eSports
Amateur esports events will soon overtake professional tournaments by budgets
Gamers have crashed a new gaming quest website: esports events are growing in popularity
Professional esports tournaments will soon begin to lose ground to amateur tournaments on budgets. The latter have more and more participants, and this attracts sponsors.
For example, the prize pool of the second season of Polish Esport Cup Summer 2021 is approximately $3,000; LPL Pro League Season 8 has $7,500. At the same time, EXTREMUM Digital Pass event has collected a prize pool of $20,000 and the number of participants is quite large – 50,000. The project has already been running for two months.
This is more than a tournament. There was created a large interactive quest for gamers of all categories. Not necessarily for professionals, and age is not so important.
For successfully completing virtual quests, players earn points that can be spent on real prizes in the DP store. The grand prize is a customizable gaming PC. Now the second season of the project is in full swing. It started on June 1 and will finish on July 25 (the first season was in 2020).
For the first time EXTREMUM brand held a similar quest back in 2019. But it was designed for a small number of users and lasted only 5 days. The event was timed to coincide with the announcement of the Dota 2 lineup, and despite the smaller scale, the project attracted the attention of users. Then the organizers realized that the community was eager for such activities – the gaming audience is mature enough to go beyond the usual formats.
That is why they switched to a wider format. In the first season, it paid off: the audience was 10,000. For such a scale, the developers had to write a huge system from scratch, as there were no similar IT solutions for organizing virtual events. After that, they fixed bugs and eliminated errors, listened to the audience, improved the general approach to the quest, etc.
This season EXTREMUM has not only increased its audience to 50,000 people but also went far beyond the CIS region and now 52% of the audience are English-speaking users. During this season users have already activated more than 1,000,000 game codes in the system.
And now it’s not just personal competition. In addition to individual tasks there are clan tasks. Participants join in groups, compete with each other (including in Dota 2 and CS:GO), socialize and make new friends. The number of some clans reaches 150 people.
The organizers didn’t expect the quest to cause such a stir. On average, a drop of 100 prizes is sold out in 5 seconds. During one of the drops the site went down: it couldn’t cope with the huge number of active users. The devs had to urgently expand the technical features of the website. This experience will be taken into account in the future.
Brands began to invest more actively in cyber events. Even at the start of the project, partnership requests kept coming in. Brands began to come to the understanding that the esports audience is now a serious community with broad interests and opportunities.
The final drop of the event will take place on July 25, which means that even new users have the opportunity to earn enough points to claim the grand prize. This point and drop mechanic is designed so that people can join the event at any time. To do this, you need to register on https://pass.extremum.gg/ and start completing tasks in your personal account area.
eSports
Emmy-Winning Director R.J. Cutler’s Docuseries Esports World Cup: Level Up Premieres June 6 on Prime Video
Prime Video, one of the leading entertainment destinations, will premiere the five-part documentary Esports World Cup: Level Up on June 6, with new episodes released weekly. Directed by Emmy-winning filmmaker R.J. Cutler (Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry, Elton John: Never Too Late and Martha), the series goes behind-the-scenes of the inaugural Esports World Cup (EWC) in 2024 — a defining moment in global esports, where over $60 million in prize money ignited a high-stakes, multinational battle to crown the world’s top esports Club.
The series is produced by This Machine (a part of Sony Pictures Television), with R.J. Cutler directing, John Dorsey serving as showrunner, and Jane Cha Cutler, Trevor Smith, Elise Pearlstein and Mark Blatty executive producing. Level Up will premiere exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide.
Esports World Cup: Level Up offers a rare look inside a global competition that’s redefining what it means to be a champion for a new generation of athletes and fans. R.J. Cutler and his team of expert storytellers embedded themselves within the eight-week tournament – watched by over 500 million fans globally – to uncover the personal sacrifices, rivalries and stakes driving the action.
Shot in verité style, the series combines intimate home visits from around the world and on-the-ground coverage from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It follows a wide cast of characters – from Club CEOs orchestrating million-dollar strategies to rising stars chasing life-changing wins – while capturing the pulse of elite esports competition.
“What drew me to the Esports World Cup was the compelling human stories unfolding within this high-stakes arena. Level Up isn’t just about the incredible competition and prize money; it’s about the dedication, the passion, and the sheer will of these athletes and teams pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. Under high pressure, we discover the true character of the competitors who vie for $60 million, but who also expose their humanity in the process,” said Cutler.
