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Team Kolkata are your winners of Skyesports Valorant Skyshowdown 2020

Sonu Banerjee
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Team Kolkata are your winners of Skyesports Valorant Skyshowdown 2020

After three days of intense Valorant action, the Skyesports Valorant Championship 2.0 has come to a conclusion, and we finally have our winners of the lion’s share of the massive prize pool of 1,50,000 INR.

The finals of the championship were set in a best-of-three matchup between the two finalists – Team Kolkata and Team Chennai. Both the teams had shown exceptional performance throughout the group stages as well as the knockout rounds of the tournament.

The first map played in the grand finals was Ascent, which Team Kolkata managed to take quite comfortably with a score of 13-8. Team Chennai was swift to regain their composure though, as they won the following game in Bind with the same scoreline, but this time in their favour.

In the end, it all came down to game three, with the decider map being Split. Team Chennai gained themselves a head start by winning two consecutive rounds on the attackers’ side, but Kolkata retaliated. From then on, it was a back and forth scenario between the teams with each team picking up a round or two before the other team strikes back.

The game seemed to be quite intense, making it quite tough to predict who’d come out on top, that is till when team Kolkata decided to pick up their pace and go on a frenzy of wins. One round after another, the team from West Bengal kept dominating their opponents, without leaving any room for mistakes for team Chennai to capitalize on.

Even after the sides switched, it was pretty much a one-sided showdown from team Kolkata, who secured the game with a massive lead and a score of 13-5, rendering them as the winners of the Skyesports Valorant Showdown.

The Skyesports Valorant Showdown was organised in association with Loco with an aim to develop the esports scene in India. The tournament continued from September 19-21, with a total of 218 teams participating for a shot at the 1,500,000 INR prize pool and products from HyperX and WD Black.

SkyEsports Valorant Showdown 2.0 reached a landmark of reaching almost 20,000 peak concurrent viewers on the final day. The total number count was accumulated across four broadcasts streaming in Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam and English languages. Rising through some external hurdles, SkyEsports managed to bring a large viewership number for PC games in their second edition of SkyEsports Championship.

CSGO: ESL to host IEM Global Challenge on LAN

Pranav Nalawade
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CSGO: ESL to host IEM Global Challenge on LAN

Intel Extreme Masters Global Challenge 2020 is set to bring CS:GO and players back to a LAN environment for the first time since earlier this year. Taking place across December 15 – 20, the top 8 performing teams from IEM New York 2020, IEM Beijing-Haidian 2020 and DreamHack Open Fall 2020 are invited to travel to Cologne, Germany, to compete at an Intel Grand Slam awarding tournament and their share of $500,000 USD.

IEM Global Challenge Qualification Process:

This tournament will have a total of four European, three North American, and one CIS team will be competing at IEM Global Challenge, which will play out using a four-team BO3 GSL group stage followed by a single-elimination playoff bracket and a BO5 grand final.

This is still based on how the development of the global pandemic is resolved till the year end and this could be the first LAN event after a long break from the outbreak of the Coronavirus.

The team list for the event will look as follows:

  • DreamHack Open Fall EU
  • ESL Ranking EU #1
  • ESL Ranking CIS
  • America IEM New York
  • IEM Beijing EU
  • ESL Ranking EU #2
  •  ESL Ranking NA
  •  IEM Beijing NA

Prize Money Distribution:

Photo: ESL

First place will take home $200,000, with second place earning $100,000. The third and fourth place will earn $50,000 each, while fifth and sixth will take home $30,000. Teams that finish in seventh and eighth place make the remaining share of $20,000 each.

The Intel Extreme Masters: Global Challenge will replace the previously announced CS:GO Rio Major. The latter was supposed to take place in November, but was canceled due to the ongoing situation involving COVID-19. Nevertheless, a subsequent event will return to the Brazil region when everything is resolved, with purchased tickets valid for the future event.

The Intel Extreme Masters New York event will proceed as planned through an online format in October. IEM Beijing-Haidian will take place next between November 6 – 22, with North American, European, Oceania, and Asian teams competing for a $250,000 prize pool.

The IEM Global Challenge will then be held on December 15 – 20. The tournament will see eight of the best teams from North America and Europe clash in Cologne, Germany for a $500,000 prize pool. Since the event is offline and features teams from different regions, it will also count towards the Intel Grand Slam—a $1 million prize given to the first team that wins 4 S-Tier events hosted by IEM or DreamHack Masters.

