ESPORTS WEEKLY UPDATE – STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED!

Alibaba’s sports-focused subsidiary Ali Sports has launched a new esports division, and announced new international tournaments in Dota 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, StarCraft 2 and Hearthstone this week.

EA have revealed that it has formed a new Competitive Gaming Division (CGD) that will be helmed by renowned gaming industry executive, Peter Moore.

And Major League Gaming (MLG), now owned by Activision Blizzard, will run its first-ever eSports event in a professional arena starting later this week.

Read these stories and more below in our weekly round up of eSports news.

Alibaba to back $1.5 million tournaments in CS:GO and Dota 2

The organization put out a Chinese press release on Wednesday morning, and ESL’s Orrin Xu tweeted about the announcement from a press conference the same day.

In the release, Ali Sports says it has set aside $5.5 million total in prize money for the new World Electronic Sports Games (WESG). According to Xu, $1.5 million will go to CS:GO and another $1.5 million will go to Dota 2. The games are expected to begin sometime in April, with LAN Finals set to take place in Shanghai in December.

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Activision Blizzard Details Plan to Expand eSports Audience

Major League Gaming (MLG), now owned by Activision Blizzard, will run its first-ever eSports event in a professional arena starting later this week.

Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio—home of the NHL’s Columbus Blue Jackets—will host the MLGCounter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) Major Championship from April 1 to April 3. The best CS:GOteams will compete for a $1 million prize pool in front of a sold-out audience of 9,500 live fans.

Mike Sepso, senior vice president at Activision Blizzard and former president and co-founder of MLG, said MLG audiences have outgrown the smaller venues used in the past. “Our competitions have grown so large that we had to go to sports arenas,” he said. “It’s the progression that all of eSports is moving towards.”

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SIX STYLES OF LEADERSHIP IN ESPORTS

Time and time again organizations have invested in coaches who fail to understand how to be leaders. Coaching a team is more than just identifying goals or improving player mechanics. Teams need to be organized, motivated, and led to victory. Each team is unique in its players, owners, and culture, making it hard to have one universal leadership style.

Organizations like TSM and CLG operate very differently from one another, and when a coach steps in to lead a team they need to adjust accordingly. A coach entering into a new team has to learn how to adjust their leadership style to meet the needs of their team.

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Esports players may soon be recognized as athletes in France

The French government is proposing a new bill to recognize both esports and players. The move comes after months of criticism over what many viewed as excessive regulation of the esports industry, as well as the country’s Ministry of Sport’s consistent refusal to acknowledge esports as a sport.

The Digital Republic bill, which is being drafted before it is taken to the French Senate, aims to safeguard the organization of competitions, clarify the status of esports players, and help develop the esports industry in France.

Many of France’s issues relate to the fact that esports is regulated under the same legal framework as gambling. Since gambling is illegal in France, that makes the country unappealing for tournament organizers.

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The Future of Halo Esports

Being a woman in eSports is still an uphill battle

Jennifer Pichette has been playing video games since she was a kid. That’s not unusual.

Like some people with a lifelong love of video games, she started playing professional tournaments. That’s not unusual either.

Then she realized she liked commentating better than playing professionally, and started commentating online tournaments. Still not unusual.

But Jennifer Pichette is a woman, and in the worlds of professional video game playing and commentating, that is unusual, often to the detriment of the woman trying to make it in a burgeoning industry.

“Females aren’t taken seriously,” said Pichette, a Sudbury-based Masters of Medical Microbiology student at Laurentian University and commentator who’s known online as LemonKiwi.

“It’s just hard for a female gamer to come on the rise, and possibly even be professional.”

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Will EA’s Competitive Gaming Division Usher in a New Era for eSports?

In December 2015, a mere three weeks before Christmas, Electronic Arts made a major announcement. The company revealed that it had formed a new Competitive Gaming Division (CGD) that would be helmed by renowned gaming industry executive, Peter Moore.

This is a long-term project for EA. No one expects the publisher to storm E3 2016 with a plethora of games designed specifically for eSports. Nonetheless, that didn’t stop gamers from discussing what this meant for eSports – both the good and the bad.

Now that the dust has settled and the initial shock (and awe) has worn off, it’s time to analyze EA’s initiative. Is the company poised for greatness or is another Star Wars-sized disappointment around the corner?

Inevitable Transition

Like most of the big players, EA tends to follow rising trends within the game industry. It was inevitable that the publisher would turn to eSports next, but it didn’t rush into this market. Instead of being a leader, EA waited until others (such as Activision and Amazon) had taken action.

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Enemy’s Not the Only Team to Benefit From Early Season Victory

Yesterday, Enemy eSports (NME), captained by PainDeViande, found a 2-0 victory over Luminosity Gaming (LG). Both lineups have seen roster changes since they last played at the Season 2 SMITE World Championship. Luminosity Gaming consists of three members of last season’s Cloud 9 roster: JeffHindla, BaRRaCCuDDa, and Andinster as well as two members from last season’s Team SoloMid: Snoopy and TheBoosh. Enemy on the other hand saw more drastic changes.

Though their captain PainDeViande has stayed on board with Mid-laner Khaos, three SPL rookies have been added to the team’s roster: Varizial, Marauder, and PandaCat. The simple thought of 3/5ths former World Champions vs 3/5ths rookies explains why a lot of people were expecting LG to beat NME in a quick 2-0. That absolutely was not what happened.

The first game of the set proved that Enemy was not to be trifled with as they took down Luminosity 20-9 on the back of some incredible Zeus play by Khaos. For me, the second game of the set was far more interesting as Luminosity took the game over an hour for the longest SPL game of all time. In the end, a sly call by Enemy ends the game as they infiltrate Luminosity’s base and assassinate the titan.

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