It’s a war of words between CSGO Analyst Duncan Thorin Sheilds and the Danish Esports organization, Astralis Group. The subject of this debate is their recent move to bench Xyp9x, which the Thorin believes, has more to do with the players than the organizations.
Astralis’ CEO, in a blog post on their official website owed up to the fact that they indeed are proud of having more than five members in their team. They further strengthened their intentions by regretting it should’ve done earlier. The whole point of the blogpost was to shun out critiques who were calling names to the Astralis Group for having 7 players.
That's rich when you won't give your players a break until they force your hand with a medical note from a doctor.
So essentially you are the one who was calling them a liar or you simply don't care about the issue as much as you're pretending. pic.twitter.com/zja8TQIcJA
However, what came in as a shocker was a revelation from Thorin, about Astralis players being denied a break. Thorin said, “That’s rich when you won’t give your players a break until they force your hand with a medical note from a doctor.”
Furthermore, Thorin even slammed Astralis for calling their players “liars” or simply not caring enough as much as they were pretending.
The epicenter of this controversy was a post by Astralis, titled “What should have been done a long time ago,” suggesting that their move to have more than five players was overdue.
It’s not the first time that Boycott Chinese movement has begun in India. This time around, the movement is looking to ban Chinese smartphones & some popular Chinese apps like TikTok. A videoby Sonam Wanchuk asking for a ban on Chinese games like COD & PUBG Mobile has put the two-game titles under the list of Chinese apps to be boycotted.
Tencent, the developers of PUBG Mobile which is a battle royale game is one of the largest Chinese MNC around the world with a net worth of over $ 500 billion dollars. They are the ones behind the most popular instant messaging app in China known as ‘WeChat’. Similarly, Call of Duty Mobile is developed & published by TiMi studios, a subsidiary of Tencent. The developers at TiMi have created other popular games as well such as Arena of Valor, Crossfire Legends and many more.
However, there has been increased tension across the regions that come around India-China border and because of which the new anti-China movement has led to many Indian gamers uninstalling COD & PUBG Mobile despite the growing esports scene in the country. PUBG Mobile has been conducting several tournaments for Indian players & fans with huge prizepool, and has managed to gain decent audience during their broadcasts. COD Mobile is also ready to embark its journey on the same path.
The process for the un-installation of these two Chinese games has been slower as compared to TikTok that faced instant backlash. We feel like the YouTube vs TikTok fiasco was also a major reason behind it, as Carryminati’s popular video against TikTok’er Amir Siddiqui was put down by YouTube moments before it was going to be the most liked non-musical video on YouTube all across the globe.
Games like PUBG Mobile also came under scrutiny last year when the game was found to be censoring comments made within the game as per Chinese censorship laws. Let us know in the comments section which Chinese games or apps have you uninstalled recently.
George Floyd, an African-American man, resident of Minneapolis, Minnesota died during an arrest when a police officer, Derek Chauvin, kept his knee on the right side of Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. The death of George has sparked Black Life Matters protests across the USA, with support from various celebrities and companies like Netflix, Amazon, Beyonce, Micheal Jordan, and many more.
The effects of protests are visible everywhere, even among gamers. EA Sports, one of the biggest sports game developers, recently announced delay of their upcoming Madden NFL 21 reveal trailer. In a tweet from official Madden NFL account EA announced the delay of the reveal.
In the Tweet, EA said:
“Tomorrow, we had committed to celebrating Madden NFL 21 with you, but we’re not going to do that now.
We stand with our African American / Black community of friends, players, colleagues, and partners. Our immediate attention is on actions we can take to drive change against the unjust treatment and systemic bias that is plaguing the nation and our world.
We’ll find another time to talk football with you. Because this is bigger than a game,
bigger than sports, and needs all of us to stand together and commit to change.”
It’s only logical for EA to delay the reveal right now as the tensions are very high among the citizens and since Madden NFL has biggest market in the US, revealing the game right now wouldn’t be feasible. Plus NFL as a sport have many African-American players and is loved by the community, it would feel unjust not to stand for the cause. Be it a gaming company or any individual, everyone should stand against racial unjust as every human life matters and no human race is above humanity.
Let’s face it, some games are indeed unwinnable. Some circumstances like a teammate disconnecting or going AFK at game start can potentially waste the time of nine other people in the game, and that’s exactly why a surrender button can be vital at times.
Games like CSGO and League of Legends have implemented a surrender option previously, and it looks like Riot’s new shooter VALORANT is also heading down the same path. VALORANT games can often last for a good amount of time, so Riot has decided to give players the freedom of choosing if the game gets unwinnable and throwing in the white flag to spare players their time.