G2 Owner Thinks Valorant Will “Destroy” CS:GO

Sonu Banerjee
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G2 Owner Thinks Valorant Will “Destroy” CS:GO

Carlos ‘Ocelote’ Rodriguez Santiago, owner and founder of G2 Esports, has revealed his optimistic thoughts on the future of Valorant as an esport, and he seems to put Riot’s competitive shooter one step ahead of its primary rival in the genre, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

The former professional League of Legends player has stated in an interview with ESPN Esports that Valorant will be “destroying” CSGO in terms of player counts. 

According to Ocelote, the in-game mechanics of a game aren’t enough to safeguard its popularity. The cinematics and lore developed by Riot Games and Activision Blizzard for the agents in Valorant should have a lasting impact in the players’ minds.

“A video game is not just a video game, it’s what happens around the video games,” Ocelote said. “In Valorant, you have different characters and each character has lore and background. We, humans, are very empathetic by nature so we want to know about these characters.”

Riot has also built Spotify playlists for each of the agents in the game for the players to enjoy. The songs in the playlist are relevant to the backgrounds of the agents. For example the playlist of Raze features songs from a Brazilian singer while that of Omen features enigmatic music and sounds.

Ocelote believes that the lack of change in CSGO over the years can ultimately lead to its downfall. “In Counter-Strike, the only thing you have going for you is the mechanics and I love the game to death, I really do,” he further says.

Ocelote explains that if he’s asked to bet all his money on either Valorant eventually surpassing CSGO or not doing so, he’d wager on the former choice.

NVIDIA Reflex lowers Input Lag in Valorant: How to turn it on

Pranav Nalawade
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NVIDIA Reflex lowers Input Lag in Valorant: How to turn it on

The NVIDIA RTX 30-series cards are probably the most cost-effective GPUs a user can expect to purchase right now. Other than providing exceptional gaming performance at extremely low prices, the new set of graphic cards also rock some unique features aimed to improve visual clarity and help gamers to get a competitive advantage.

NVIDIA Reflex is one of the new features that comes with any of the RTX 30-series cards. Similar to NVIDIA Ultra Low Latency, Reflex minimises the latency faced by a player while playing online competitive games. Reduced latency means the player will get an extra edge in combat by being able to react and respond to movements faster than their enemies.

Today, we’ll show you how to turn on the NVIDIA Reflex for Riot’s new competitive shooter Valorant.

Considering you have NVIDIA Reflex in your GPU, once you launch Valorant you have to go to the settings menu. There, you can find an option called “NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency” which can be toggled by the user at will. For Valorant, players can either keep the option to “Enabled” or change it to “Enabled + Boost”.

Keeping Reflex to Enabled should be enough to minimise the in-game latency you face while playing. Choosing the latter option will additionally boost your game’s performance, prompting a warning that the GPU clock would be kept high.

Regardless of which setting you choose, you should notice a significant change in your gameplay experience the next time you join a match. The low latency will help you land your shots better while the boost is likely to improve your FPS count by a margin.

Thumbnail Photo via YETI.

PUBG Mobile drops out of top mobile games in August; Among Us enters the fray

Divyesh Moghe
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PUBG Mobile drops out of top mobile games in August; Among Us enters the fray

PUBG Mobile is dethroned from its consistent position to rank among the top ten mobile games in the world according to total downloads. The SensorTower monthly report for game downloads indicates a steep drop in PUBG Mobile’s global downloads with new games entering the list.

PUBG Mobile and its dominant position in this monthly list has drastically changed in the month of August. The game is ranked as fifth in top ten list for Apple App Store but remains unranked for Google Play Store and overall rankings list. The game getting banned did not affect this list as the data is published for August 2020 and PUBG Mobile ban in India was imposed on September 2nd.

The mobile gaming genre has seen a shift between the top trending games as more casual games are making in their name in the list. The monthly list is topped by a game named Scribble Rider from Voodoo. It was the most downloaded mobile game worldwide for August 2020 with an estimated 44.6 million installs.

The new game like Among Us is quickly gaining popularity across the world. Among Us became a global phenomenon due to streamers on Twitch causing a sudden surge in popularity of this game. The title grew by 661% in terms of downloads on a month-to-month basis reaching a total of over 18.4 million downloads in this month. This game is bound to reach atleast top three in the next monthly report of top mobile games installations.

