With just eight teams in the Oceanic Challenger Series, it's hardly a packed pro-scene, but it's going to be even smaller for this year's series. Riot has banned 40 per cent of the players from the eight-team league, with many players sitting out for as long as a year for …
Read More »Computex: ASUS shows off modded PCs with pro gaming side-show
At events like Computex, it's not easy to stand out from the masses and draw in the crowds, so some form of spectacle is always useful. ASUS' attempt to do that was by combining two things gamers love: professionals duking it out to see who's the best, and a bunch …
Read More »Porn sponsors banned again in Esports tournament
Despite efforts by some of the more well known tube pornography websites to legitimise themselves as mainstream companies, Esports organisations are doing their best to push back on that narrative. Following a ban of Youporn's pro team from the ESL competition, the same has happened with Capcom's Pro Tour. Although the ESL …
Read More »Donkey Kong champion posts possible perfect score
Although we'll never say never when it comes to a game like Donkey Kong, it may well be that the newly crowned champion, Wes Copeland, is never beaten. With a score that not only defeated his arch arcade rival, Robbie Lakeman and even long-time MAME champion Dean Saglio, the 1,218,000 score …
Read More »UK launches eGames Rio 2016, the Olympics of Esports
While a British team might not have brought home the gold at any of the world's biggest Esports tournaments yet, perhaps they'll be able to do so at the newly announced, eGames. The event, set to run right alongside the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro later this year, will pit …
Read More »Update: Mandatory military service threatens another Esports pro’s career
Update: Despite pressure on Esports professional, Konstantinos “Forg1ven” Tzortziou, to leave gaming behind for a nine month stint in the Greek military, he has now been given the option to defer it to a later time. Announced on the official H2K Twitter account, Forg1ven has been granted a “temporary deferment,” …
Read More »Can Immortals challenge Korean LoL supremacy?
As the most watched Esport in the world, League of Legends has millions of players around the world, many of them hoping to make it as professionals. But over the past few years, Korean teams have dominated in the finals. Will this year be any different? The undefeated North American …
Read More »ESPN just launched it own Esports site
ESPN has finally begun to take Esports seriously, launching a new website dedicated entirely to pro-gaming. It features coverage of many of the latest news stories for some of the more popular competitive games, as well as twinned social media accounts, strategy videos and profiles of the most iconic players …
Read More »Donkey Kong record broken in first days of the new year
Although competitive gaming is far bigger today than it once was, it's not just about League of Legends, Counter Strike and Call of Duty. There are still some classics kicking around the competitive scene and while there are a few popular ones among them, none are quite like the original …
Read More »Activision now owns Major League Gaming
Major League Gaming, one of the longest standing pro-Esports organisations, is now owned almost entirely by Activison, after the board of directors agreed to sell the publishing giant most of the company's assets for $46 million. This has annoyed some share-holders, as the move was approved – legally – without …
Read More »Fnatic Esports team launches own range of gaming peripherals
One of the big trends for gaming peripheral makers in recent years has been to recruit a famous Esports team and have them endorse your gear. Often that same team will be ‘involved' in some capacity during the development, offering pointers on features or aesthetics, but a lot of end-user …
Read More »DotA 2 pro breaks scrimmage bro code – kicked out of Cloud9
In traditional sports, there's an unspoken rule that what goes on in the gym, stays in the gym. The same goes for professional Esports teams, especially when it comes to friendly scrimmages among them. So it's perhaps no surprise that Cloud9 DotA 2 player, Ravi “Ritsu” Kodippili has been kicked out for …
Read More »Ninjas in Pyjamas eSports team fires CEO over non-payment
There's trouble in the eSports scene once again, proving that even the paradise-sounding world of professional video game playing, there are pitfalls. One of them is your CEO just not paying you, as appears to have happened in the case of Swedish gaming outfit, Ninjas in Pyjamas. While no concrete admissions …
Read More »MSI kicks off Season 2 of Pro Talk with Esport star
MSI has launched the second season of its Pro Talk web-show that talks to various high-profile individuals related to gaming hardware, with Mike ‘hastr0' Rufail, who's credits include being a pro-player in the earlier days of Call of Duty's Esports scene, as well as now managing Team EnVyUs. Hosted by …
Read More »Running an Esports event is not easy
Although Esport events might not have quite the same number of considerations – yet – as more traditional sports, that doesn't mean running them is easy. While Riot and Valve might have made us think so with how well they've continued to pull off the monolithic World Championships and International …
Read More »Hearthstone now has the chance for players to win college scholarships
The TeSPA collegiate esports organisation has announced a new scholarship fund of $100,000 that will go up for grabs for teams of three that play Blizzard's collectible card brawler, Hearthstone, in an effort to cultivate more competitive esports talent in the U.S. Known as the Collegiate Hearthstone Championship, the competition …
Read More »China beats Korea in League of Legends mid-season face-off
For the past couple of years, Korea has been head of the pack when it comes to professional League of Legends play, with two out of the top three teams last year hailing from the small nation. However that may no longer be the case, as Chinese team Edward Gaming has …
Read More »Is it time to start drug testing Esports players?