Through a recent interview from ESPN Esports, Riot devs Anna Donlon and Joe Ziegler have shed light on the upcoming surrender option for VALORANT. The devs have confirmed that while the surrender option won’t be available at release, it will soon be a reality in near future.
“There’s actually two problems I want to cover,” Ziegler mentioned. “We’ve actually gotten a lot more severe on AFK punishments, but we want to make sure that if that actually happens, that a team can take agency of the situation and figure out if they want to play out the rest of the match.”
It goes without saying that players who go AFK after the game starts are certainly a nuisance to the whole team, and this change will put the rest of the team in the driver’s seat to decide if the game is pointless and giving up is a better option.
The exact date of the availability of the surrender option was not made clear by the devs. But the assurance that it will arrive “very soon after launch” should be enough to keep the fans overjoyed for a while.
Lesquin, France, June 2nd, 2020 – NACON and its development studio KT Racing, in collaboration with WRC Promoter, are pleased to announce that TOYOTA GAZOO Racing will become the presenting sponsor of the 2020 and 2021 eSports WRC seasons.
The announcement celebrates the Japanese manufacturer’s recent unveiling of the all-new Toyota GR Yaris, a pure performance car born from Toyota’s title-winning experience in the World Rally Championship. Equipped with Toyota’s new GR-FOUR intelligent all-wheel drive system and a thrilling 1.6-litre 3-cylinder turbocharged engine delivering 261 DIN hp and 360 Nm of torque, the all-new Toyota GR Yaris promises to be lightweight, powerful and exhilarating – a fitting prize for the eSports WRC Champion!
The partnership between TOYOTA GAZOO Racing and NACON will extend into further promotions spanning WRC 8 as well as WRC 9, the latest installment of the official WRC game scheduled for release on 3 September 2020.
Le Mans 24 Hours
12th- 19th June 2016. Circuit de la Sarthe, Le Mans, France.
Since its kick-off last January during the Monte Carlo Rally, the 5th season of eSports WRC is in full swing, and has already brought together many competitors in WRC 8. The competition’s fame hasn’t stopped growing, and has established it as a reference, as much in the world of video games as that of automobile racing. Each year, the organization and quality of the challenges improve and are recognized by both the professionals and the players.
Lebanese competitor Sami-Joe currently leads the 2020 eSports Championship presented by Toyota Gazoo Racing. He claimed his second win of the year last weekend at Rally Portugal, moving a point ahead of 2017 and 2019 champion Lohan ‘Nexl’ Blanc with four rounds remaining.
Both could qualify for the grand final with victory at Italy’s Rally Sardinia next month. We will have to wait until the eSports WRC Grande Finale next October though to name this exceptional season’s ultimate winner, who will be one of the first owners of the new and exciting Toyota GR Yaris.
This season, eSports WRC is already benefiting from the support of famous partners such as Fanatec, BenQ, and PlaySeat, and it is with great pride that the NACON and WRC Promoter teams welcome TOYOTA GAZOO Racing as the new presenting sponsor of the online championship.
“We’re very proud of the progress we’ve made since the creation of eSports WRC, which has become inseparable from the development and work performed all year long on the WRC video games.” said Benoît Clerc, NACON’s Head of Publishing. “It has now become an unmissable event for every fan of off-road racing games. Thanks to the support of Toyota, the 2020 year will benefit from significant reinforcement, and we’re very impatient to continue collectively expanding eSports WRC.”
Andrea Carlucci, Director of Product and Marketing Management of Toyota Motor Europe, said: “We’re pleased to partner with eSports WRC to bring the excitement of rallying to more fans around the world. As one of the pillars of TOYOTA GAZOO Racing, e-motorsports is key for us to make motorsport and sports cars more accessible to more people and to foster a new generation of car lovers everywhere. With the growing interest in eSports, and our increasing sports car offering, we’re looking forward to working closely with our partners to bring our brand value and exciting products closer to consumers and fans.”
WRC Promoter managing director Oliver Ciesla highlighted the recent growth in eSports competition, particularly fueled by the current enforced pause in global motorsport. “Since physical events have been affected by recent circumstances, eSports is, now more than ever, a way for our fans to experience the thrill of motorsports competition even more intensely,” he said.
“The eSports WRC Championship has grown in stature over the last five years to become one of motorsport’s leading virtual competitions. We’re pleased to welcome the enthusiastic participation of Toyota Gazoo Racing, a WRC manufacturer team, to the tournament“. Oliver Ciesla, Managing Director at WRC Promoter.
