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eSports

$310,000 Rocket League Major Headlines DreamHack’s First Stop in San Diego

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DreamHack San Diego, a three-day gaming lifestyle festival, has announced its expanded slate of programming for the weekend of April 7-9, 2023, at the San Diego Convention Center. The festival’s first-ever stop in San Diego will feature tentpole esports tournaments across the most popular titles, an exclusive screening of The Super Mario Bros. Movie with celebrity guests, an assortment of casual and competitive LAN experiences with nearly $1 million in total prizing, the launch of a brand new charity initiative in partnership with the Autism Society San Diego, and much more.

Rocket League Championship Series Winter Major

The top 16 internationally ranked Rocket League squads will descend upon San Diego for the most exciting major of the season: the Rocket League Championship Series Winter Major. The $310,000 tournament will take place at the RLCS Stage at DreamHack San Diego. DreamHack attendees can secure their spot with an RLCS Seating add on.

Top Brawl Stars, Clash of Clans teams face off in largest-ever Snapdragon Pro Series powered by Samsung Galaxy North American competition

The Snapdragon Pro Series powered by Samsung Galaxy will feature top mobile esports competitors from North America as they compete for $100,000 in total prizing. Fans can watch the live Brawl Stars and Clash of Clans finals at the festival or visit the Snapdragon Pro Series booth to learn more about how to go from competing on their couch to becoming a global champion.

DreamHack San Diego is just one of many Snapdragon Pro Series competitions around the world.

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Drop in on a $250,000 Fortnite Tournament open to all BYOC ticket-holders

Fortnite will return to DreamHack’s casual and competitive lineup with the DreamHack Open Featuring Fortnite, a Zero Build competition kicking off at DreamHack San Diego. Available to all BYOC ticket holders, the competition provides an opportunity for attendees of all skill levels to test their mettle and clash for $250,000 in prize money.

DreamHack Magic

DreamHack San Diego hosts Round 2 of the United States Magic: The Gathering Regional Championship. The country’s best players will compete for their share of the $130,000 prize pool and a chance to qualify for The Gathering Pro Tour and the Magic World Championship.

DreamHack Magic also offers competitive and casual formats for players of all types, including:

  • An open $10,000 Phyrexia: All Will Be One sealed tournament
  • An open $10,000 standard tournament
  • Hourly drop-in tournaments
  • Open play Commander
  • Four and eight-person events throughout each day

Between sets, attendees can visit the Magic Artist Alley, chat with MTG influencers, and teach new players about the classic card game through MagiKids.

Cosplay at DreamHack San Diego

A cornerstone of gaming community and culture, DreamHack San Diego will be a hub for local and national cosplayers. Some of the biggest names in cosplay will tour the festival floor, participate in the $3,000 Cosplay Championships, and walk through their creative process during onsite panels.

DreamHack San Diego will feature dozens of popular cosplayers and content creators, including:

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  • LoveBunny
  • Andrew McLean
  • DinoGraveyard
  • IvySprings
  • & many more to be announced soon

Explore DreamHack’s Expansive Artist Alley and Marketplace

Creatives from around the country will host pop-up shops with gaming and culture-inspired prints, pins, comics, and more at the festival’s Artist Alley. Several artists will be debuting DreamHack-exclusive merchandise only available in San Diego.

The Artist Alley will host over 20 artists, including:

  • BizBazClub
  • Moonshine Charms
  • CuteSewLuna
  • N2Apparel
  • & many more!

Exclusive The Super Mario Bros. Movie Screening

Watch one of the biggest video game movie releases of the year on one of DreamHack San Diego’s biggest stages. This will be one of the movie’s largest exclusive showings in the U.S., taking place at the Main Stage for all attendees.

Dream Big by DreamHack and Autism Society San Diego

DreamHack San Diego and Autism Society San Diego are teaming up to launch Dream Big, an initiative to raise autism awareness and funds for the non-profit during Autism Acceptance Month.  Attendees can use promo code DREAMBIG when purchasing a DreamHack ticket for a 20% discount, with 50% donated directly to Autism Society San Diego.

Celebrity guests are also getting involved, including:

  • Anjali Bhimani
  • Brent Noll
  • Eric Bauza
  • Jessica Dicicco
  • Jon Allen
  • & many more, with additional guests to be announced soon

Guests can get involved at the festival or at home through social media campaigns, fundraising, and on-site events.

DreamHack Fighters

The San Diego fighting game community will have opportunities to connect and compete in 11 titles. Some of the DreamHack San Diego fighting game activities include:

  • Brawlhalla Esports – DreamHack San Diego is the year’s first tournament stop for Brawlhalla’s 2023 esports program, with $70,000 in prizing across singles and doubles circuits.
  • DreamHack Fighters – DreamHack will host 14 tournaments – including singles and doubles play – across popular fighting game titles. Each tournament game requires a $1 fee to play, with cash prize pools across each competition. Participating titles include:
    • Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
    • Super Smash Bros. Melee
    • Guilty Gear Strive
    • Street Fighter V
    • Tekken 7
    • & more

$40,000 BYOC LAN Tournaments & Freeplay

Competition takes place on and off the stage at DreamHack San Diego, including 10 bring your own controller (BYOC) tournaments across eight titles. Festival goers can compete against fellow festival attendees in Overwatch 2, VALORANT, Rocket League, and more, with nearly $40,000 up for grabs throughout the weekend.

