, and what they spell for the rest of the season.Read and Comment
Today the Intel Extreme Masters Season VII World Championship begins in Hanover, as some of the world’s top StarCraft 2 pros get a trial by fire in Heart of the Swarm in a $100,000 tournament. Pool play begins at 3:30 AM Eastern / 8:30 GMT and is can be streamed via ESL TV. The full schedule is available here.Read and Comment
Teams have known for a while that IPL 6, originally scheduled to commence on March 28th, has been cancelled following Ziff-Davis’ acquisition of the eSports league. Now official word comes from David Ting, IGN’s General Manager of eSports, that the event has been called off.Read and Comment
The Evil Geniuses League of Legends squad is currently ranked second in the European division of the LCS, close behind Fnatic following their victory over EG last Saturday. They are easily one of the top teams in the LCS’ European or American divisions, and next week they’ll be tested against many of the world’s best at the IEM World Championship in Hanover. We recently had a chance to talk to EG’s team captain, Stephen “Snoopeh" Ellis about the team’s plans for improving this year, why it’s become so much stronger since the Season 2 playoffs, and the tension between being a successful competitive team and being a successful business.Read and Comment
Evil Geniuses CEO Alex Garfield wasn’t posturing when he talked about his disinterest in taking the Evil Geniuses eSports team into League of Legends. He was so unengaged with League that when he received an email from Stephen “Snoopeh" Ellis last summer, he didn’t really know who Ellis was, or why Evil Geniuses should be interested in his League of Legends team.
A few minutes with Google not only told Garfield that Ellis was the squad captain for one of the best and most prominent western League of Legends teams, but that suddenly he had a “very attractive opportunity" to bring EG into League on terms he could be happy with.
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This is a monstrous week for the League of Legends Championship Series: both the North American and European divisions are playing 20 games this week, and the action starts today for North America with 12 hours of League. The first game, CLG versus the surging Vulcun team, starts at 11 AM Pacific (2 PM on the East Coast and 5 PM in the UK). You can watch on Riot's Twitch stream.Read and Comment
The third week of the LCS has concluded, and the competition is beginning to tighten a bit as Evil Geniuses lost first place to Fnatic in the European division, and Vulcun made big advances in the North American division with a clean sweep of its Week 3 opponents. Remember that next week is likely to be pivotal as both divisions play 20 games. Full results continue below:Read and Comment
To celebrate the launch of Heart of the Swarm, and to give Wings of Liberty a send-off, retailer GAME and peripheral manufacturer Razer are co-sponsoring an enormous, 512-place, 1v1 StarCraft 2 knockout tournament for UK gamers. Farewell to Wings of Liberty will start on February 25th and the finals of the two-week tournament will be played in London on March 11th, the eve of Heart of the Swarm's release.
Expect live streaming of key matches for all the world to watch, with commentators Adam “Madals" Simmons and Robert “Pughy" Pugh. Click through to find out how you can sign up, join in and Zerg rush your way to victory.
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We are three weeks into the League of Legends Championship Series’, a six month long League of Legends competition hosted, organized, and produced by Riot Games. While the LCS is still undergoing development as Riot’s production gets more sophisticated and adds new features, the scale of the endeavor and the control Riot exert over it are breathtaking. It’s unparalleled in PC gaming and eSports history: the developer of what is possibly the most widely-played PC game in the world is managing every aspect of the eSports they created. It requires massive investment in every stage of the process: high-end production, great casters, team salaries, and a multi-million dollar prize pool.
The result: and eSport that makes sense. If you’ve ever wanted a perfect entry point into the eSports scene, the League Championship series is it.
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I’m celebrating my first week back at full-strength by unwinding with some drinks, dinner, and League of Legends Championship series. We already saw Curse remain undefeated with a defeat of Vulcun, and now Dignitas is taking on Good Game University.Read and Comment
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