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Xfire unveil Battleground, their new gaming tournament hub

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Xfire’s long been one of the go to game chat systems, before Steam it was one of the better ways to talk to friends playing across different games, butl now they’ve launched a new system, Battleground. It lets you launch games with friends, jumping into Xfire-owned servers, and play to collect tokens which put you in line to win prizes.

On top of that it may become a hotbed for eSports tournaments and sponsored contests.

More below.

The new service went live today for all existing Xfire users, though signing up for an account is as simple as following this link.

Battleground is integrated into its supported games, bringing with it Xfire-operated servers, cheat protection, and stat-tracking.

That said, currently the only two games supported are the original Modern Warfare and Counter-Strike Source. Speaking to me earlier this evening, Xfire’s CEO Paul Kim said they’ve launched the service with these two gamesbecause “both those titles have been in the top three titles on Xfire […] if you rank them by the number of users playing then Call of Duty 4 is the number one played game”.

Kim was able to confirm that both Battlefield 3 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive will be integrated “by the summer” and that they’re hoping to integrate games like League of Legends in the future.

The main plus of Battlegrounds is that it is planned to play host to regular tournaments and competitions sponsored by games publishers. The way it will work is all tied into Battleground’s in-game stat-tracker. As you play on Xfire servers your kills are converted into tokens, with special hits like headshots and knife kills awarded with more tokens. At the end of each month the players with the highest tokens then stand to win prizes.

Kim says that this will give “folks who are into competition but may not be as good as some of these hardcore gamers” a chance to “dabble” with pro-gaming and see if it is for them. “They can jump into instant action mode, go in there for five minutes and see if they’re completely out-classed. There’s no penalty for entering and then leaving,”it’s not like pro-gaming events where there is an entrance fee.

As I said up top, Battleground has already launched and you can hop right in and start earning tokens today. Just head over here.