Swedish digital festival DreamHack Winter 2012 is to host a large-scale 5-on-5 tournament for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
16 of the “very best” teams worldwide will fly in to shoot each other in the mug; some invited, others to be decided through online and LAN qualifying rounds. All of this for a prize pool of 300,000 SEK – £28,500 or so.
“Counter-Strike has always been, and still is, one of the most popular games in the Nordic region and bringing a world tournament to the table at this early stage feels like a natural step for DreamHack” said Robert Ohlen, CEO of DreamHack. “eSports is moving forward and we believe that CS: Global Offensive will be a vital part of that progress”.
DreamHack have partnered with Twitch TV for the event, so much of it will be streamed for our vicarious enjoyment, and the organisers have big plans:
“Our goal is to improve live production of Counter-Strike by an order of magnitude as the development of CS productions has been on a decline during the recent years” said Tomas Hermansson, Head of eSports. “We’ll bring in some of world’s best commentators and experts but also try to redefine live streaming in FPS-games especially with pre- and post-game analysis in a TV-studio between the tournament matches”.
This sort of pre-emptive adoption of Counter-Strike’s newest iteration can only help to keep an ageing scene at the forefront of eSports, as Nathan “NBK” Schmitt would no doubt agree.