News

Counter-Strike Complexity Gaming reveals new high tech headquarters in Texas By Olivia Richman Fortnite Report says Twitch streamers earn $50K per hour for paid streams By gabhernandez Fortnite Ninja takes out Tfue in Fortnite World Cup qualifiers, then loses By Steven Rondina

News

Shanghai Dragons player Geguri named to Time Magazine leadership list Fariha Bhatti Shanghai Dragons player Kim “Geguri” Se-yeon has been awarded a position in Time Magazine’s latest “Next Generation Leader” list. Along with the honor, the weekly magazine published a two-page feature on the player, detailing her rise to fame as the only female player in the Overwatch League. The feature alongside the award details Geguri’s early gaming career and how she first began playing Overwatch. According to Time Magazine, Geguri first …

Dota 2

Valve announces details for annual short film contest at TI9 gabhernandez This year’s top ten short films created featuring Dota 2 will be promoted in The International 2019 Battle Pass for final voting. Submissions for the 2019 Dota 2 Short Film Contest are now open. Valve announced the latest contest guidelines and the new deadline in a recent blog post. Since 2015, the game developers included the Short Film Contest as one of the highlights of annual Dota 2 tournament The …

News

China bans the word “kill” from video games as restrictions continue Olivia Richman Blood and gore were officially banned from Chinese video games last month. But a recent update sees the Chinese government getting even stricter on violence depicted in video games.  Previous regulations already required game developers to alter their game before it could be released in China. This included changing in-game blood to a different color to get around anti-blood regulations. But now China has banned anything players might perceive as …

Counter-Strike

New Mousesports roster takes top prize at DreamHack Open Tours Steven Rondina Mousesports is once again starting to look the part of one of Europe’s best Counter-Strike: Global Offensive teams. The squad took first place at DreamHack Open Tours 2019, besting Valiance to take the top prize. It is a key victory for the rapidly developing team, and one that hints that big things might be on the horizon. The first game of the grand finals was a competitive one. Though Train …

Fortnite Tfue suing FaZe Clan for exploitative contract and lost sponsors By Steven Rondina News Overwatch Anniversary event brings returning modes, legendary skins By Fariha Bhatti Dota 2 New contenders emerge through the Epicenter Major qualifiers By Steven Rondina

Counter-Strike

Vertigo gets bashed by multiple CS:GO pros during ECS Season 7 Steven Rondina The professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive community does not like Vertigo one bit. MiBR’s Fernando “fer” Alvarenga took to Twitter earlier this week and publicly blasted the map. That kicked off a tidal wave of venting from top CS:GO players. “Btw this Vertigo map is worse than shit. It’s so ugly to watch and even more stupid to play,” fer said. Team Vitality’s Dan “apEX” Madesclaire agreed. “Retake A this round. …

League of Legends

Riot Games expanding into collegiate esports after NCAA bows out Steven Rondina The NCAA isn’t interested in collegiate esports at this time and other companies are stepping in to fill that void. One such company is Riot Games. According to SBJ Daily, the publisher is making its own push into the field by creating a standalone governing body for collegiate League of Legends. Whether this is viable in the long term remains up for debate. The move comes after the NCAA Board …

League of Legends

G2 Esports triumph in surprise MSI 2019 final over Team Liquid William Davis G2 Esports is the 2019 Mid-Season Invitational champion. G2 took the crown after a dominant victory over Team Liquid from the LCS. This is the first major international title for Europe since 2011, when Fnatic won the World Championship prior to the introduction of Asian teams. The final showdown between North America and Europe ended after three fast-paced games. In game one, G2 proved that even the smallest advantage can …

League of Legends

G2 Esports scrape by SK Telecom T1 in epic set to make MSI final William Davis G2 Esports is on a roll at the Mid-Season Invitational, as the European squad took down SK Telecom T1 and is moving forward to the final. For the first time in competitive League of Legends, North America and Europe will be disputing the MSI trophy in the final. G2 made it possible with a victory over LCK representative SKT. The series that went to five games was a League of …

Disneyland Paris Major sets new Dota 2 viewership records Olivia Richman Dota 2 After Valve decided to rework Dota 2’s professional circuit schedule for the 2018-2019 season, there’s been a major jump in viewership.  The Mar’s Dota 2 League Disneyland Paris Major played host to the two most-watched Twitch channels that week, on a weekend that resulted in Dota 2’s most-watched day of the entire year on the streaming service. From May 4 through 12, the main English broadcast recorded an average of 57,000 …

Overwatch League Stage 2 finals broke broadcasting record Olivia Richman News The San Francisco Shock and Vancouver Titans rematch this past weekend proved popular with Overwatch League viewers.  The final match between the Shock and the Titans set the record for the best performing esports broadcast on ABC. The Stage 2 playoffs week had a global average minute audience (AMA) of 545,000. That’s the average number of people watching the broadcast at any minute during the show.  For an idea of how …

