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DHL delivers ESL One Series to India

Pranav Nalawade
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0
DHL delivers ESL One Series to India

DHL, the world’s leading logistics company, has announced the debut of the ESL One Mumbai 2019 event as a part of its official partnership with the Electronic Sports League (ESL). ESL is one of the world’s largest esports company. They host and market esports leagues and events for many popular esports titles such as Dota 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) and StarCraft II.

The much anticipatedESL One Mumbai event will give Indian players and fans access to an entire weekend filled with Dota 2 action from April 19 to 21, live at the National Sports Club of India Dome (NSCI) in Mumbai. Eight of the world’s best Dota 2 teams will be competing for a prize pool of approximately INR 2 Crore (USD 300,000). In addition to matches onstage, there will also be exciting fan activities, autograph sessions with the teams, the famous cosplay contest and much more.

R.S.Subramanian, Country Manager of DHL Express India, said, “As the world’s most international logistics company, we are delighted to support ESL One to deliver an enriching live experience to India’s esports community. ESL is one of the most revered tournaments in the world of esports, and we are excited that we celebrate the same values of speed, passion, teamwork, skill and can-do spirit. Through this landmark event, we hope to deliver a unique experience and play a part in the growing esports community in India.”

DHL will leverage its extensive global network and expertise to provide core logistics services for the event. Through this collaboration, DHL is pledging its support for esports, a sport that is rapidly growing in popularity around the world due to its top-tier entertainment value and active engagement of fans. In addition to the ESL One series, DHL is also an official partner of the Formula 1 esports Series.

“We are looking forward to bringing our flagship event series like ESL One to a completely new location as we see great potential in the Indian esports market,” said Ulrich Schulze, Senior Vice President of Product at ESL. “We are glad to have found such a reliable and open-minded partner in DHL, with whom we already experienced some authentic yet exciting activations at previous events. Together, we are eager to further foster the growth of local esports all over the world, providing teams, talents and fans with unforgettable moments.”

ESL’s numerous esports tournaments fill major sporting arenas all around the world as tens of thousands of fans watch live, while several million online spectators follow the action on social media and live streams. In 2018 alone, the ESL One series garnered more than 630 million live streaming views, almost 400 million social media impressions, and recorded an onsite audience of approximately 80,000 people. This number is only expected to grow further through an estimated global audience growth of 499 million by 2020.

India is currently home to approximately 263 million gamers, a number which is expected to rise to 628 million by 2020. The market is doubling every year and is expected to be worth $1.1 billion by 2020. This alone highlights the increasing trend and popularity of esports in India, especially among the age group of 16 to 35. Reports indicate that esports is also gaining popularity on primetime television as the gaming community is most active between 7 pm to midnight.

Walt Disney Co. donates $5 million to Notre Dame

Deepak Ojha
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Walt Disney Co. donates $5 million to Notre Dame

US media giant Disney is offering assistance for the reconstruction of the Paris Cathedral Notre Dame.

The announcement of $5mn from Disney comes after several other conglomerates offered their support to help rebuild the cathedral, which was demolished in an unprecedented fire on 15th April, Monday.

As several media outlets reported, Disney have had a strong connection with Notre Dame. It had produced an animated film of Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” in 1996.

Just a day ago, Ubisoft, the developer of Assassin’s Creed: Unity, which featured the historical cathedral had announced a €500,000 donation for its restoration. Not just companies, wealthiest families of Paris have come forward to offer financial assistance. The donation threshold, have now crossed a billion and a half mark.

Ubisoft donates €500,000 for Notre Dame restoration

Prateek Jain
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1
Ubisoft donates €500,000 for Notre Dame restoration

Ubisoft today announced that they will be donating € 500,000 for a restoration project underway for Notre Dame restoration work. Notre Dame was nearly destroyed in a fire accident leaving only the stone structure intact. With the fire now controlled and put off restoration work for this 900-year-old building is underway. Many French companies and others from around the world, have already made donations to help the restoration effort and now Ubisoft has also pledged to donate a sum of €500,000.