The countries with the most installs of the game during this period were India at 16.7 percent of its total downloads and the United States at close to 12 percent.

Cloud9 adds woxic to its CS:GO roster

Sonu Banerjee
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Cloud9 adds woxic to its CS:GO roster

The Cloud9 colossus seems to be developing in full swing, as the North American organisation has announced signing two new players in rapid succession. Özgür “⁠woxic⁠” Eker is the newest player to join the Cloud9 roster, the org revealed today, only minutes after they announced the signing of Mezii.

Like his prior acquisitions, Cloud9 General Manager Henry “HenryG” Greer has also publicly revealed the details of this new signing. Woxic, who has joined the team as an AWPer, was signed over a 3 year deal with a deal value of $1,365,000 which includes the transfer fee and the total salary.

Fans have wholeheartedly supported HenryG’s decision on this signing and welcomed the Turkish pro to the C9 team. Woxic will play alongside rifler Mezii and IGL Alex “⁠ALEX⁠” McMeekin under the guidance of the experienced coach Aleksandar “⁠kassad⁠” Trifunović.

Cloud9 signs Mezii as the second addition to their CS:GO roster

Sonu Banerjee
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Cloud9 signs Mezii as the second addition to their CS:GO roster

Cloud9 has announced their second signing to the CSGO roster, and it’s none other than British Counter-Strike pro William “Mezii” Merriman.

The 21-year-old will join the North American organisation as a rifler, support and closer, as revealed by Henry “HenryG” Greer – the general manager of Cloud9 – through a tweet describing the details of the signing. The newest addition to the C9 roster was signed under a 3 year deal starting on September 19th with a transfer fee of $83,000 and a total salary of $426,000.

The former GamerLegion player seemed to be equally as excited to join his new team. “Today is a dream come true,” Mezii said. “I’m up on cloud nine but this is only the beginning of my journey.”

Mezii will play alongside IGL Alex “⁠ALEX⁠” McMeekin and coach Aleksandar “⁠kassad⁠” Trifunović in the revamped Cloud9 roster. 

HenryG seems to be confident in this new signing, as he has showered the player with compliments through a statement. “If you look at this as a gamble then understand I’m playing for all the marbles and this decision was not undertaken lightly,” the former caster said. “Mezii is a player of great dedication and possesses an encyclopedic knowledge on utility usage that makes the old colour commentator’s heart swell with patriotic pride.”

Skyesports and Loco announce ‘Skyesports Championship 2.0’ across 5 top game titles

Divyesh Moghe
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Skyesports and Loco announce ‘Skyesports Championship 2.0’ across 5 top game titles

SkyEsports, the Chennai based Esports organisation, and Loco, India’s leading livestreaming and Esports app, has announced Skyesports Championship 2.0 that will be broadcasted on Loco in six languages. This edition has a combined prize pool of whopping ₹11,00,000 where teams will fight across five titles over the course of two months.

SkyEsports Championship 2.0 begins from 19th September, starting with the IPL- Themed,city based Valorant tournament named SkyEsports Valorant Showdown. The second edition of SkyEsports Championship will have top five titles namely Valorant, Brawlstars, clash of clans, Rainbow Six: Siege and World Cricket Championship Rivals. The massive prize pool of ₹11,00,000 will be distributed among these five games.

The commencement of SkyEsports Championship 2.0 will be marked by Valorant Invitational tournament. Eight invited teams from the esports industry will represent one city each and fight for a chance to earn the lion’s share of ₹1,50,000 prize pool. The popular names range from prominent streamers like Hydraflick, Scout, and 8bit Thug, professional Valorant teams like Velocity Gaming and Noble Esports to veteran esports organizations like Global Esports, participating in this tournament. The best performers for this tournament will win WD Black SSD and HyperX rewards.

For the first time in Indian esports, Loco will broadcast this tournament in six different languages namely Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu, and English, with a strong focus on South Indian region.

Talking about this tournament, Shiva Nandy, CEO of Skyesports said, “This is a great opportunity to build the grass root for Esports in India. Bringing in both influencers and professional teams to participate together will give a mix of flavor for the audience and the tournament will be a highlight in Esports this year.”

