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Japan Esports Union formed to grow esports in the country

Deepak Ojha
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2
Japan Esports Union formed to grow esports in the country

Three Japanese esports associations have united as a solitary durable unit known as Japan Esports Union or JESU. Esports has for some time been a standard wellspring of diversion in adjacent nations, for example, China and South Korea.

However, it has scuffled to flourish in Japan. JESU’s agenda would be to eliminate the problems and facilitate the development of the sport in the country.

Japan Esports Union

The Japan Esports Union is a conglomerate of Japan e-Sports Association, Japan eSports Federation, and Esports Promotion Organization. The new entity JESU will be responsible for the promotion and development of esports in the country.

Japan Esports Union

Hideki Okamura, the Representative Director of JESU said: “The global audience for esports is set to reach 300 million people by 2019, and 500 million by 2020. That is no different from real-life sports. Esports is mainly popular in Asia and in the U.S., and there is also hope in Japan to popularize esports. We will look to promote the industry and raise esports’ social status in Japan.”

Japan has been not into the steady growth rate due to the strict norms the Government has in place. The limitation for cash prizes is up to 100,000 yen which amounts to only $900. The norms follow “Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations.”

JESU, which aims to be regulated by the Confederation of Government will issue licenses to the professional gamers. Wherefrom, the tournament organizations will also be able to raise the prize pools attracting the gamers and sponsors.

Counter Strike co-creator Jess Cliffe suspended over sexual assault of a child

Pranav Nalawade
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2
Counter Strike co-creator Jess Cliffe suspended over sexual assault of a child

Jess Cliffe, the co-creator of Valve’s popular online shooter series Counter-Strike, was booked into a Seattle jail. On Thursday morning he was arrested over allegations of sexual exploitation of a child.

Seattle ABC affiliate KIRO-7 broke the story on Thursday after discovering Cliffe’s booking record into King County jail. Seattle police detective Patrick Michaud confirmed to Ars that Cliffe was arrested at the jail itself, which public records show happened at 1:17 am Pacific Time, and that no charges had yet been filed.

KIRO pointed out, according to its sources at the King County Prosecutor’s office, that a booking over such charges “typically indicates” the creation of child porn. The station attempted to interview Cliffe’s girlfriend at the couple’s home in West Seattle; she asked questions about the charges and otherwise offered no comment. Though Cliffe does not have a criminal history, public records confirm that Cliffe pled not guilty to assault charges in 2013 and that those charges were dismissed later that year by a King County court.

Valve took stern action

Valve has suspended Cliffe, the company told Kotaku. “We are still learning details of what actually happened,” Valve said. “Reports suggest he has been arrested for a felony offense. As such, we have suspended his employment until we know more.”

The 36-year-old game developer was hired by Valve shortly after he and series co-creator Minh Le began working on the game in 1999, originally a “mod” based on the Half-Life game and its Source rendering engine its fork of the original Quake engine. The game quickly became popular as an online, team-based shooter with a stress on military precision and team tactics.

“We are still learning details of what actually happened,” Valve said to Ars in a statement. “Reports suggest he has been arrested for a felony offense. As such, we have suspended his employment until we know more.”

V4 Future Sports Festival by ESL announced with $600K prize

Deepak Ojha
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1
V4 Future Sports Festival by ESL announced with $600K prize

Inbetween March 23-25 this year, ESL will bring V4 Future Sports Festival. The event will be hosted in Budapest, Hungary and features prize pool of $600,000. Four of the eight teams in the fixtures are invited, names of which have already been derived.

V4 Future Sports Festival

On the basis of the nationality of players, four countries in the region which includes, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary & Czech Republic, have been invited. And the remaining four slots will be offered to teams who wish to participate through national qualifiers.

The invited teams are FaZe, mousesports, Virtus.pro, HellRaisers.

The prize pool distribution of V4 Future Sports Festival looks like:

  • $240,000
  • $120,000
  • $60,000 (3rd & 4th)
  • $30,000 (5th to 8th)

It is unclear if the teams have already confirmed their participation, but as per the ESL website, it states they have already invited the teams.

ALSO READ: IEM Sydney with $250,000

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FACEIT likely to host next CSGO Major

Pranav Nalawade
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2
FACEIT likely to host next CSGO Major

According to an unconfirmed report from dbltap, Valve has selected London-based company FACEIT the next Counter-Strike Major, which will likely take place in September at London’s SSE Arena, Wembley, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the decision.

The venue has prior played host to FACEIT’s events on two occasions, housing ECS Seasons 1 & 3 in 2016 and 2017, respectively. Given the information is accurate, FACEIT will be added to the short list of Major event organizers, currently including ESL, DreamHack, MLG, PGL, and ELEAGUE. When approached for comment by the report’s author, Jarek “DeKay” Lewis, neither Valve nor FACEIT responded to requests.

