Your touchscreen-tapping skills could soon earn you a cash prize.
Developer Super EvilMegacorp has announced a partnership with e-sports organization ESL for the Vainglory Cup Series. Together, the two companies will put together a tournament for Vainglory (read our review), the multiplayer online arena battler for touchscreen devices, that starts May 13 in Europe. The finals take place June 14, and the winning team till get a cash prize as well as Shield tablets from Nvidia. This is Vainglory’s first official e-sports event, and it will go a long way toward proving that competitive gaming, which is expected to generate more than $450 million in revenue by 2017, is viable on tablets and smartphones. Additionally, Super Evil Megacorp obviously wants Vainglory to start earning money like League of Legends and Dota 2, which both earn hundreds of millions of dollars annually and are massively popular as e-sports.
This is also the first mobile-only game that the ESL has hosted. The organization has a history of putting together huge tournaments for Counter-Strike, League of Legends, and other games that are primarily for the PC. But ESL thinks that competitive gaming can grow on tablets as well, which is something that is already happening in China.
“We are strong believers in the future e-sports on touch devices,” ESL founder and chairmen Jens Hilgers said. “And we have chosen Vainglory as the first mobile MOBA as it delivers triple-A quality, greatly balanced competitive gameplay, best in class touch controls, and [is] developed by a rockstar team with e-sports in their DNA.”
Vainglory debuted in November, and Super Evil Megacorp positioned it early as the first true MOBA experience on mobile — although other such games have previously launched on both iOS and Android. Since then, Vainglory has only performed moderately well on iPad and iPhone. It isn’t in the top-100 grossing in any of the big markets, and the same is true for its download numbers. But fostering an e-sports scene could change that.
“We’re at the very beginning of e-sports on touchscreens,” Super Evil Megacorp chief operating officer Kristian Segerstrale said. “And we’re excited to begin what will be a long journey. As the world’s largest e-sports company, ESL is a natural partner for us. Our community has been asking for more support for competitive play from us, and we’re excited that some of our biggest German streamers will be involved together with ESL in delivering our first official e-sports event.”