Speaking about the partnership for this tournament, Anirudh Pandita, Founder, Pocket Aces, said, “Skyesports and Loco have for long enjoyed an extremely fruitful relationship, and we are pleased to partner with them once again to live stream the upcoming Skyesports Championship 2.0. Our previous tournaments have garnered a phenomenal response and we are committed to continue bringing outstanding esports content for our viewers and a chance to watch some of the finest teams in the country live in action. Additionally, offering live commentary in four local languages of the south region stands testament to our goal of making esports a household name in the country.”

Pocket Aces is the company that operates five socially distributed content brands and one direct-to-consumer platform:

  • FilterCopy (short videos)
  • Dice Media (multi-episode web series)
  • Gobble (food, travel, home videos)
  • Jambo (young-adult animation)
  • Nutshell (infotainment videos)
  • Loco (e-sports and game streaming platform).

PUBG Corp. in talks with Jio to bring back PUBG Mobile in India

Divyesh Moghe
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PUBG Corp. in talks with Jio to bring back PUBG Mobile in India

PUBG Corporation is discussing the arrangements with Telecom titan Jio to bring their famous title PUBG Mobile back in India. The flying rumors about a potential partnership between these two giants are apparently turning out to be true.

According to the reports, South Korean company PUBG Corporation has initiated talks with Jio for distribution of the most popular battle-royale game in India. The sources state that topics like revenue share and localization are being discussed.

PUBG Mobile was banned in India with 117 other Chinese apps for datamining and user privacy concerns. According to the official press release, these apps were blocked as they were “prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, Defense of India and security of state and public order.” After this imposition, PUBG Corporation responded to this situation with a firm decision to sever its ties with Tencent Games for India region specifically.

This imposition left room for speculations of a local Indian firm to pick up the opportunity of publishing PUBG Mobile in India. The early rumors pointed towards Jio and apparently the tales are true as the report’s sources suggest a massive partnership between PUBG Corp. and Jio.

According to the information conveyed, “The talks are in an early stage, which began just after the government’s second round of bans. Officials from both the sides are working out the contours of how to structure various aspects of the deal.”

Another source states, “Legal experts from both sides are exploring possibilities on how revenues should be split, whether it would be 50:50 or Jio guaranteeing PUBG revenues based on a fixed number of users every month.”

PUBG Mobile was mainly banned for its concerns over user privacy and data management by the overseas servers. Tencent also upgraded its user privacy for Indian playerbase but still could not evade the banhammer. This plausible partnership between Jio and PUBG Corp. solves this big issue of user privacy. A big firm like Jio had already partnered up with PUBG once in the past were Jio users got in-game rewards in PUBG Mobile Lite version and this massive partnership can provide a strong support for PUBG Mobile make a comeback in Indian market.

Cyberpunk 2077 System Requirements: What do I need to run this game?

Divyesh Moghe
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Cyberpunk 2077 System Requirements: What do I need to run this game?

Cyberpunk 2077 system requirements are finally revealed by the developers, CD Projekt Red, after a long wait. The game is considered to be among the top contenders that can potentially the game of this year. The system requirements for this massive game were thought to be very high end by surprisingly, a decent build is able to run this game.

Cyberpunk 2077 system requirements

Cyberpunk 2077 is an open-world, action-adventure story set in Night City, a megalopolis obsessed with power, glamour and body modification. As per the game’s official website, You play as V, a mercenary outlaw going after a one-of-a-kind implant that is the key to immortality. You can customize your character’s cyberware, skillset and playstyle, and explore a vast city where the choices you make shape the story and the world around your character.

Cyberpunk 2077 minimum system requirements:

  • OS: 64-bit Windows 7 or 64-bit Windows 10
  • DirectX Version: DirectX 12
  • Processor: Intel Core i5-3570k or AMD FX-8310
  • Memory: 8GB
  • Graphics card: Nvidia GTX 780 3GB or AMD Radeon RX 470
  • Storage: 70 GB HDD (SSD recommended)

Cyberpunk 2077 recommended system requirements:

  • OS: 64-bit Windows 10
  • DirectX Version: DirectX 12
  • Processor: Intel Core i7-4790 or AMD Ryzen 3 3200G
  • Memory: 12GB
  • Graphics card: Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB or AMD Radeon R9 Fury
  • Storage: 70 GB SSD

Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the most awaited games of this year and by far from the impression of this game, the expected system requirement list was more than what is released. With the launch of new Nvidia GeForce RTX 3000 series, the game was expected to run on the high end builds but apparently, the game can be enjoyed on lower end hardware as well with the sacrifice of extreme graphics offered by Cyberpunk 2077.

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