Because of the support from Valve, Majors in CS:GO are the most coveted and revered events in all of Counter-Strike.The ELEAGUE Boston Major introduced a new format that has included the former Major Qualifier into the Major itself, called the “New Challengers Stage.” The top eight teams in the New Challengers Stage proceed to the “New Legends Stage,” which was formerly the Group Stage. From there, the new top eight teams are granted Legend status and then battle in the “New Champions Stage” to determine a winner.

SK Gaming, G2 Esports, Fnatic, Cloud9, FaZe Clan, Mousesports, Quantum Bellator Fire and Natus Vincere are the eight legend team that automatically qualified for the upcoming FACEIT Major as a result of their performance at ELEAGUE Boston Major : 2018.

Related : Meet The Legends of ELEAGUE Boston Major 2018

It is refreshing to see Valve approach various tournament organizers in looks to diversify the viewer experience and promote competition amongst those looking to host Majors. This helps push the boundaries of production, improving the end product delivered by tournament organizers across the world. In light of the aforementioned expectations are high, and no other than FACEIT are looking to deliver despite the rigorous requirements.

UPDATE: FACEIT has been awarded with next Valve Major for 2018

IEM Sydney 2018 in May this year with $250K

Pranav Nalawade
-
6
IEM Sydney 2018 in May this year with $250K

ESL have announced that the second Installment of Intel Extreme Masters will kick off from 4th May – 6th May 2018 in Qudos Bank Arena, Sydney.

Commencing their first installment from Sydney in May 2017 by giving an action-packed event. The organizers have announced the second season of IEM Sydney 2018.

In the 2017 season, SK Gaming defeated FaZe Clan with the scoreline of 3-1 in the Grand Finals in a competition worthy of the Australian crowd’s excitement.

IEM Sydney 2018

IEM Sydney 2018

However, it’s confirmed that IEM Sydney will be bigger and better with a prize pool of $250,000. The $250,000 prize pool marks a $50,000 increase on the 2017 edition and the playoff stages (May 4th – 6th) will take place in the Qudos Bank Arena in front of a live crowd.

In the press release, three members of the ESL Australia staff sang the praises of Australian CS:GO fans. Michal Blicharz, Vice President of Pro Gaming at ESL, claimed the fans became “part of the show. That type of atmosphere is very rare. They left us no choice but to come back and do it again.”

The teaser trailer accompanying the announcement includes several highlights from last year’s IEM Sydney, many of which star the extremely lively crowd at the Qudos Bank Arena. Yes, that includes the shoeys.

IEM Sydney 2018 will also be a part of the Intel Grand Slam – a competition that offers a $1 million bonus to the first team that wins four out of the last ten major ESL or DreamHack Masters events.

Tickets for the event are due to go on sale on February 2nd and more information regarding teams and qualifiers is expected to follow shortly.

In an altogether alternate event, IEM Oakland, the prizes are even more exciting. Although there has been no news of IEM Oakland for the current year, ESL will most likely be releasing the same in near future.

ESL says “We were wrong” after striking community streamers of DMCA notices

Deepak Ojha
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0
ESL says “We were wrong” after striking community streamers of DMCA notices

Notoriously, the DotA 2 community on Reddit isn’t happy about how ESL has chosen to broadcast the games. The games which were earlier being streamed on Twitch has now found a new home. The professional competitive games have now started to be broadcasted live on Facebook, a social media giant.

The community, as practically understandable, wasn’t happy about this move and started to complain about this in masses. ESL, however, instead of getting things right on their end by fixing the quality of the stream, blocked other streamers. Even further, ESL sent DMCA notices and copyright strike down on accounts who were trying to simplify the streams.

Valve had to intervene in the situation and warned Valve, that it was wrong in doing that. Valve even confirmed that ESL doesn’t have the right to stop anyone else from streaming the game.

Official statement from Johannes

In a statement by the official ESL staff, they’ve firmly apologized on their decision, the complete statement below:

I`ll get straight to the TL;DR here (and then add more details and context to it):

Over the last few days, we were wrong in how we acted in multiple instances, and this post is to apologize to you, fans of esports and community streamers affected.

We were wrong in how we kicked off streaming on Facebook and we were wrong in handling the follow-up with the community, the communication here and the DMCAs which we have since retracted.

The introduction of Facebook as our new broadcast platform did not go as it should have. Instead of focusing on ironing out the kinks, engaging in the right kind of dialogue with you and incorporating your legitimate feedback we were busy following protocol and defending our actions. We should have simply let the community streamers do their thing while focusing on getting our end right. Regardless of having or not having the right to do so, taking down streamers that provide a good experience while we aren’t is not the way to go about things.

