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Coronavirus in India is hovering over IGX 2020

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Indian Gaming Expo just like every other major public gather event is reportedly shutting its doors for its IGX 2020 installment. The event was scheduled from 21st to 22nd March at NESCO.

According to multiple sources, a lot of sponsors have now raised concerns about the ongoing panic caused by Coronavirus (COVID-19). The organizers are likely to take a call on the well-being of the people due to the concerning international health emergency.

The organizers seem to be following a correct measure to curb the spreading disease after it found more than 20+ confirmed cases in India.

IEM Katowice, Facebook’s F8, Google’s I/O

Internationally, Coronavirus has claimed dozens of annual festivals and events, a giant being Gaming Developers Conference. Where companies like Microsoft, Sony & other tech giants pulled off. Facebook’s F8 along-with Google’s I/O was among the top annual event to get canceled this year.

Further, even IEM Katowice had their license for a public gathering being revoked days before the event, leaving the organizers disregarded. It made them conduct the event with absolutely no audience. The viewership of the event though breached records for online viewers later.

https://www.facebook.com/talkEsport/photos/a.393661547407332/2713400618766735/?type=3&theater

Like every year, IGX 2020 would’ve featured lots of competitions including the likes of esports, cosplays, workshops, panel discussions and a lot more for the gaming enthusiasts.

However, there has been no official confirmation from the organizers, management, and sponsors, we would wait for the announcement from the IGX 2020 team for an update. The sane thing to do at this point in time would be to postpone to a later date until the world gets a cure for this deadly virus.

Laid its foundation five years ago, Indian Gaming Expo abbreviated IGX is one of its first kind of exhibitions for gamers which is hosted by Media arm, Event Capital of Laqshya Group.

TalkEsport recently covered the impacts of Coronavirus on the esports & gaming industry this year. The report is available here.

Nodwin Gaming and PUBG Mobile team up to execute PMCO and PMPL South Asia 2020

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Tencent has big plans for this year’s esports scenario for PUBG Mobile, and the fulfillment of big plans requires a big esports company that is Nodwin Gaming. India’s best-known esports giant and the World’s most popular mobile title are joining hands to deliver this year’s PMCO and PMPL events for the South Asia region.

We have seen this partnership before at PMCO 2019 Spring Split India as well as the Fall Split in the same year for South Asia where the event was delivered flawlessly. There was a flood of praises for the impeccable production and timely conduct of the event with zero delays. This year due to the introduction of a new esports structure, things are expected to go bigger with the birth of PUBG Mobile Pro League with the best Indian and South Asian squads competing for berths at the World League.

via nodwin gaming

Nodwin Gaming has had years of experience being the oldest in the game and has had a history of successful esports events under their brand. Akshat Rathee, MD and Founder, Nodwin Gaming says:

For us at NODWIN Gaming, 2019 was the building block towards redefining esports with PUBG MOBILE. The PMCOs laid the foundation for a bigger vision. Our association with PUBG MOBILE in 2020 means we got to execute that vision in our style. The introduction of Pro League has made the entire league structure more robust and engaging. The community is excited and so are we. Filled arenas with high decibel chantings incoming!

Nodwin Gaming looked after the Online Qualifiers of PMCO 2020 Spring Split for India, Pakistan (now a solo region) as well as South Asia. They will bear the heavy task of looking after the end to end execution of PMPL 2020 South Asia right from hosting throughout the tournament, broadcast of the League Phase and LAN Finale, player and talent management and league operations and the overall event management.    

Nodwin Gaming has always lived up to all expectations and fans are now in for another flawless PUBG Mobile esports event.

Stay tuned for more news and updates!

CSGO: ALEX leaves Team Vitality

Earlier this week, a report by 1pv.fr surfaced suggesting the departure of Alex “ALEX” McMeekin from Team Vitality. The organisation have confirmed 24-year-old in-game leader’s departure. However, the reason is rather personal. The former captain intends to avoid rigorous travel. Team Vitality is yet to announce his replacement, however, the aforementioned report also cited Ali “hAdji” Haรฏnouss as the foremost choice.

