eSports Update – 10 Things You May Have Missed!
1. MTG acquires ESEA after already purchasing majority share in ESL earlier this year
“Sources from within ESL confirmed that ESEA had indeed been acquired by MTG, stating that it was a “complete buyout” that would lead to a change in the upper echelons
of management and ownership. One source also confirmed that it means that controversial ESEA owner, Eric Thunberg, who has presided over and fueled some of the biggest controversies in the company’s history, will be leaving. They added, ‘He won’t be missed.’” Is Dreamhack next?
Read the full story here
2. Fantasy Leagues to be investigated
Last week we spoke about how Fantasy Leagues could be heading into trouble, well this week we find them under investigation. “Former Rep. Jim Leach said lawmakers had no idea daily fantasy sports would “morph into today’s cauldron of daily betting.” He said his anti-gambling act was supposed to stop gambling on the Internet, not promote it.”
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3. Russian Investor invests $100m into Virtus.Pro
Alisher Usmanov, who is one of Russia’s richest oligarchs and the 71st richest man in the world according to Forbes Magazine, has just invested more than $100 million dollars through his company called USM Holdings into Virtus.Pro, which is known to be a leading Esports team from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
Read the full story here
4. Sport Radar Partners with ESL
“SportRadar is a sports data service provider. The company provides cutting-edge solutions and services to media companies, bookmarkers, sports federations and state authorities to more than 30 worldwide locations. Driven by technological innovation, SportRadar will develop products and services for ESL. Together the companies will take an active stance to ensure integrity within the betting world of eSports”
Read the full story here
5. YouTube Streaming
Ever since YouTube Gaming launched earlier this year, it has been making great strides for video game livestreaming content like “Let’s Play” videos. Now we get a glimpse of how successful the service has been.
YouTube recently updated its blog page to discuss streaming numbers, and they’re quite impressive. The site estimates that gamers view more than 144 billion minutes of video per month, between posted videos and live streams on YouTube.
Read the full story here
6. Oct 27th – Nov 1st will be a big weekend for eSports. With Major tournaments across the most popular games:
League of Legends Worlds Finals – 10/31
CS:GO Major @ DreamHack Cluj-Napoca – 10/30-11/1
Road to BlizzCon Qualifiers for SC2, Heroes, Hearthstone, WoW – 10/28-10/30, 11/-11/2
Nanyang Dota 2 Championships – 10/26-10/30, 11/1
This is definitely one for the diary.
7. Richard Lewis explains the G2A – RIOT standoff
7. The rise of women in eSports
“Competitive gaming is driven by talented young men whose skills at video games are second to none. They are incredible with a keyboard and mouse, and they have XY chromosomes — or at least, the vast majority of them do.
The voice of women is a whisper in the conversation, but the gender gap among whiz-kid gamers is slowly starting to even out.
These days, there are simply more and more women players competing.”
Read the full story here
9. Overwatch will be with us soon
“On Wednesday Blizzard revealed that Overwatch, its upcoming team-based shooter, will enter its closed beta on Oct. 27. Those lucky enough to receive invites at that time, a “small number of testers,” will be able to play the game. Note that date only applies to the Americas region. Those in Europe and Asia must wait.”
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10. Gfinity pulls in 58.5 million views
Gfinity (LON:GFIN), the eSports group, revealed that the successful event had exceeded the original target of 50mln online views.
“Gfinity has quickly become regarded as one of the leading providers of eSports content,” said chief executive Neville Upton.
“We are very pleased to have exceeded our target of 50 million views for the series, demonstrating our ability to attract the best players and talent and stage top quality eSports events.”
Read the full story here