We were in the wrong. We will learn from it and go forward.

Now, I’m not going to try to defend it, but since the platform and streaming of the game is a topic which will resurface, I`ll try and add some details and context which are important to consider for the broader picture:

ESL’s goal is to elevate esports. It’s been that way for the past 18 years and many of the same people that started the company in 2000 are still the same ones working behind the scenes at ESL today. We’re not in it for short-term profits but want to help build an industry. Helping to create esports is not only the core of our efforts, it is all we do. Our mission is to give players and teams a platform to create big moments that you enjoy, talk about and remember.

Expanding the number of streaming platforms which show and promote esports and building an environment where platforms compete to show esports is part of that process. Working with companies that can help us bring esports to the mainstream, is part of that process. Yet if the things we do come at the expense of our relationship with the audience, we need to critically re-evaluate our approach.

We acknowledge our mistakes and we apologize. What we got wrong last week we want to get right for the rest of the year. That means learning from what happened, working with Facebook on improving the experience as well as changing the way we talk with you.

All things considered, thank you for watching ESL One Genting, whichever platform you did it on. I’ll be here to continue collecting feedback as I have been for the last couple of days and trying to continue the dialogue.

What is a DMCA

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a controversial United States digital rights management (DRM) law enacted October 28, 1998, by then-President Bill Clinton. The intent behind DMCA was to create an updated version of copyright laws to deal with the special challenges of regulating digital material. Broadly, the aim of DMCA is to protect the rights of both copyright owners and consumers. The law complies with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty, both of which were ratified by over 50 countries around the world in 1996.

Shox to undergo wrist surgery

Pranav Nalawade
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3
Shox to undergo wrist surgery

The French superstar and G2 Esports captain Richard “shox” Papillon revealed on Twitter that he may undergo wrist surgery.

After returning home to France from the ELEAGUE Major: Boston, shox learned that he has a 2 cm cyst on his right wrist, which could need surgery to be dealt with. If he undergoes surgery it would put him out of CS:GO competition for an unknown amount of time.

The surgery doesn’t look like a serious issue to deal with, but the recovery process may hurt his ability to practice since he is right-handed. It’s unclear whether the cyst is benign or malignant.

It seems like ex-FaZe Clan’s Fabien “kioShiMa” Fiey is the only temporary replacement option G2 has right now. Kioshima also teased his next team as G2, but according to a report from Flickshot, he may be headed to Team Envy.

Not the first time

More details should be known after a specialist meeting the player is set to have onFriday. However, Wrist surgery would likely put shox out of the next international CS:GO event in IEM Katowice, which takes place from Feb. 27 to March 4.

This is the fifth time a player has undergone a surgery due to their injury in the game. Rpk in the past has also suffered severe pain in his ears due to headphones. Begining from Olofmeister, GuardiaN, dev1ce and now shox. If you’re also among those suffering from a concerning health illness, head over to the physiologist’s guide for esports athletes.

ELEAGUE CSGO Premier 2018

Pranav Nalawade
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0
ELEAGUE CSGO Premier 2018

ELEAGUE teased the initial details of their upcoming tournament during the live streaming of C9 vs FaZe. The tournament will feature eight teams and will be called ELEAGUE CSGO PREMIER 2018. The scheduled dates are 21st to 29th of July.

Although it isn’t a Valve powered Major, the previous season of ELEAGUE CSGO Premier had a prize pool of $1mn. And the streak is likely to be continued this year.

The event will feature eight teams and will follow best of three double elimination matches. More details of the tournament to follow..

 

C9 keep the USA flag high at Boston Major

Deepak Ojha
-
6
C9 keep the USA flag high at Boston Major

One of the best Major experience to have developed, C9 finally took the trophy home. FaZe and Cloud9 battled it in the best of three (14-16 Mirage, 16-10, 22-19). It was never a one-sided affair for the teams in the playoffs, such as the story in the grand finals. It took the organizers to present two OT (overtimes) for the results to be derived in the finals.

C9 becoming the first North American team to win the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major, they defeated the European’s pride FaZe Clan in the grand finals of the ELEAGUE Major: Boston earlier today.

The finals began with a bo3 series in which Mirage, Overpass, and Inferno were played.

Let’s go through the activities on each map:

Map one, Mirage, although being one of the Cloud9’s pick, The North American squad ran all over the european defence with 7-1 lead.

Unfortunately for the home crowd, Cloud9’s response came too late—as FaZe completed the comeback  and went into the second map of the series on tournament point.

Mirage ended in favor of European Side, 16-14.

