Esports

After An Unlikely Tie, Fortnite Summer Skirmish Grand Finalist Got Determined By Coin Flip

Yesterday, two Fortnite players tied for the 33rd qualifying spot in today’s Summer Skirmish grand finals: The_Real_Cryohme and SSG Colton. The 33rd slot wins a minimum of $5,000 and the potential to win far more; today’s first prize winner will take home $225,000. Only 33 players could advance to the final stage, though. Epic Games…

Popular PUBG Streamers Face Off This Weekend In The Broadcaster Royale Finals

The three-day finals for Broadcaster Royale, a PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds tournament featuring 80 duo teams of streamers from around the world, unfolds this weekend at PAX West’s Paramount Theater. The matches start today at 2 pm ET, streaming on the Broadcaster Royale Twitch channel and also on each competitor’s individual Twitch channel. Several well-known PUBG players…

Players Finally Let Loose At Overwatch League’s All-Star Weekend

This past weekend, during one of the Overwatch League All-Star games, NYXL DPS Jong-ryeol “Saebyeolbe” Park—a master of split-second timing and precision—rolled right off a ledge into the infernal fires beneath King’s Row. When asked what happened, he quipped, “That’s my plan. It’s fan service.” The whole weekend felt like fan service, a victory lap…

After Jacksonville Shooting, Gaming Event Organizers Pledge Better Security

Citing a need to review security plans, Electronic Arts is canceling the three remaining qualifying events for its Madden NFL 19 tournament after two players were killed at one in Jacksonville, Florida on Sunday. Other esports organizations are also talking more about security for their events. “We will work with our partners and our internal…

Tournament Underdogs Won This Year’s Dota 2 International

Tournament underdogs OG won this year’s Dota 2 International after a tense five game series against higher ranked rivals LGD. Victory must have felt especially sweet for the team’s skipper, Johan “N0tail” Sundstein, the only player who has been on the team since its original formation three years ago. OG has had diehard fans ever…

Almost Nobody Predicted This Weekend’s Wild Dota 2 Tournament

The International 2018 ends tomorrow. By day’s end, over $25 million will be divided up among 18 teams from around the world with the lion’s share, $11.1 million, going to first place. Whoever that turns out to be at this point, though, will be a team almost nobody saw coming. The tournament for Valve’s action…

Overwatch World Cup Match Grinds To A Halt When Game Crashes

The primary ingredients for a great Overwatch moment are a) a hotly contested match and b) a cheeky strategy the other team doesn’t see coming. During the fourth game of last night’s Overwatch World Cup match between South Korea and Finland, both these things happened. Then the game crashed. This year’s Overwatch World Cup—in which…

The Weekend In Esports: Call Of Duty World Championship And More

Stay inside, turn on the air conditioning and watch gamers pwn one another to your heart’s content over the weekend, because there are a crap ton of high profile esports tournaments going on. Call of Duty: WWII Call of Duty’s annual championship takes places this weekend in Columbus, Ohio at the Nationwide Arena. For those tired…

The Moment I Got Hooked On Dota 2‘s Biggest Tournament

Just before midnight on August 10, 2016, I jumped up from my seat screaming at the top of my lungs about Dota 2. I wasn’t even playing the game myself, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand it on the level of the players I watched that night. In a Dota 2…

Faker’s Grandma Knows A Lot About League of Legends

It’s one thing for a gaming pro’s parents to know about the game their offspring play, but quite another thing for granny to also be well versed. As Twitter user Mixen614 pointed out, in a documentary about Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok, the LoL pro’s grandma showed how closely she follows her grandson and esports. She totally…

The Weekend In Esports: Smash Never Stops

It’s a muggy, sleepy summer here in video game land, but esports does not rest. This weekend brings us a packed lineup of Smash, League, Heroes, and Fortnite, as well as multiple PUBG and Rocket League tournaments. Super Smash Brothers While most other fighting game pros are still catching up on sleep after Evo 2018…

The Keemstar vs Fortnite saga continues. Today Keem protested Epic’s Fortnite Summer Skirmish with a campaign to get Minecraft more Twitch viewers. Keem said that it might be a “big fail,” and it kinda was. While Keem’s chat yelled at him for playing wrong, Minecraft peaked at over 20,000. Fortnite had 230,000. It was an…

Hammond Debuts In Overwatch Pro Scene, With Mixed Results

Despite his penchant for crashing into the thick of things and leaving craters in his wake, Wrecking Ball has yet to make a huge impact on Overwatch’s meta. Then again, he only just got added to the game. Last night, though, the hamster hero showed squeaky inklings of his potential in two Overwatch Contenders playoff…

Popular Overwatch Pro Leaves The League To Return To His Twitch Empire [Correction]

Today, beloved Overwatch League star Brandon “Seagull” Larned announced his retirement from professional Overwatch after just one season. Larned, who played off-tank and DPS for the Dallas Fuel, will return to streaming on Twitch, where he built a streaming empire of 760,000 followers. In a statement, Mike Rufail, the owner and CEO of Envy Gaming,…

Smash Pro Plans To Donate Some Of His Evo Winnings To Lesser-Paid Players

Yesterday, William “Leffen” Hjelte won Super Smash Bros Melee gold at Evo, fighting games’ biggest stage, but now he’s cementing himself as one of the greats. Leffen announced that he will donate a portion of his prize money to lower-placing players, who took home pennies by comparison. Leffen explained his rationale on Twitter. “I will…

The Weekend In Esports: Evo 2018, StarCraft II, And More

With the Overwatch League’s inaugural season firmly in the rear-view mirror, it’s time to move on to the fighting game world. This weekend’s Evo is the biggest tournament of the year, starring street fighters, smash brothers (and sisters) and a crap ton of Gokus Evo 2018 will be home to a number of heated rivalries…

Collegiate Esports Is Uncharted Territory, So Smaller Schools Are Staking Their Claim

In the past five years, collegiate esports programs have been popping up at schools all over America, and these programs have also become a way for smaller schools to stand out from the pack. SUNY Canton, a state college in the upper tip of New York half an hour from the Canadian border, announced its…

Overwatch League’s TV Ratings Were Low, But It Doesn’t Matter

If you followed the Overwatch League’s first season, odds are good that you mostly did it on Twitch. Over the weekend, the grand finals got airtime on television networks, too, and they didn’t exactly draw a Beholder-load of eyeballs. The Nielsen overnight estimates for Overwatch League’s grand finals broadcasts on ESPN and ABC are in,…

Chinese Esports Team Has An Amazing Training Facility 

China’s OMG (Oh My God) dominates not only dominates League of Legends and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, but also esports compounds. Check out its training facility. The digs were designed to look like a spaceship (success!) and were completed last year. Recently images have been circulating on websites like Sohu.com, HK01 and Dexerto Here are more photos…

Street Fighter Pros Appear On Prime Time Japanese TV

Yesterday, popular Japanese sports talk show Junk Sports featured Street Fighter pros Momochi and Chocoblanka. Professionally gaming still doesn’t quite get the respect it deserves in Japan, so for fighting game fans, simply seeing these two on mainstream Japanese TV was a big deal. Junk Sports features a handful of guests, and this episode featured…