Preseason play is underway for Overwatch League’s first season, and today’s matches are set to include the Spitfire/Gladiators, Outlaws/Fuel and Uprising/Excelsior. Blizzard announced that all preseason contests will be carried on MLG.com and OverwatchLeague.com. Platforms for its regular season, which starts Jan. 10, have not been announced.
Meanwhile, Overwatch League Commissioner Nate Nanzer hit up Reddit to update audiences on the state of the org, telling fans that a fantasy play on the league was in the cards. “One of the things that is super cool to me about esports is the rich library of data that we have available to us,” he said. “Like with traditional sports, fantasy is an awesome way for fans to engage with the leagues they love. We think fantasy would be a great addition to the fan experience for the Overwatch League too, but from a stats perspective we are currently focused on the launch of Season 1. We definitely want to do fantasy in the future, though, so stay tuned!”
ESP Gaming formally announced its launch as a production company for esports and competitive gaming content creation, anchored by a team that brings over 20 years of live event sports production experience, including productions of events like the X-Games, Olympics, NFL and World Series of Poker. The lineup of productions for its partners CJ Network/Com2uS and Amazon Appstore, includes the Summoners War World Arena Championship: World Finals and the Champions of Fire tournament. In addition to its production capabilities, ESP Gaming is also offering ESP Labs as an investment arm for securing esports investments in games, platforms and products.
The Esports Championship Series cemented its talent lineup for the Season 4 Finals including new analyst, Jordan ‘n0thing’ Gilbert, and returning commentators James Bardolph, Dan Kapadia and more. The ECS Season 4 Finals take place at Hard Rock Hotel in Cancun, Mexico on Dec. 15-17, with each of the three days to be broadcast around the world exclusively on FACEIT’s official YouTube Gaming channel.
MLG announced that John ‘Revan’ Boble will return to his commentator role for the upcoming Call of Duty World League Dallas Open event. The event marks the first major LAN of the CoD: WWII season.
ROG Masters 2017 sees 12 champion teams converge at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre in Malaysia this week to battle for a slice of the $470,000 via CS:GO and Dota 2. The weekend showdown will be hosted by Ben Green with Elfishguy, KaRath, Jiro Pineda, Vill, and Hugo Byron on the assist for CS:GO, while Capitalist, Fogged, Luminous, Lyrical, and GranDGranT handle Dota 2 with action starting today.
KSV officially acquired the world champion League of Legends team, Samsung Galaxy. “League of Legends is one of the top esports games in the world, and KSV has been looking for the right opportunity to enter this global esport since the summer,” said Kevin Chou, Chief Executive Officer of KSV. “From the beginning, we’ve explored acquiring a League of Legends team that aligned with KSV’s long-term goals and vision. In addition to their impressive championship victory, we admire Samsung Galaxy’s focus on team play and felt it was a strong culture fit with the rest of our teams and company.”
Overwatch League Commissioner Nate Nanzer announced that fans of the league would be able to buy home team skins early next year with all 26 heroes in the game each having a jersey for each of the 12 Overwatch League teams. “Purchasing Overwatch League skins will provide monetary support for teams in the league,” Nanzer said in a YouTube post with Blizzard, using a separate currency system specifically for the skins to ensure the correct amount of money goes to the teams – which will nab 50% of the revenues.
Unfortunately, the preseason will see OWL down a team, as the Philadelphia Fusion announced that player logistics issues will prevent the Fusion from participating in preseason matches, although regular season plans remain on track.
With an assist from ReKTGlobal, Harrisburg University and the Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts are launching a “first-of-its-kind collegiate esports collaboration” and the official launch of HU’s esports program. ReKTGlobal will help HU develop a program that benefits both the university and students. Harrisburg University is the first Mid-Atlantic university and 50th school in the nation to join the National Association of Collegiate Esports. “We look forward to helping Harrisburg University and other colleges bring esports to campuses across the nation,” said ReKTGlobal’s Kevin Knocke. “Through ReKTUniversity, we can help do it all – from recruiting coaches and players, to resource acquisition and setting up programs and tournaments.”
FaZe Clan opened the doors to the squad’s official online merchandise store. Merchandise includes the likes of shirts, phone cases, more.
Mexican League of Legends squad Lyon Gaming is rebranding as Rainbow7. The move comes after Riot Games announced that the team would be fined due to a breach of contract when it was revealed that the team owner did not own the rights to the team’s name and logo.
Capcom locked in plans for Mega Man 11, announcing details during the Mega Man 30th Anniversary Livestream in partnership with Twitch. The new game features tight side-scrolling action gameplay the series is known for while completely revolutionizing the experience for modern consoles and hits Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows PC in late 2018. Also confirmed are both Mega Man Legacy Collection and Mega Man® Legacy Collection 2 coming to Nintendo Switch in Spring 2018, making all 10 of the numbered series games playable on Nintendo Switch leading up to the release of Mega Man 11 later next year. In addition, all eight games from the Mega Man X series are coming to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC in Summer 2018.
The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences announced the return of their co-hosts for the 21st D.I.C.E. Awards ceremony with Greg Miller, co-founder of internet video and podcast Kinda Funny, and Jessica Chobot of Nerdist News heading back to Las Vegas. The D.I.C.E. Awards will close the three-day D.I.C.E. Summit, on the evening of Feb. 22. “I am both thrilled and honored to be invited to host this year’s D.I.C.E Awards,” said Chobot. “I look forward to an evening of great fun, incredible people, and a celebration of the best our industry has to offer.”
Roblox introduced the Celebrity Collection of new action figure toys, available exclusively at Walmart and Walmart.com. This new collection of toys includes game packs and playsets from top games on Roblox such as “Top Roblox Runway Model” and “Neverland Lagoon”.Roblox’s CEO and co-founder, David Baszucki, said, “Roblox inspires over 64 million players a month to play, collaborate, and socialize with one another and this new collection of toys further promotes this imaginative play by extending the digital world to the physical world and back. Our licensing strategy, which now extends to books and apparel, in addition to toys, further promotes and strengthens the intellectual property already created by our developer community.”