In a blog release titled supporting Notre-Dame De Paris, Ubisoft said:

As the smoke clears on the events that unfolded on Monday at the Notre-Dame de Paris, we stand in solidarity with our fellow Parisians and everyone around the world moved by the devastation the fire caused. Notre-Dame is an integral part of Paris, a city to which we are deeply connected. Seeing the monument in peril like this affected us all. In light of Monday’s events, we will be donating €500k to help with the restoration and reconstruction of the Cathedral. We encourage all of you who are interested to donate as well. In addition, we want to give everyone the chance to experience the majesty and beauty of Notre-Dame the best way we know how. For one week, we will be giving Assassin’s Creed Unity away free on PC, for anyone who wants to enjoy it. You can download it now for Uplay PC here. When we created Assassin’s Creed Unity, we developed an even closer connection with this incredible city and its landmarks – one of the most notable elements of the game was the extraordinary recreation of Notre-Dame. Video games can enable us to explore places in ways we never could have otherwise imagined. We hope, with this small gesture, we can provide everyone with an opportunity to appreciate our virtual homage to this monumental piece of architecture.

This news comes after the rumours that experts will be referring to Ubisoft’s Assassin Creed Unity for rebuilding purposes as the game have a near true to life representation of Notre-Dame interiors and exterior in one of the game’s levels. Although Ubisoft came forward and confirmed that no agencies have contacted them as of now, but Ubisoft is open and willing to work with the French government in the restoration process. Ubisoft also said the Notre-Dame representation in-game isn’t the exact copy but rather it is an artistic impression with some changes made for the theme to fit better with the game, but they tried to keep it as true to life as possible.

Valve is being sued for ‘encouraging illegal gambling’ in Washington

Subhashish Nanda
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0
Valve is being sued for ‘encouraging illegal gambling’ in Washington

The Native American Quinault Nation in the province of Washington has documented a claim against Valve, expressing that it “doesn’t have a permit to work, encourage or generally participate in any type of betting.”

While the Quinault Nation works its own gambling club in Washington which is liable to substantial guidelines from state and neighborhood government, its claim affirms that Valve, which is additionally Washington-based, has an out of line advantage.

The lawsuit accuses Valve of willingly allowing illegal gambling and benefiting from it.

The report which first appeared on GeekWire mentions of the lawsuit which has a stamped date of 3rd April.

CSGO Skin cases, gambling & lawsuits have been hand-in-hand for Valve for quite sometime now. This is not the first time Valve has been sued over gambling charges. Earlier, Valve had pledged about acting on illegal gambling sites.

DreamHack announces non-exclusive partnership with streaming platform Caffeine

Pranav Nalawade
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0
DreamHack announces non-exclusive partnership with streaming platform Caffeine

One of the world’s largest esports event organizer DreamHack has announced a partnership with streaming platform Caffeine, the company said in a press release.

The agreement will allow Caffeine to broadcast DreamHack events live on its platform of both DotA 2 & CS:GO games. The deal will also feature a show titled ‘Overtime’ which will make its way at DreamHack Open Rio.

DreamHack and Caffeine share the same vision to make esports viewer experience more social and interactive. Their broadcasting platform creates new ways to consume esports content, and DreamHack can reach new fans and gamers globally with our distribution.”

– marcus lindmark, ceo, dreamhack

The partnership is non-exclusive, but the flagship show ‘Overtime’ will feature exclusive content like behind-the-scenes, interviews with the guests & the interactions with audiences.

DreamHack Masters Malmo announced; to have $250,000 prize pool

Malav Popat
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0
DreamHack Masters Malmo announced; to have $250,000 prize pool

The second DreamHack Masters of the year will be hosted at Malmo, the first being DreamHack Masters Dallas which is set to begin on the 28th of May, will see 16 teams competing for the prize pool of $250,000. The event will begin on the 4th of October and end on the 6th of October. The tickets will be revealed on the 24th of May, Friday.

This will be the third DreamHack Masters played at the Malmo. The first two tournaments were played in 2016 and 2017. The 2016 version of the tournament was won by the Swedish Legends, Ninjas In Pyjamas. However, G2 were crowned champions at the 2017 installment of the tournament.

The group stage will be held at the MalmöMässan exhibition, will be free for all, while the playoffs will be played in front of a crowd at the Malmö Arena.

Michael Van Driel, Chief Product Officer at DreamHack AB said,”Malmö was the first city to ever host DreamHack Masters and so it holds a special place in all of our hearts, including a legendary win from NiP on home soil. We are tremendously excited to bring CORSAIR DreamHack Masters back to Malmö Arena and fans can expect the best experience yet as we expand to feature matches for 3 days in the arena and continue with more improvements for the visitor experience.”

Linn Möller-Laketic, project manager at Event in Skåne said, “We are very happy to be able to welcome DreamHack back and look forward to a great partnership. DreamHack is an extremely important part of our goal to make Malmö, and the whole region, a part of the international esports scene.”

