Maddy Myers

$20K RuneScape Tournament Can’t Decide A Winner Because There Was Too Much Cheating

This past weekend, Runefest 2017 hosted the finals of a RuneScape tournament with a whopping $20,000 cash prize for the winner, plus an additional $10,000 to be donated to a charity of the player’s choice. Five days later, and after accusations of cheating and foul play, the winner still hasn’t been determined. The competitors faced…

Casinos Take Pac-Man, Add Gambling

Have you ever played Pac-Man for an ungodly amount of time, and thought to yourself, “This would be even better if my savings were on the line”? First of all, are you OK? And second of all, the gambling industry is about to grant your wish. Bandai Namco has partnered with Gamblit Gaming to adapt…

Time Is Running Out For The Super Smash Bros. Scene’s Favorite Game Controller

In the 16 years since Super Smash Brothers: Melee came out, it has gotten harder and harder for Smash tournaments and pro players to keep using the controller for which it was originally made. GameCube controllers are getting old. The best ones are are hard to find and expensive to maintain. And some players complain…

Overwatch League has finalized all 12 teams and announced the start-date for its inaugural season: January 10, 2018. We’ll get to see the teams in action before then. Starting on December 6, the Blizzard Arena in LA will host a series of preseason exhibition matches.

The Immortals esports franchise has signed their debut Dota 2 team made up of the five newly reunited members of the MVP Phoenix team, which was the first Korean team to advance to The International in 2016. Now that the band’s back together, they’ll be competing in North America under the Immortals team name.

Two more Overwatch League team buyers have emerged from the world of traditional sports. ESPN reports that Neil Leibman, co-owner of the Texas Rangers, has purchased the Houston Overwatch League slot. Comcast Spectacor, which owns the Philadelphia Flyers, has staked its claim on Philadelphia.

Melee Champ Resigns From Competition Committee Because It’s All-Male

Super Smash Brothers: Melee pro Adam “Armada” Lindgren has stepped down from his position as a panelist for the game’s rules committee to open it up for more female representation. The committee, spearheaded by the community platform Melee It On Me, aims to standardize all Melee tournament guidelines On September 6, Melee It On Me…

Two Weekends In Boston Showed Two Very Different Scenes In Competitive Gaming

Last Sunday, as two top League of Legends teams battled in Boston’s TD Banknorth Garden in front of thousands of cheering fans, a stadium usher grumbled a complaint that a lot of first-time esports spectators mention. The pro players, whose facial expressions appeared in close-up on big screens all over the stadium, seemed way too…

DreamHack Unbans CS:GO Players Who Cheated And Fixed Matches

Last July, esports organization ESL lifted the lifetime ban on tournament participation from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players who had been caught cheating or participating in match-fixing schemes. The new sanctions now call for a two-year ban on cheaters and a five-year ban on match fixers, with the potential for longer bans in extreme cases. This…

Don’t Get Your Hopes Up About Esports In The Olympics

On August 9, the co-president of the Paris Olympic bid committee announced that the 2024 Games would consider including esports as a medal event, saying: “There is some time to look at it, to interact, to engage. The IOC will have the last say, if they want esports on the program.” This week, International Olympic…

Fans Prepare For The End Of Marvel Vs. Capcom 3

As soon as Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite comes out on September 19, every copy of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 will evaporate into a fine mist, never to be played again—OK, not really, but you’d never know it from the approach taken by players’ farewells to the game. This week, UMvC3 player Amongst Shadows put…

Controller Mod Forces A Controversial Rematch During Smash Melee Major

On Sunday night, the Super Smash Brothers: Melee tournament at Shine 2017 forced a controversial rematch between William “Leffen” Hjelte and Daniel “ChuDat” Rodriguez, partway through the Top 8 finals. It all came down to a new rule about a Melee controller modification. Shine 2017 is the first Smash Bros major to require the use…

Melee Player Starts Trend Where Fans Raise Chairs Over Their Heads After Victories

Johnny “S2J” Kim started a chair-raising trend this past weekend at Shine 2017, a Super Smash Brothers major at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston, MA. It all started during Saturday’s Melee pools and lasted through the rest of the weekend. On Saturday, S2J clawed his way up through the loser’s bracket, culminating in…

Madden 18‘s New Story Mode Is Actually Pretty Touching

Madden NFL 18 has a story mode, a first for a Madden game. Called “Longshot,” it follows the career of fictional would-be quarterback Devin Wade. Unlike Madden 18’s Ultimate Team mode, which allows you to feel like an all-powerful football god who can make record-setting numbers of touchdowns per game, Longshot isn’t about winning. Instead,…

Top Lucioball Players Create Strategies Blizzard Never Imagined

Overwatch’s Summer Games end on August 29, which means there’s not much time left to get good at Lucioball. Except no one is that good at Lucioball, even the players ranked in top 500. But while players who hate it have already gone back to playing Rocket League, the competitive Lucioball players left standing have…

Gwent Gets An $850,000 Tournament Series

Gwent, the in-universe card game from The Witcher 3, has been in beta as a standalone game since last May. Today, developers CD Projekt RED announced a new season-based competitive mode called Gwent Masters. Separate from the ranked mode already available to Gwent players, Gwent Masters will allow players to compete in online tournaments that…

EA just announced sign-ups for the closed alpha of Battlefield 1 Incursions, a new 5v5 competitive mode that allows only one vehicle per team. The alpha, which debuts for selected players in September, will feature a scaled-down version of Battlefield 1‘s Giant’s Shadow map. Sign-ups end August 26 at 11:59 pm PDT.

NFL Signs On To Co-Organize, Overhaul Madden 18 Championships

Today, Electronic Arts and the NFL announced the launch of the Madden NFL Club Championship, an esports event that involves all 32 of the NFL’s teams. The competition, which will be part of this year’s Madden NFL Championship Series, starts on August 22, which is the game’s preorder release day. Starting today, would-be competitors can…

Nine Tips For Women (And Anyone Else) Attending Their First Fighting Game Tournament

Are you are a woman who wants to compete in a fighting game event, but you don’t know where to start? Maybe you’re worried you don’t know enough or aren’t good enough. (Probably not true.) Or maybe you just want to know what these events are like ahead of time. Which ones should you try…

True Rich Asshole Stan Kroenke Adds Overwatch Team To L.A. Sports Empire

The Overwatch League has added to its rapidly expanding collection of widely loathed traditional-sports honchos, as Stan and Josh Kroenke, owners of Arsenal, the Los Angeles Rams, a dizzying array of Colorado franchises, and whatever is on Stan’s head have bought a Los Angeles team for a reported $20 million The Kroenkes aren’t the first…