eSports

South Korea will allow male video game players who win a gold medal at this year’s Asian Games, which began on Monday, to avoid mandatory military service, outraging fans of boy band superstars BTS who argue that the feat of becoming the country’s most successful music act in history is more deserving.

China’s state-run Global Times on Tuesday reported three people were arrested for organizing a video game viewing party with over 2,000 attendees in the city of Wuhan, in the midst of China’s worst coronavirus outbreak since the beginning of the pandemic.

Sweden has decided to grant exemptions to the county’s Wuhan coronavirus travel ban for eSports “athletes” entering the country from outside of the European Economic Area (EEA).

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Esports organizers say don’t blame the games.

Tributes poured in for popular video game commentator John “TotalBiscuit” Bain, following the announcement of his death on Thursday.

Popular video game streaming website Twitch has surpassed both CNN and MSNBC for the number of monthly viewers in January.

Breitbart Tech’s gaming expert Nate Church joined Curt Schilling, himself a long-time gamer and former development studio founder, on Schilling’s show Whatever It Takes to discuss the growing phenomenon of eSports, with its huge presence in Asia and rapid growth in the United States.

Millenials and beyond have begun to embrace eSports as their chosen form of competitive entertainment.

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers venture partner Mary Meeker released her annual Internet Trends Report this week, identifying a number of important points for the tech industry.

The University of Utah will become the first major sports university to officially sponsor competitive gaming.

In 2018, the NBA will take a cue from the Netherlands in welcoming the first eSports members to its official franchises.

The premier Dutch soccer league is launching an eSports division that will recognize players as official members of their respective soccer teams.

The eSports scene is developing a serious problem over the healthcare of their competitors, according to a report from Vocativ.

The rise of Amazon-owned Twitch TV’s live streaming platform has continued year upon year, making it the most popular way for gaming enthusiasts to watch their favourite titles and personalities.

One of the new big players in the eSports scene, Team EchoFox who are owned by former LA Lakers player and gaming advocate Rick Fox, will be looking to make drastic changes to their Counter-Strike team.

The editor of the lolesports.com website has announced that he will no longer be working for Riot Games. Frank “Mihri” Fields has been in the role since July 2013 and has very often been the public face of some of the websites bigger failings.

Riot Games’ Mid Season Invitational (MSI) is one of the centrepieces of the League of Legends calendar. Along with the teams, Riot also usually assembles the best commentary team, with fan favourites and regional experts, to augment the viewer experience. This time however, due to a dispute over pay, this won’t be happening.

The Intel Extreme Masters tour is considered one of the best that eSports has to offer. Run by the company many proclaim to be industry leaders, the Modern Times Group-owned Electronic Sports League, the tour started in 2007 and has held tournaments in major cities all across the globe. Despite receiving plaudits over the years, the latest stop in the Polish city of Katowice, ran into many problems, most of which seem to be of ESL’s making, leaving many of the attending fans and competitors alike unsatisfied with their experience.

Team Liquid announced the signing of North American rising talent Kenneth “koosta” Suen two weeks ago, as first reported on Breitbart, to cement their position as the most talented squad in North American Counter-Strike. The move had seemingly come from left-field, with Suen having reportedly turned down multiple approaches from other squads to remain with the NME organisation. However, Breitbart has learned that Team Liquid reportedly first approached Suen in December and that this approach was initially made without NME’s knowledge.

Video game streaming site Twitch has announced the launch of the Rocket League Championship Series in partnership with developer Psyonix.

G2A, the online games retailer and re-seller, has started 2016 in much the same way they ended 2015, finding themselves accused of unethical business practices. This time their eSports sponsorship program has been accused of a series of late or outstanding payments to their partners.

A North American professional Counter-Strike player has found himself forced to attend an anti-bullying seminar by his employers after being caught verbally berating a fellow professional on a video stream.

In January 2015, the culmination of what was an almost six month long investigation into Counter-Strike match-fixing resulted in the indefinite bans of the iBUYPOWER team and the fixers that facilitated them profiting from thrown games.

One of the leading gaming organisation’s in the world, Team Liquid, will sign one of the hottest young prospects to their Counter-Strike: Global Offensive roster.

One of the latest outlets to throw their hat in the eSports coverage ring is troubled tech giant Yahoo, who as Breitbart reported had reportedly expressed interest in purchasing North America’s leading eSports tournament organiser MLG before a deal with Activision Blizzard was struck.

A senior editor for Riot Games, Frank “Mihri” Fields, had to make a humbling public apology for publishing an opinion piece on the lolesports website in a bid to quell the anger it generated among the players it wrote about.

Yes, we did it folks. This year is the year that eSports became legitimatised… again. And we owe all of ourselves a collective pat on the back. Without us, none of this would have been possible. Award after award, reams of press releases that read like balance sheets, fixed mannequin grins until someone cracks and growls “now cut me my fucking paycheque” to the highest bidder.

Details of a meeting between Modern Times Group-owned Electronic Sports League (ESL) and several team owners were leaked after ESL staff forgot to update their mailing list.

This weekend saw LAN organizer DreamHack take its tour to Leipzig for the first time, and the event featured some of the best Counter-Strike teams in the world and produced some excellent games. Unfortunately, an incident disrupted the broadcast, one that calls into question security at DreamHack-run events.

The purchase of the G2 Esports Counter-Strike: Global Offensive squad by Call of Duty giants FaZe Clan, seemed to be a straightforward deal. The team, populated by several fan favourites, made the move officially on the January 21, but it had been in the works for some time prior to that.

The Danish CS:GO team formerly associated with Team Solo Mid will reportedly announce their new organisation later today.

Mick Larkins has been with Hi-Rez Studios for more than a decade and now finds himself at the helm of the studio’s next major title, Paladins.

During my time at the 2016 SMITE World Championship, I had the chance to sit down with co-founder and COO of Hi-Rez Studios, Todd Harris.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but when it comes to eSports the self-congratulatory end of year scenes are akin to what the average British public schoolboy would encounter in the dorm after dark: a sweaty, frenzied mass of guilt-free circle-jerking where everyone gets their turn, a blend of giddy exhaustion and gratification leaving the group satisfied.

It was a finale nobody predicted. Both Epsilon and Enemy had only begun to step from beneath the shadows of vastly more popular competitors. Now they were contending to be named the best SMITE team on Earth.

Watch the grand final round of the SMITE World Championship live!