C9 kept their place secured with a mind-blowing 12-3 Counter-Terrorist start and an even better Terrorist side Overpass. Despite loosing rounds FaZe tried their best to get back into the game after winning the second pistol round but guys, the North American side were too strong for them to overcome. The amazing Plays from C9’s side overwhelming the Europeans, Overpass ended with a scorline of 16-10 with Tarik ‘tarik’ Celik from Cloud9 top fragging the server with 22 kills.

The final map of the tournament Inferno, began in the favor of FaZe Clan. After sufffering many early round losses, the Europeans came back to win seven rounds in a row. Cloud9’s best efforts saw the first half end 8-7 in favor of FaZe—but after a victory in the second pistol round, Cloud9’s hopes looked to be dwindling fast. FaZe eventually reached match point, but after attempting to end the game with two forcebuys, Cloud9 capitalized on the opportunity and forced the series to overtime. Almost immediately, Jake “Stewie2k” Yip put on a hero-level performance to secure the initial round of overtime. Cloud9 concluded the series 2-1 with a 22-19 final map score.

By taking home the $500,000 prize money Cloud9 became the first North American Counter-Strike Team to win a Major Championship.

Eleague Major Boston final standings:

1. Cloud9 – $500,000 + “Legends”  Status
2. FaZe – $150,000 + “Legends” Status
3-4. SK – $70,000 + “Legends” Status
3-4. Natus Vincere – $70,000 + “Legends” Status
5-8. mousesports – $35,000 + “Legends” Status
5-8. fnatic – $35,000 + “Legends” Status
5-8. Quantum Bellator Fire – $35,000 + “Legends” Status
5-8. G2 – $35,000 + “Legends” Status
9-11. Space Soldiers
9-11. Gambit
9-11. Vega Squadron
12-14. Astralis
12-14. States Liquid
12-14. BIG
15-16. Virtus.pro
15-16. North

Tarik “tarik” Celik was named MVP of the tournament by HLTV considering his consistent gameplay in the grand finals and throughout the tournament. Incidentally, this is the first time the 21-year-old has been awarded with the Most Valuable Player of the tournament title and it comes just five months after he left OpTic together with RUSH to further his career on Cloud9. He had the highest number of kills (258) alongside teammate autimatic, and was in the top 5 in four other categories, including ADR (87.8) and KAST (76.1%).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SK to move to Immortals

Pranav Nalawade
-
2
SK to move to Immortals

According to an unconfirmed report from VPESPORTS, The SK Gaming Counter-Strike: Global Offensive roster is apparently set to leave the organization and move to Immortals in the next few months.

The current Brazilian lineup of Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo, Fernando “fer” Alvarenga, Marcelo “coldzera” David, Epitácio “TACO” de Melo, and Ricardo “boltz” Prass is currently one of the best lineup/team in the world after taking down João “felps” Vasconcellos from the current lineup by replacing him with boltz, the team has gained astounding success, during that span of time SK managed to pull off four championships, including the ESL Pro League Season Six Finals to round out 2017.

Since, Immortals last sale of their roster to Nadeshot’s 100Thieves, which include  Lincoln “fnx” Lau, Lucas “LUCAS1” Teles, and Henrique “HEN1” Teles, the Immortals has been without a full Counter-Strike roster since December.

Although the report states that “First rumoured before Christmas, the potential deal to take Gabriel ‘Fallen’ Toledo, Fernando ‘fer’ Alvarenga, Epitácio ‘TACO’ de Melo, Ricardo ‘boltz’ Prass and the world’s best player Marcelo ‘coldzera’ David to Immortals has been unofficially confirmed by a number of sources. As a move, it makes sense for both parties, with the main motivation from the SK team being dissatisfaction with the management at the organization, and the owners of SK needing to divest themselves of conflicting investments in the CS scene, as well as having doubts about the long-term profitability of team ownership.”

However, both parties are motivated to make the move happen and Immortals recently invested in the legendary Made In Brazil (MIBR) brand in December 2017, further adding fuel to the fire. According to sources, the team is still under contract at the time of writing, but their contracts are set to expire in the near future, making the deal potentially cheaper for Immortals than it might otherwise have been.

According to the report from ESPN, SK parent company ESForce is also the parent company of Virtus Pro, and the former owner of Natus Vincere. ESForce was reportedly acquired by Mail.ru for $150 million on Jan. 21.

If the move does go through it will create waves in the world of CS:GO, and reaffirm Immortals’ commitment to a game and scene that has not treated them kindly in the last few months. What it means for SK Gaming is another matter, both in terms of the loss of profile that will ensue and the withdrawal of ESForce’s financial support, although a smart venture capitalist looking to invest in the scene would be wise to consider a brand that has been in esports for more than twenty years, were it to go up for sale.

If the roster makes their way to immortals, Immortals will have a complete Brazilian Counter Strike lineup after 3 months to compete at the highest level of Counter-Strike.

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