WRC 8 is already available on PC, Xbox One, PS4™ and Nintendo Switch™. Stay tuned for news and announcements on WRC 9, which will be available on 3 September on PS4™, Xbox One and PC from the Epic Game Store. A release date for Xbox Series X, PS5™ and Nintendo Switch will be shared at a later date.
Mumbai, June 2, 2020 — ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today announced that it is now a Verified Solutions Partner of Unity Technologies, the world’s leading platform for creating and operating interactive, real-time 3D (RT3D) content (http://www.unity.com). As a Verified Solutions Partner, ASUS ensures its SDK is optimized for the latest version of the Unity Editor, providing a seamless experience for developers using Unity.
“This partnership aims to enhance the world-beating ROG Phone mobile gaming ecosystem, by making it easier for game developers to incorporate ROG Phone’s uniquely powerful hardware capabilities into their games, ” said Bryan Chang, General Manager of the Phone Business Unit, ASUS.
“Having ROG Phone join our Verified Solutions Partner program is more than thrilling,” said Junbo Zhang, General Manager of Unity Greater China. “By providing access to the ROG Phone plugin, ASUS is enabling Unity developers to create next-level gaming experiences through the utilization of ASUS game-centric mobile phone series.”
Game developers using the Unity real-time 3D content creation platform will get exclusive access to a plugin with five ROG Phone features[i], allowing them to easily optimize their games to take full advantage of the hardware capabilities of the ROG Phone. As a consequence, gamers will be able to enjoy a wider range of mobile games that include exciting new features optimized specially for ROG Phone, giving them a unique mobile gaming experience not available on other smartphones.
Developers will be able to obtain a single plugin supporting all five ROG Phone features via the Unity Asset Store (http://unity.com/rog-phone), or they can contact the ASUS ROG R&D team directly via email at [email protected].The ROG Phone plugins include the TwinView SDK, Gamepad SDK, Aura Light SDK, Refresh Rate Control SDK, and Performance Boost SDK. More SDKs may be added as they become available in the future.
In order to promote and grow this new partnership, ROG plans to attend selected important developer-engagement events during 2020. The latest news and developments can be obtained via the official ROG channels. ROG is very excited about the potential of this new partnership, which will make the ROG Phone mobile gaming ecosystem an even more compelling platform for both developers and gamers.
That’s literally the update log for the latest update dispatched for CS:GO, which you probably didn’t even notice. The update sized 5 MB, and improved a grenade mechanism, which assures the damage from the grenade to be monotonous.
Earlier, several users had reported that the grenade damages in some of their games were abnormal. In simpler terms, a grenade would earlier inflict damages more than once, or when you’re bhoping and a grenade strangely sticks on you, causing it to block and explode irregularly, will no longer be the case after today’s update. Valve’s earlier update to the game, last week also had mechanism upgrades to the grenades.
Further, the CSGO community was anticipating something bigger than this obviously. It’s been a couple of months since Source 2 rumors and leaks were making the way. On top it, it’s the VALORANT launch day! Valve could’ve been the notorious child to deploy a large and interesting update.
Wherever you are in the world, getting involved with gaming is fun and gives you something to fill your spare time. In the middle of this global pandemic, there has been a lot of getaways for people around the world. From online gaming, to social media influencing. While many like to play classic slots at Virgin online casino, millions of people now love to watch eSports and see their favorite teams compete in the planet’s biggest online or offline events. It is thought that eSports generated $1bn in revenue during 2019 and has over 400 million fans.
In a recent report by Newzoo, esports and gaming industry was valued at $160 billion in 2020. The primary reason behind this success is the professional teams who keep fans entertained while competing in top eSports games. Over the years, this has seen teams emerge as top dogs and make lots of money!
But who are the best and most successful eSports teams ever?
Team Liquid
Whether you are new to eSports or have been following it for a while, you will probably have heard of the famed Team Liquid. They could quite easily claim to be THE most successful eSports team around, and few would argue. They have been in the game for 20 years now after being formed in 2000 by Victor Goosens. Over that time, they have been one of the most successful teams on the scene and have put out teams in pretty much every major eSport game or tournament.
They started as a team competing in StarCraft and StarCraft 2 before branching out into leagues for classic games like League of Legends and Dota 2. With estimates for total eSports winnings as a team of almost $35m and still going strong today, Team Liquid is massive.
Evil Geniuses
Photo via ESL
Of course, Team Liquid is not the only eSports group on the block – and they are not the oldest! As unbelievable as it may seem, the Evil Geniuses team was formed in 1999 originally, so they just pip them to the post. Based in San Francisco, they have gone on to become a very successful team in their own right and give Team Liquid a real run for their money.
