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BlizzCon, the annual fan celebration of all things Blizzard-related gets a little less annual this year. The company has decided to hold the next convention in 2013 to focus on finishing Diablo III, StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, and World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria and the 2012 Battle.net World Championship. More »
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Television is an odd medium. It is traditionally designed to appeal to the widest range of people, the greatest common denominator. More »
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Some people like eSports. Others think the idea of broadcasting competitions of people going at it in Starcraft 2, Black Ops or Halo: Reach won't ever get mainstream media attention. But it turns out that it may not be necessary, if the new numbers released by the Major League Gaming promotion are any indication. More »
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Over the weekend, Dreamhack Winter 2011—the largest LAN party in the world—went down in Sweden. Here's what it looked like. More »
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The Battle Dragon Bag is Tt eSports' answer to the pro-gamer's equipment carrying woes: A perfect way to transport the delicate equipment the serious competitive gamer needs to excel at their craft. I am not a serious competitive gamer. More »
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It's been making the rounds that YouTube's looking to ramp up the production of home-grown original content for users to consume. A report over at Forbes details what exactly will be airing on Start, the channel that centered on capturing the eyeballs of video game enthusiasts. The shows will be produced by a partnership of IGN and the Reveille production company, which produces reality show competitions The Biggest Loser and MasterChef. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5855783&view=rss&microfeed=true TwitchTV, the eSports Web TV network, has released an iOS app with complete streaming and chat functionality. Now, you can get all your pro Starcraft watching done on the go. More »
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I've been fascinated with eSports for most of the nearly seven years I've been writing for Kotaku. More »
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Now, more than ever, Valve Software seems to be getting serious about competitive gaming. The Team Fortress and Portal developer snapped up DotA: All-Stars developer "IceFrog" to create a sequel to that intensely competitive MOBA game. It's also investing heavily on the competitive side of the next Counter-Strike and adding new Steam features tailored to e-sports. More »
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Thousands of fans flocked to San Diego, California this weekend to determine which six trainers were destined to be the very best at the 2011 Pokémon World Championships. More »
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In case anyone was looking for motivation to get involved in League of Legends' second season of competition, Riot Games has just presented five million convincing arguments in the form of the largest prize pool in eGaming history. More »
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More than two million viewers tuned in for the Evo 2011 World Finals last weekend, tournament organizers declared today. More »
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Three huge events figure to make this weekend one of the biggest ever in competitive video gaming: the EVO World Championships, the GSL Finals and, underway right now, MLG Anaheim. Reminder: MLG Anaheim's championship round is underway now. You may see it here. More »
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The world's biggest, baddest fighting game tournament, EVO 2011, is fast approaching (it's this weekend!), and if you can get there and see it in person, that's awesome. If you can't, that's OK! You can still watch it from home. More »
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If you thought competitive StarCraft II in a bar was wild, wait until you see it amidst a throng of thousands of fans at BlizzCon 2011, home of the 2011 Global Battle.net Invitational and the 2011 Global StarCraft II League October Final. More »
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Yesterday, I wrote a post tweaking 27-year-old professional gamer David "Zaccubus" Treacy for his comments in an interview with Alienware, mostly for what seemed like an attempt to blame pro gaming's lack of success in the mainstream on "cheesy" television productions. It sounded defensive, especially since, well, I don't see the appeal of eSports at all. More »
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Korea is bonkers for StarCraft. So bonkers that we often quarantine the country's love for the game as something to be avoided and/or ridiculed. Yet little by little, the Korean StarCraft scene is getting its dues overseas. More »
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StarCraft II could have been a prettier game, with massive Zerg Ultralisks and screen-filling Protoss Motherships. It could have been stuffed with new units like the Cybercat and Hercules transport ship. Blame designer Dustin Browder and eSports for making StarCraft II what it is: clear, simple, uncertain and a game that demands skillful players. More »
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In South Korea, playing sci-fi real-time strategy StarCraft is a big deal. There are professional players and televised games. Throwing StarCraft matches and illegal betting, however, is a bigger deal. More »
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Blizzard has launched the first of their StarCraft II Battle Reports, featuring a 20 minute Protoss versus Terran match in an early alpha of the game with a full commentary accompanying the action. More »
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In a breathless Christian Science Monitor article about pro-gaming (no doubt inspired by the proximity of the World Cyber Games to the Olympics), Gloria Goodale breaks the news to their readers that people actually get paid money to play video games competitively. She even warns readers not to snicker, seeing that ESPN broadcasts the even less athletic pro poker tourneys. It doesn't take long for the article to enter familiar territory, pinning the hopes of pro gaming on Johnathan ""Fatal1ty" Wendel, who wraps up the shortish story with this doozie of a quote: More »
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Can gaming honestly be a spectator sport? Andy Reif thinks so. Of course he does, he's the commissioner of e-sports league Championship Gaming Series. He points out: More »
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As mentioned last week, Copenhagen eSports is opening a school for gamers. ZoneRank went to the horse's mouth (in this case, Rasmus Pedersen, head of the project) and got some more information on the particulars - and it sounds like they have some lofty goals, to say the least: More »
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If you're a Danish youngster who games (and lives in Copenhagen), you could soon have the opportunity to attend a gaming school. I'm not exactly sure where the education part of this all fits in - are we talking extracurricular programs or an entire curriculum focused on gaming? - but after talks with the Korean e-sports organization KeSPA, the joint project between Copenhagen eSports and a Danish youth group called Ungdomsringen is getting underway: More »
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Games Media Properties announced today that it would no longer produce the World Series of Video games and that the remainder of its 2007 pro-gaming series had been canceled. The competitive gaming league announced in May that it had signed an agreement with CBS to air four of its competitions, two of which now appear to no longer taking place. More »
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Pro-gaming, which has been around for about nine years, is finally coming into its own. I spent time last month talking to some of the major players in eSports for a story on the current state of pro-gaming and the sudden surge of leagues. More »
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The Korea Times reports that starting next month, the country's Air Force will recruit pro online gamers as support personnel for the development of war-sim programs. More »
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