At the heart of Level Up is the “EWC Club Championship,” an unprecedented, multi-title tournament format where Clubs compete across more than 20 games, earning points toward a single leaderboard. Every match, every point, reshapes the race for global dominance. With the highest prize pool in esports history on the line, the EWC is not just a tournament – it’s a proving ground for the next generation of sports icons.
“A win might make the headlines — but the real story is the people behind it. Level Up dives into the human side of esports: the pressure, the ambition, the sacrifices. It’s about what it really takes to compete at the highest level — and why it matters. R.J. is the best at bringing those stories to life, and this one captures the heart of what we’re building,” said Ralf Reichert, CEO of the Esports World Cup Foundation.
The post Emmy-Winning Director R.J. Cutler’s Docuseries Esports World Cup: Level Up Premieres June 6 on Prime Video appeared first on Gaming and Gambling Industry in the Americas.
Esports betting pioneer adds daily fantasy esports offering to its growing range of products, with its sights set on the US market
PandaScore, the award-winning provider of esports odds, data and betting products, has continued to push boundaries with the launch of Daily Fantasy eSports, a truly groundbreaking product for operators and players.
Daily Fantasy eSports has been developed for the US market but will have global appeal with players drawn in by the chance to create virtual teams of real-life players and earn points based on their actual game performances.
Contests range from daily matchups to season-long leagues, with plenty of prizes up for grabs.
PandaScore’s Daily Fantasy eSports is backed by an expert-led esports trading team to deliver fast, accurate settlement data across unique, player-focused markets driven by the provider’s established and proven betting models.
An Interactive Player Widget serves up rich player stats and profiles, with PandaScore’s powerful BetBuilder enabling same-game parlays.
But that’s not all. PandaScore has more than 17,000 players in its esports player age and info database, the largest in the market.
It also offers dedicated helper codes and documentation to ensure smooth and seamless operator integration. It really is as easy as 1-2-3.
1 – There is a kick-off call to align on goals, timelines and fantasy formats.
2 – The operator accesses PandaScore’s dedicated fantasy-focused API to accelerate the build
3 – The dedicated integration manager ensures effortless onboarding and a successful launch
By leveraging PandaScore’s odds and data, alongside its team of experts and specialists, online sportsbook and daily fantasy sports operators can launch faster, ensure accuracy and scale their Daily Fantasy eSports offering with confidence.
Oliver Niner, Head of B2B at PandaScore, said: “Daily Fantasy eSports is a pioneering product from PandaScore that will really hit the mark with operators across North America, as well as other global markets.
“It allows operators to engage esports fans and bettors with a compelling product and proposition, but without the degree of risk that comes with standard betting as the payouts are controlled.
“Daily Fantasy eSports is already live with Dabble and is performing incredibly well, so we look forward to going live with more operators in the coming months.
“This really is a game-changing product, and we can’t wait to see it become available at some of the biggest betting brands in North America and beyond.”
The launch of Daily Fantasy eSports complements PandaScore’s growing esports betting offering, which includes odds and data for a huge number of disciplines, plus betting products like its BetBuilder, MicroMarkets and StoryBuilder.
The post PandaScore launches game-changing Daily Fantasy eSports product appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.
Esports Charts, a Ukraine-born analytics company that aggregates real-time viewership insights about esports, has won the Esports Innovation Award at the EsportsNext Industry Awards, hosted by the Esports Trade Association (ESTA) in Dallas, US.
The Esports Innovation Award recognizes an organization or individual that has introduced groundbreaking technology, services, or strategies significantly advancing the esports industry.
Esports Charts was honored for its scalable analytics platform, which provides comprehensive tournament and viewership statistics across more than 25 livestreaming services — helping stakeholders from publishers and teams to fans make smarter, data-driven decisions.
“Winning the Innovation Award from ESTA is an important milestone for us as a leading esports analytics service in the world. Also, we’re especially proud to represent Ukraine-born innovation on an international stage.
“From day one, our mission has been to bring clarity and transparency to the world of esports data. And this recognition from the industry is both an honor and a motivation to keep raising the bar.
“Thank you to our incredible team and partners, who believed in us from the start. This award is a shared success — and we’re just getting started,” Artyom Odintsov, co-founder and CEO of Esports Charts.
The post Esports Charts Wins “Esports Innovation Award” at the EsportsNext Industry Awards appeared first on Gaming and Gambling Industry in the Americas.
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