In a TwitLonger statement, Alex thanked and wished luck to his former teammates, coach and team management. While he revealed that his side travelled 36 weeks in 2019 and wished to further reduce it to 22 weeks for 2020 which seemed a distant possibility due to ‘professionalization’ of ESL Pro League & BLAST Premier. He further revealed that his future remains uncertain. The entire statement can be found here.

“I am moving away from playing at this time. Last year we travelled 36 weeks of the year and by July I was struggling to keep up with the intense travelling schedule, coming into this year we wanted to cut that down to 22 weeks (an extra 2.5 months at home). However, the accelerated professionalization of the CS:GO scene, through ESL pro tour & Blast Premier arrivals, changed the ecosystem and we could no longer get down to anywhere near the amount of weeks discussed earlier.”

“That being said, the only logical course of action for me after the year that had just passed was to withdraw myself from the team before becoming too tired to put the necessary work in. Iโ€™m not sure what the future will hold for me.”

Alex joined Team Vitality in December 2018 when he replaced then outgoing IGL Vincent “Happy” Schopenhauer. Under his leadership, the lineup triumphed at Charleroi Esports 2019, cs_summit 4, ECS S7 Finals and EPICENTER 2019. He led the squad to 2nd position on Hltv’s global rankings at their peak.

Post Alex’s departure, Team Vitality’s Counter-Strike lineup is down to four:

  • Danย “apEX”ย Madesclaire
  • Cรฉdricย “RpK”ย Guipouy
  • Mathieuย “ZywOo”ย Herbaut
  • Richardย “shox”ย Papillon
  • Rรฉmyย “XTQZZZ”ย Quoniamย (coach)

All you need to know about StarLadder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor Season 3

Its been a good year for Dota 2 already, we started the year watching the second minor of the season which also turned out to be most-watched DPC minor ever and now its time for a round number three, StarLadder ImbaTV Season 3.

Kyiv, Ukraine will be the playground where eight teams will brawl for the title, share of $300,000 and a ticket to ESL One Los Angeles Major. This minor is going to be witnessing some big names like Alliance, Gambit Esports, Team Aster and so.

Where to?

Fans will be able to get aboard the hype train on with the games being live-streamed in, available in English and Russian on broadcasters official channel on Twitch.

Watch live video from hotwussy on www.twitch.tv

What for?

$300,000 are up for grabs, title to claim and a trophy along with a ticket to the ESL One Los Angeles Major.

Prize distribution:

  • First: $72,000
  • Second: $60,000
  • Third: $54,000
  • Fourth: $42,000
  • Fifth and sixth: $24,000
  • Seventh and eighth: $12,000

And the format?

Eight teams participating in will be further split into two GSL groups, and the groups to follow round-robin format.

All of the games played are a best-of-three series.

Top two teams advance to the Playoffs
Bottom two teams are eliminated.

The Playoffs will continue with a double-elimination bracket with all matches being played with a best-of-three format.

The only exception being the Grand Finals, which will be a best-of-five series.

And the date?

March 5th – 8th.

The tournamentโ€™s Group Stage is set to begin on March 5 scheduling 5:30 pm IST.

Download, Install & Play CSGO with Custom Mods

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In January 2020, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) reached 817.23 thousand concurrent players on Steam. The game reached its record high peak concurrent player number in April 2016, at nearly 850.5 thousand gamers playing at the same time. The entire community has been so keen and focused when it comes to playing Counter-Strike:Global Offensive as they all compete to be the best and climb up to a remarkable position.

https://youtu.be/hq6Rdl98Axg

With the majority of the players grinding in to enter the pro scene, since then we have failed to witness the glorious Counter-Strike:Source days where players used to play with some custom modding done in the game like the weapon skins, agents and their uniforms and different layouts of the map. Since the launch of CS:GO, as mentioned above players have literally been putting some serious efforts in the game which is absolutely an optimistic approach towards their career but somewhere or the other we do lack the fun of those old school custom plugins where we could actually take our gameplay experience to some new heights. Over the years, some of the community servers which have the 128 tick rate computing do entertain some custom mods where it really feels to play among others.

