eSports are what Blizzard Entertainment calls the various tournament events focused around their computer games. Since 2009, the championship events usually occur at BlizzCon, but in 2012 the Battle.net World Championship Event will take place instead.[1]
Blizzard Entertainment eSports events[]
- Battle.net World Championship Event
- BlizzCon
- Warcraft III Tournament
- Warcraft Regional Finals
- World of Warcraft Arena Tournament
- World of Warcraft Arena Global Invitational
- World of Warcraft Arena World Championship
- Worldwide Invitational
Electronic Sports League[]
ESL (Electronic Sports League) became involved with the World of Warcraft Arena World Championship in 2015 by hosting the World of Warcraft Arena European Qualifiers and Championship. They will continue to host European tournaments in 2016.[2]
Major League Gaming[]
Major League Gaming was the biggest non-company-affiliated eSports gaming league, but due to a problem with Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Inlinegfx/img_link_data.json' not found. Cataclysm compatibility with their spectating client at launch, MLG could not include World of Warcraft in its tournament circuit after the end of the 2010 season.[3]
Unfortunately due to mounting debts, MLG has basically been dissolved by Activision-Blizzard in a buyout at the end of 2015.[4]
So far Blizzard appears to have a low priority for spectating client compatibility support in-game.
North American Online Invitationals[]
Starting in 2011, ArenaJunkies, Curse Gaming, and Skill-Capped teamed up to present the NAO Invitationals to fill the gap left by MLG. The 2011 prize pool was only $1000, but was increased to $4000 in 2012.
References[]
- ^ Blizzard Entertainment 2012-01-25. 2012 Battle.net World Championship Event. Official BlizzCon site (US).
- ^ Arena New Years Cup 2016. ESLgaming.com. Retrieved on 2016-01-04.
- ^ Justin Loeb 2010-10-19. MLG Responds to Claims of WoW Cancellation. GameAche.com.
- ^ Thiemo Bräutigam 2016-01-01. MLG sells “substantially all” assets to Activision Blizzard for $46 million, DiGiovanni replaced. eSportsObserver.com.
See also[]
- World of Warcraft Arena World Championship
- World of Warcraft Arena European Championship
- World of Warcraft Arena Australia & New Zealand Qualifiers
- World of Warcraft Arena China Qualifiers
- World of Warcraft Arena European Qualifiers
- World of Warcraft Arena Korean & Taiwan Qualifiers
- World of Warcraft Arena Latin American Qualifiers
- World of Warcraft Arena North American Qualifiers
- World of Warcraft Arena China Regionals
- World of Warcraft Arena European Regionals
- World of Warcraft Arena Korean & Taiwan
- World of Warcraft Arena North American Regionals
External links[]
- BlizzCon WoW eSports
- Info
- Earnings info
- ESL World of Warcraft Arena Europe
- News
BusinessInsider.com Facebook taps into growing eSports sector with Activision Blizzard partnership BI Intelligence May 16, 2016, 9:30 PM Ars Technica Report: Major League Gaming shuttered after $46 million Activision buyout
Majority of the cash will go towards paying off MLG's mounting debts. by Mark Walton (UK) - Jan 4, 2016 6:06am PST
eSportsObserver.com MLG sells “substantially all” assets to Activision Blizzard for $46 million, DiGiovanni replaced by Thiemo Bräutigam January 1, 2016 DailyDot.com Even World of Warcraft is getting big esports prize money By Samuel Lingle Jul 30, 2015, 11:29am CT (Last updated Jul 30, 2015, 6:31pm CT)