Linn Möller-Laketic, project manager at Event in Skåne said, “We are very happy to be able to welcome DreamHack back and look forward to a great partnership. DreamHack is an extremely important part of our goal to make Malmö, and the whole region, a part of the international esports scene.”

PUBG-M developer Tencent reportedly making its own gaming phone

Prateek Jain
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4
PUBG-M developer Tencent reportedly making its own gaming phone

Tencent, Chinese mobile gaming giant is set to launch its own line of gaming smartphones. Tencent is in touch with several mobile manufacturers to develop this gaming phone, according to an unconfirmed report by Chinese media 36Kr.

According to sources, the phone will utilize the latest Qualcomm hardware. Tencent is already in contact with Asus, Razer and Xiamoi’s Blackshark to design and manufacture the phone. The gaming phone will either be sold under Tencent’s brand or include both brands of Tencent and the manufacturer. Although the report didn’t include any date and pricing of the phone, but one can expect a late 2019 release window for the phone.

Mobile gaming alone is already a big business and its future potential seems higher as new hardware is becoming more powerful and is able to handle demanding titles with ease. With 5G on the horizon, the mobile gaming community will see some exponential growth.

Tencent already has a huge presence in the gaming market, with them owning major stakes in Activision-Blizzard and Epic. Tencent also developed the popular game PUBG-Mobile, which till date is the most played mobile battle royale game. However, Tencent at its core has only made games and making hardware is different. With the smartphone market already having such fierce competition, it will be difficult for them to gain any foothold. In china, alone many local and international brands are fighting to gain market hold, with many giving up on it midway.

This may be why Tencent is looking for partnerships with other companies. So that they can reduce as much risk as possible and have a smooth launch of its smartphone brand.

In China alone, 1/3rd of the population plays a mobile game and Tencent seems to be pretty confident that mobile gaming will continue to be China’s preferred mode of gaming. Tencent is already working with Razer on optimizing its Razer Phone for Tencent games and is developing mobile controllers and Razer’s Cortex mobile app.

How COBX pulled off India’s first large scale International esports event of 2019

Pranav Nalawade
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0
How COBX pulled off India’s first large scale International esports event of 2019

Cobx Masters, which concluded on 7th April 2019, had participation from top teams across APAC, tier-I international talents presenting the games to the audience and broadcast on SonyLIV, and had a total prize pool of $200,000 for CSGO and DOTA 2. We look at how the event fared on some basic yardsticks of a good event.

Production

The production for COBX was different than most Indian tournaments and up there with many international events. For the first time in Indian esports history, POV cameras were deployed at a major international event to enhance the user experience online and at the venue. The cameras enabled the audience to feel more immersed and aware of the emotions of each player in real time.

In what was a first, COBX also designed a game status reporter. The game status reporter helped the audience in keeping track of the entire game with relevant stats being displayed for each of the ten players at the same time on separate adjacent screens.

Broadcast

For the Indian audience, COBX collaborated with popular streaming platform SonyLIV and provided a 1080p60 English stream and for the global audience, they streamed the event in English on the Beyond the Summit Twitch channel. The stream on SonyLiv was really choppy and occasionally had frame drops which was really disturbing for the viewer. They also had a Russian stream through their broadcast partner UCC so that the content generated in India was also distributed worldwide.

Teams & Talents

Cobx Masters witnessed the participation of top Dota 2 and CS:GO teams from APAC. The participating teams for Dota 2 were Detonators, Tigers, Signify Dota 2, Exclamation Mark, Aachen City and Entity Gaming and for CS:GO were MVP PK, Alpha Red, Grayhound Gaming, Boot Letou, Signify CS:GO and Global Esports. The games were cast by Austin Walsh and William Lee for Dota 2 along with James Bardolph and Daniel Kapadia for CS:GO. For analysis of these games, they had a panel which had Shane Clarke, Gareth Bateson and Clemens Wloczka for Dota 2 along with Jordan Mays, Sudhen Wahengbam and Rami Rahman for CS:GO. The event was hosted by Pinda Rika Dorji and Alvaro Sanchez Velasco.

Hospitality

With top International teams making an appearance, hospitality was an important part in the event for all teams. COBX provided accommodation at Westin Mumbai, along concierges that were available at all times. The teams and talents were also provided with separate lounges at the venue.