They started out competing as a Counter Strike: Global Offensive squad but now show up in a vast array of competitions for games like World of Warcraft and Call of Duty. They have got some talented players in their ranks for fans to follow, including Sumail Hassan and Peter Dager. Overall, this team has scooped almost $25m in winnings to date from 841 events.
Fnatic
This is a team which also has a great history of success in eSports and is well-known to many fans. Its significant achievement has been in League of Legends, where the team has won multiple events over the years. They are also widely respected for fielding powerful CS:GO teams around the world. Their CS:GO team, for example, claimed back to back majors with victories in the ESL One: Katowice 2015 and ESL One: Cologne 2015 events.
They have also scooped the eSports team of the year in both 2006 and 2009 while having over one million loyal fans on social media. When you also factor in that they were the first team to win three major events in eSports history, it is clear to see why they rate so highly. Based in London, they have amassed around $15m in winnings to date and can name eSports legends like f0rest (Patrik Lindberg) as previous team members.
OG
Photo: OG
With around $30m in total prize money from 81 events so far, OG is a name that has exploded onto the eSports scene lately. Dota 2 is where they have tasted a lot of success, but they also compete in Super Smash Bros and CS:GO as well. N0tail and JerAx are their star names right now, and they have picked up a lot of followers since forming in 2015. Based mainly on Europe, they also have big-name backing to help in terms of Red Bull sponsorship. Although they have not been going long, their outstanding success to date has already put them up there with the best eSports teams ever. Perhaps their most well-known triumphs to date were wins in the 2018 and 2019 International Dota 2 events.
eSports has come a long way
Since first starting, it is fair to say that eSports has come a long way. It is seen not only in the mainstream media attention it gets but also in the hugely successful teams and players who are part of the sport. The above are some of the best teams ever to compete in eSports, and all are still going strong. With new events and leagues coming into play all the time, it will be exciting to see if they can carry on in this vein in the future.
After the conclusion of VALORANT’s closed beta on 28th May, the servers of the competitive shooter were down worldwide for almost 5 days. The official launch of the game has already started in Asian countries and will be finished by 3rd June across the globe.
Before the official release of the game, Riot devs have already leaked a significant amount of details on the upcoming new game mode, new agent and the much anticipated VALORANT Battle Pass.
A June 1st stream from ESPN Esports saw Riot devs Ana Donlan and Joe Ziegle specifying details on all the upcoming new stuff to the fans. Previously, leaks of the Spike Rush mode gave fans the general idea on the game mode. It will be a faster paced mode and the game times will be shorter, making it perfect for people in a rush or those who don’t have enough time to play a full unrated or ranked game.
Zielger mentioned in the stream, “Our goal for creating this game mode was: you go through these long, stressful sessions, what do you play when you just need to cool off? Have a quick experience where you can chill a little bit.”
Details on the Battle Pass were also specified in the stream. Donlan claimed that the VALORANT Battle Pass would be costing users a 1000 Valorant points, which is $10 in real cash, making its price the same as a lvl 1 Dota Battle Pass, which came out last week. There’ll be a free version of the pass available as well. However, the rewards’ line on it is expected to be inferior to that of the premium one.
“We always wanted to create something in our battle pass that would provide players with a ton of content they could earn, and really reward them for their time and investment,” Donlon said. “Tons of different ways for players to express themselves… There’s a bunch of exclusive content in it.”
Lastly, while explaining the newest agent Reyna, Zielger said, “The way you’d approach Reyna is similar to the way you’d approach Jett, I’d say, you can’t just run into a group of five and expect to win, you definitely have to bait them into the traps you’re going to be setting for them.”
“You really have to be thinking about ‘how do I divide and conquer?’ more than anything else. So instead of taking on two groups of two at once, just try and split them up as much as possible.”
Riot Games’ Valorant is creating trembles and breaking records since the first day itself. The game has received an unequivocally solid response from first-person shooter enthusiasts.
Players frequently face error codes 46, 39, 38, 40, 43 – “There was an error connecting to the platform. Please restart your game client.” They are quite common, though, there’s no conclusive solution from your end. At times, running the game as administrator might fix error 29 temporarily. The errors generally occur when Riot Games is shipping an update or the game servers are undergoing maintenance.
There is no need to panic or reinstall the game. The error usually gets fixed in a while. Until then, you may wish to play any other game. Keep an eye on Twitter or Reddit to check out whether the servers are live or otherwise. Eventually, Valorant’s website has a support section with high-priority notifications atop.