As of now, Valve does have the custom modding privileges in itโ€™s yet another famous title DOTA 2 (Defense of the Ancients 2) where we can actually witness a complete Arcade system which does allow us to browse a custom game section for some custom maps which do happen to be the modifications of the main game. As of now, Valve hasnโ€™t yet given a green light to use the mod plugins for the competitive scene where if you are caught using the same, you might be facing a ban or would be disconnected from the server. Even in Team Fortress 2, yet another famous title by Valve has been beaming with some cool modding stuff. Mods are basically added into the game via several injector firmware available through some 3rd party sources but they do give a disclaimer about the fact that they are yet not authorized by the parent company. Even in Team Fortress 2, yet another famous title by Valve has been beaming with some cool modding stuff. Unfortunately, despite being very well saturated, CSGO modding scene isn’t particularly known to the public as they never have been really subjected to them for real. But slowly and steadily we are seeing a transition where the player base Is seemingly sticking to some community servers rather than playing competitively.

As an alternative for using mods and custom stuff in-game, Valve had introduced the Weapon skins and various knife models where one can browse through some cool categories featuring various shapes and types of knives to be used in official competitive games. But again lifeโ€™s never easy as you would have to update your steam wallet with some currency to grab them from the community market.

Play Rainbow Six Siege Free This Weekend

Ubisoft announced the imminent availability of a newย Rainbow Six Siege free weekendย between March 5th and March 8th on all platforms (though XBL Gold subscription will be required on Xbox One).

Preloading is now available on PC and PlayStation 4, though Xbox One users will have to wait for the free weekend to actually begin before downloading Rainbow Six Siege.

The Siege freebie will be available on Steam, Epic, and Uplay, and will be preloadable beginning today so you can jump into the action as soon as it starts.

As usual, any progress earned during the free weekend will carry over into the full game should you choose to spring for it, and it will also be on sale for up to 75 percent off, depending on the version.

The Game is Also Available For Purchase At a 70% Discount.

Rainbow Six Siege has garnered popularity lately as it has clocked the highest ever peak players only on Steam.

We had earlier reported that Ubisoft’s management is considering making the game Free To Play. We’d soon see how the story develops!

Play Rainbow Six Siege free this weekend on Steam, Uplay & Xbox.

Mobile game downloads sharply increase by 39% globally as coronavirus keeps people indoors

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The fear of coronavirus is gripping across the whole Chinese region due to which people are opting to stay indoors and keep themselves occupied through different forms of entertainment such as mobile games.

Global mobile game downloads shot up sharply by 39% in February, with China posting the biggest growth in downloads.

According to data from app analytics firm Sensor Tower, Appleโ€™s Chinese App Store saw a staggering growth with a 62% increase in in-game downloads.

Another analytics firm App Annie reported, “Honor of Kings” online battle game and puzzle game “Brain Out” saw the most number of downloads. In the first three weeks of February, the average weekly downloads in China had jumped by 80%.

Gamers also downloaded Tencentโ€™s PUBG clone for china โ€œGame of Peaceโ€. Whereas, in South Korea, NcSoftโ€™s โ€œLineage 2โ€ topped the charts.

Coronavirus impacts on Esports & Gaming events worldwide

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In January right in between the Chinese New Year, China reported the first batch of cases of Coronavirus, an unknown virus that is highly contagious and is spreading rapidly due to which the government had to close down more than 25 cities. As the number of reported cases saw a sharp rise daily, the whole world was shocked and confused. The Chinese government ensured that the virus was contained, but recently more than 48 countries in the world have reported cases of Coronavirus outbreak. With more than 85000 cases of illness and a staggering 3000 deaths, the whole world is on a high alert and governments around the world have issued travel warnings and restrictions on public gatherings.