Event Timeline

Day 1 of Cobx Masters was scheduled to start at 10 AM. However, it was delayed and the event eventually started at 12:30 PM. 3 out of the 4 scheduled Dota 2 matches and 2 of the 4 scheduled CS:GO matches were conducted on stage with English casting.

Day 2 started at the scheduled 10 AM time and all the matches were broadcast with little to no issues. The CS:GO semi-finals and one Dota 2 semi-final took place on stage as per broadcast schedule.

Day 3 followed suit and was executed as per the schedule with one Dota 2 semi-final and the grand finals of CS:GO and Dota 2 being conducted.

Conclusion

In our opinion. the event was really well managed by COBX throughout the 3 days. There were glaring technical issues in the 1st day that led to many matches being delayed, but it was sorted on Day 2 and 3 and the flow of the tournament was as expected.

One of the big takeaways was that the production quality was one of the best in India. For an organisation that was executing an international tournament for the first time, the experience for the audience was brilliant. The venue, stage, flares and the overall production was top notch. COBX had especially built a UI that was more immersive and informative for the average viewer to enjoy. The presence of top International teams made the event rank even higher.

Apart from the technical glitches on Day 1 and the poor stream quality, the only other complain we had was the inability to pull audiences. While the management said that their first priority was production quality and not marketing, the lack of audience and the hype surrounding the event took out the sting in what was an otherwise excellent event. Nevertheless, the event puts down a great marker for future organisers to plan and execute an event of this scale.

Assassin’s Creed: Unity will help the reconstruction of Notre Damne in Paris

Abhishek Dave
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2
Assassin’s Creed: Unity will help the reconstruction of Notre Damne in Paris

As you’ve probably heard by now, the iconic Notre Dame cathedral in Paris caught fire last night (Monday, April 15), causing the roof and spire to collapse. 

The building is over 800 years old, and has been a huge part of French culture and history. For comparison, it’s closest rival – the Eiffel tower – is only 132 years old, so you have an idea of just how important Notre Dame truly is to the people of France, and the world.

While this is an undoubtedly heartbreaking scenario, efforts to rebuild are already being put into action, and the damage could have been much worse than it ended up being as the blaze has now been fully extinguished.

The building will be restored as closely as possible to how it was before the fire, meaning that builders and architects involved with the project will be studying a number of photos and videos of the cathedral to recreate it as faithfully and as carefully as possible.

https://twitter.com/joeparlock/status/1117876546755354628

Help is coming from all over the world, and one unexpected source of information is said to be Ubisoft’s own Assassin’s Creed: Unity. 

As you may know, Unity is set in Paris, 1789, and features a truly stunning recreation of Notre Dame cathedral. It’s this incredibly carefully put together digital version of the building that could prove invaluable to its ultimate restoration.

A new report from GPS World, has now suggested that detailed 3D maps such as the one in Assassin’s Creed: Unity will play a role in the restoring of Notre Dame to its former glory.

While we might not have expected Assassin’s Creed to emerge as an unlikely hero in the rebuilding effort, it does make a lot of sense; Ubisoft tend not to mess around when it comes to recreating cities and landmarks in their games, and its version of Notre Dame may just be its finest work to date.

Unity artist Caroline Miousse, told The Verge a while back that Ubisoft’s version of Notre Dame was easily the biggest building in the game, and that she spent ‘literally years fussing over the details of the building’.

Miousse apparently obsessed over old photos to get everything just right, and even worked with texture artists to ensure that ‘each brick was as it should be’.

Liquid march victory at LCS Finals 2019

Arundhati Dutta
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0
Liquid march victory at LCS Finals 2019

Team Liquid claimed the 2019 LCS Spring Split title (3-2) this past weekend over Team SoloMid after outlasting their opponents in a five-game brawl that many have already begun referring to as the best LCS finals ever played.

Team Liquid entered the 2019 LCS Spring Split finals as the heavy favourites, and for good reason – they were the defending champions and they were the best team in the LCS during the regular season. However, Team SoloMid, who we profiled as the most dangerous LCS team, was looking to reclaim their former glory at the expense of the incumbent champions.

Team SoloMid took the hard route to get here. They had to beat the likes of Echo Fox and Cloud9 just to secure this match against Team Liquid, the latter of which took them all five games to dispatch and beat. On the other hand, Team Liquid had an easier against FlyQuest and didn’t even concede a single game to them.

A former champion looking to get their pole position back, and the current kings, looking to defend their crown, the 2019 LCS Spring Split finals had just the right amount of spice and drama to make it worth watching, and it certainly did not disappoint.

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