As long as there have been performance enhancing drugs, they have had some sort of presence in sports. As soon as big money shows up there's always going to be someone willing to get a competitive edge no matter what, which is why it's no surprise that doping as it's called, …
Read More »Counter Strike Intel Master’s tournament nets a million viewers
If you thought DotA 2 and League of Legends were the only games that could pull real crowds with their esports tournaments, think again, as the two-year old shooter title managed to bring in over a million this weekend at the Intel Extreme Master's tournament. That is more than four times …
Read More »MeetYourMakers fined by Riot after manager threats
Pro League of Legends team, MeetYourMakers, has been a in a bit of hot water as of late, as it was discovered just a few days ago that the team's manager had threatened its mid-laner with his mother losing her house, when the young man said he would be leaving the …
Read More »Overclockers UK is reaching out to Twitch streamers
Overclockers UK is making a push to support professional gamers and more specifically, Twitch streamers this year, with a new sponsorship plan in place and a vision for the future. The OCUK team has kicked things off with a new PC build for Twitch streamer, Sacriel. The streamer's new build includes …
Read More »League of Legends 2015 LCS is much more serious
Sports, whether they're the electronic kind or the traditional, are all fun and games until there's big money involved and fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your view) League of Legends is now hitting that level. With the 2015 season of the game, Riot is taking it to new heights, which means …
Read More »CS:GO eSports scene hit with new match fixing scandal
Towards the end of last year the Counter Strike: Global Offensive pro scene was hit with controversy following huge cheating allegations. Now things are riling up again after it was discovered that two teams fixed a match and then placed bets on the outcome in order to profit. The Counter-Strike …
Read More »CS:GO pros banned after hacking scandal
With Dreamhack Winter 2014 coming up this weekend, tensions were already running high for professional Counter Strike: Global Offensive players, but now things have been cranked up to 11. Some of the world's top professionals at the game, have been caught using third party aimbots and other cheating tools, prompting …
Read More »KitGuru visits Logitech’s G Labs in Switzerland
It's often been joked that the internet is serious business and at times, it can be. However something that you'd be unlikely to suggest as having such importance is peripheral production. Sure gaming puts a lot of strain on keyboards and mice and we all like a little competitive edge, …
Read More »Samsung White are the 2014 League of Legends champions
Once again a season of League of Legends has come to a close, with the culmination of the World Championships, this time in Seoul, South Korea. While many teams battled it out over the past few weeks, through quarter and semi-finals, ultimately there could be only one winner and it …
Read More »Sony is creating an eSports league on the PS4
Considering its big push for streaming content on the new-gen console, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that Sony is launching its very own eSports platform on the PS4. However it's unlikely anyone would have predicted where the league would be born: in Spain. The news was outed …
Read More »LoL Pros back in spotlight with Road to Worlds documentary
Professional gamers have gained a lot of attention in the past couple of years, as prize pools have exploded, competition has increased and the world at large has begun consuming their games with an ever increasing appetite, but we've also seen them at their more humble and heartfelt in documentaries …
Read More »Life after LoL: Riot to help older gamers transition
As much as many young people around the world would love to play games professionally, that is, get paid to play, it's a career with a half life shorter than almost any other. Even professional athletes in many real world sports can last into their early 30s, but for most …
Read More »YouPorn wants to sponsor your eSports team
Update: Youporn recently tweeted to a few showing interest, that if you have a team and you want sponsorship, email your details here: [email protected] Original Story: Are you an aspiring eSports team or player of games like Starcraft II, League of Legends, DotA 2 or Hearthstone? Have you struggled to get …
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