Just last week we reported about several Esports and Gaming events being postponed indefinitely or being cancelled outright. The spread of the virus has already cost the world economy to drop down to levels of 2008 slowdown and even modern industries such as Esports and Gaming, that leverage streaming, online product launches, and online tournament format is affected.

The spread of the virus has caused events of various scales like GDC to be postponed or IEM Katowice forced to close doors and not allow spectators in the arena, to some small-scaled leagues such as PUBG Global Series (PGS) Berlin, APAC Grand Final, LCK, etc being cancelled, the gaming industry as a whole have suffered huge losses. The Gaming industry, as well as the Esports industry to date, have shown tremendous growth, but the loss in revenue and audience might lead slowdown in the growth for the first time in more than a decade.

With the losses piling up expect to see some events being scaled back or companies changing their plans which might result in 2020 being the slowest year with the number of game-centric products and events sharply going down.

The future is not as gloomy as the sentences above might sound. We might see companies adopt some new innovative ways of engaging with the target audience and since summers are close, the spread of the virus will also be limited as the virus canโ€™t survive in a hot environment.

Brazilian female CSGO player shAay sentenced to 116 years in prison for Larceny

On Tuesday, Column of Leo Dias on UOL  published news that the former CSGO pro Shay Victorio aka shAay was sentenced to 116 years in prison as she was a partner in a company that has scammed more than 100 customers.

According to the column, shAay was a partner in an online retail store that had scammed more than 100 customers from 2013-2017 by not delivering their purchases and denying refunds. The Public Ministry of the State of Sรฃo Paulo (MPSP) heard 118 people who filed a joint case against shAay and announced their verdict. Currently, Brazilian law allows a maximum of 30 years in prison, in theory, shAay can still challenge the verdict.

In a post an on her Instagram she talked about the accusation and said: (translated using Google translation)

โ€œI appreciate the concern about the news. I am not arrested and I will not be arrested, much less the fugitive as they are spreading. It is a process of a problem in which my ex-husband had and harmed me, in which he has been solving according to the time. As soon as we parted, he took 100% responsibility. I work with my image, I do live broadcasts daily, I am known in my field, I have a physical address. It does not fit in with what is being judged out there… โ€œ

Shay was a professional Counter-Strike player for 11 years and last played in Keyd Stars CSGO team before retiring from the competitive scene in May 2019. She has also worked with other Brazilian Esports organizations such as Mibr, ProGaming, paiN, Santos Dexterity, and  Bootkamp. Shay also had a relationship with Fer, player of MIBR between 2017 and 2019 and is currently the girlfriend of Jean Paul, goalkeeper of Sรฃo Paulo.

Cloud9 revamps their Dota 2 roster, EternaLEnvy and Ace make return

We learned Cloud9 returned to the Dota scene after a break of close to three years and the organization’s vintage players are making a return.

EternaLEnVy and Sneyking both from the team Fighting PandaS which was a team without a sponsor that made it to a Major and two Minors of the DPC 2019-20 season. Nevertheless, Fighting PandaS will continue their run under another tag and will take part in the upcoming StarLadder ImbaTV Minor.

Clould9 has announced their new roster update with three players changing, welcoming EternaLEnVy, Sneyking and Ace to the stack alongside Piliedie and MISERY. Existing players vtFaded and Skem are moved to the bench, while Flee is removed from the team.

The three new additions have a lot of experience in the competitive Dota 2 scene and can show their potential again with the Cloud9 squad.

Cloud 9 General Managerย Gaylenย Maloneย said a few words:

“We are very happy to welcome EternalEnvy and Ace back to Cloud 9, we have no doubt that Sneyking will have a tremendous impact. We are all looking forward to seeing this team compete at the highest levels.”

EternalEnvy, Ace and Sneyking join the team to cover roles 1-3 respectively.ย The organization has not confirmed whether they will move from the region since the last qualifier played in SEA.ย They probably change to North America, the team’s alignment is as follows:

  • EternaLEnVy
  • Ace
  • SneyKing
  • Rasmus โ€œMISERYโ€ Filipsen
  • Johan โ€œpieliedieโ€ ร…strรถm