Apex Legend’s game breaking Octane bug persists for over a month Olivia Richman Apex Legends Remember the game breaking audio bug in Apex Legends? The community hasn’t forgotten about that one. And how could they? It’s still happening, despite Respawn Entertainment developers promising that it’d be addressed within a week. This is something that the Apex Legends community is getting overly accustomed to hearing.  And that may not even be the worst glitch in the game. Now, while using Octane, players become stuck in the same …

More pro Fortnite players caught cheating during World Cup qualifier Steven Rondina Fortnite Another collusion controversy has arisen ahead of the Fortnite World Cup. A thread appeared on Reddit with a video showing players in the Asia regional qualifiers seemingly working together during solos. This is the second such instance of such collusion in the Fortnite World Cup qualifiers in the last month alone. Despite playing in solo mode, a player using the handle SV_Gtea survives a firefight and inexplicably drops half of …

Riot Games employee gives hot take on assassins and burst damage William Davis League of Legends Riot Games’ August Browning has given an opinion on champion balance that’s sure to leave some League of Legends players scratching their heads. August gave an opinion on “one-shot” champions, claiming that part of the impressive longevity of League of Legends was due to the fact that it did support many different styles of play.This included the extremely powerful assassin class. “Rengar (and champs like him) instantly one-shotting you is …

Respawn offers free Apex Legends loot to PlayStation 4 players Fariha Bhatti Apex Legends Apex Legends developer Respawn Entertainment has released a free cosmetics pack that is available exclusively to PlayStation Plus subscribers. The PlayStation Plus Play Pack can be claimed from the PlayStation store by anyone who subscribes to the PlayStation Plus service. The free bundle offers a total of six items, including customizable content for both Lifeline and Mirage. Both legends receive one blue themed skin and one banner each. The final …

Report states that 2-2-2 role lock not yet coming to OWL for Stage 3 Fariha Bhatti News The Overwatch League has supposedly told all 20 of its teams that the rumoured 2-2-2 role lock will not be implemented for Stage 3 of the 2019 competition. The information was brought to light by esports blogger Arran “Halo” Brown, though he could not name his sources from within the League. Halo, also known by his blog name and Twitter handle HaloofThoughts, revealed the information this week on his blog. …

Former SKT players go global: Untara to Fenerbahçe, others to XTEN William Davis League of Legends Former SK Telecom T1 jungler Park “Blossom” Beom-chan and substitute mid laner Kim “Sky” Ha-neul have joined Latin American esports organization XTEN Esports. Heading into the LLA closing season, XTEN is getting reinforcements from two former SKT players. Blossom joins after a short hiatus from the game, finishing out his contract with SK Telecom T1 in November and remaining teamless since then. Sky left SKT back in 2017 when he …

Team Liquid defeats Invictus Gaming in massive upset at MSI William Davis League of Legends Team Liquid has achieved what seemed impossible, as the LCS champion took down reigning world champion Invictus Gaming and is advancing to the Mid-Season Invitational final. It’s a great day to be a TL fan, as the three-time LCS champion asserted its dominance over IG in a series of four games. The general consensus was that TL could get perhaps one game but that IG would take the entire series. …

Is Nintendo about to turn Super Mario Bros into an esports title? Steven Rondina News Could Super Mario Bros become an esport? Nintendo might be angling for just that, given a recent announcement regarding the upcoming Super Mario Maker 2. Ahead of E3 2019, the company will host the Super Mario Maker 2 Invitational 2019, a tournament featuring new levels in the upcoming game. The event will take place alongside the Splatoon 2 World Championship 2019 and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate 3v3 World Championship. The …

Bulgarian player spyleadeR returns to CS:GO with new Mortal Kombat Olivia Richman Counter-Strike After a five-month absence from competitive Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Emiliyan “spyleadeR” Dimitrov has returned under Mortal Kombat.  “After being a free agent for a long time, I am finally back in the pro scene,” spyleadeR told HLTV.org.  The MK lineup will also feature Nikolay “niki1” Pantaleev and Nikola “NK4Y” Radushev, who were removed from Bpro earlier in the week. Upon hearing of the duo’s release from their former organization, spyleadeR …

Apex Legends fires back after KFC posts meme about lack of updates Olivia Richman Apex Legends It’s 2019 and there’s nothing brands love more than being petty on Twitter. Wendy’s may be the OG of fast food restaurants delivering sick burns to customers and competitors alike, but KFC apparently wants a piece of that artery-clogging, deep fried meme clout.  KFC has a Twitter account dedicated to gaming. This video game meme account has almost 50,000 followers. One of their latest tweets, however, got them the back-and-forth drama …

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