Casual players can either grab a BYOC LAN spot or take part in the largest-ever Freeplay experience at a DreamHack event. Jump on a PC to go head-to-head with other attendees or enjoy couch co-op in the all-new console Freeplay area, which includes over 50 systems to play on.

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Dethrone the King of the Hill

Throughout the weekend, DreamHack attendees are invited to climb the Pyramid and dethrone the King of the Hill in Fortnite. Play against attendees and surprise stars head-to-head for a chance to sit atop one of DreamHack San Diego’s biggest stages.

DreamHack’s Largest Arcade Cabinet Library

DreamHack San Diego brings the largest arcade of any DreamHack festival to date, with 50 cabinets and something for everyone to enjoy. Attendees can mull through a library of arcade favorites, including both retro classics like Pac-Man and Galaga, as well as modern mainstays like Dance Dance Revolution – all free to play with general admission.

eSports

Community Gaming Joins Forces with Moonton as Official Esports Partner for Mobile Legends: Bang Bang

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Community Gaming Joins Forces with Moonton as Official Esports Partner for Mobile Legends: Bang Bang

 

Community Gaming (CG), the leading esports platform for automated tournament payouts and sponsor of the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang’s professional league for the Latin America Region, MPL LATAM, now supports developing esports communities in Latin America in collaboration with Moonton.

This partnership is a significant boost to CG’s existing advantages associated with its grant program, a partner-backed initiative to provide organizers with economic resources based on the performance and growth of their local gaming communities. Tournament organizers can apply to receive platform support, prizes, in-game currency, items, and tournament professional assistance including “Tournament Mode,” a special setting on Mobile Legends: Bang Bang that grants organizers enhanced features, such as unlocking all available skins in the game for players to fully enjoy a complete and unique MLBB pro tournament experience.

Wei Xu, regional esports operation manager at Moonton, said: “We are excited to announce the partnership with Community Gaming. Community Gaming is the most accepted esports platform in our community in Latin America. We hope this partnership brings new experiences to the players.”

As MPL comes to its end this year, CG will also be collaborating with MLBB professional teams for a flash $4000 prize tournament set to enhance the visibility of the company’s services. This event marks a pivotal moment set to highlight CG’s preparedness to impact the professional MLBB scene.

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Community Gaming and Moonton are no strangers to mutual cooperation. In the past both companies have partnered to develop the Dawn of Heroes Series, a set of events in 2021 and 2022 that offered qualifying slots to MLBB’s Signature Competition, Liga LATAM. The companies have also worked together on Peru’s University Tournament INTERU 2023 and currently Community Gaming hosts significant activity of MLBB Tournaments from over 12 countries on a monthly basis.

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eSports

Esports player age verification should be simple

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Esports player age verification should be simple

 

Despite the continuing professionalisation of esports, misconceptions about player age persist – particularly of underage pros playing in professional esports.

Back in 2021, the PandaScore whitepaper dug into the data around player age in professional esports and found that the average age of a pro player was just under 24 years old. By comparison, the same report noted that the average age for a men’s professional footballer was about 26 years old.

While there is no great gulf in player ages between esports and traditional sports, there’s more apprehension around this topic once there’s a keyboard or controller involved. There are good reasons behind this focus, but the truth is that a simple and straightforward product makes player age verification easy.

The reason behind the focus on player age

Compliance with player age requirements has been a particular concern as legalised sports and esports betting rolls out across the US. These are completely reasonable concerns, partly because of the state-by-state nature of American regulation, but also due to past compliance issues in the likes of ITF tennis.

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Age compliance isn’t a challenge unique to esports. It does have younger players in the same way tennis does, so it’s a space that operators consider a potential risk area based on precedent. While it’s understandable to be vigilant about ensuring age compliance across your whole book, the reality in esports is it’s just like any other sport.

However, with this greater attention, it’s crucial for esports suppliers to have a simple, high-quality solution that is flexible for any jurisdiction – and not just treat it as a spreadsheet-based, tack-on service.

Importance in the US

It’s abundantly clear that if you want to ensure compliance in the US space, player age verification isn’t a nice to have, it’s an integral part of your product. Across each jurisdiction player age verification can vary – something we’ve seen in Europe as well such as Sweden’s rule that a match must have 60% of players over the age of 18 for an operator to offer match bets.

In sports, it’s fairly straightforward to implement but has been an oversight from sports data providers in the past. It’s quite easy to provide, it just requires collecting data from multiple, reputable sources outside of the match itself.

PandaScore has been collecting player age verification data since it was founded in 2017 to ensure compliance no matter the regulation, no matter the jurisdiction.

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Embedding player age verification in your product

Ensuring age compliance was a founding principle for our product suite – we included it as a key datapoint in our API, which is the bedrock of our broader offering. Suppliers should have this embedded in their products, rather than an additional service.

PandaScore believes that offering player age verification as part of an API and integrated into your service means you can be more confident in your compliance not just for individual esports titles, but from match to match.

For us it’s simple: one of PandaScore’s founding principles is to not rely on only one single data source, but leverage multiple quality data sources that we can trust. We have a longstanding and highly developed process that guarantees a level of accuracy for player age verification that’s in line with regulation and gives operators the confidence that they’re compliant. Our practice of using multiple data sources means that double and triple-checking information to ensure player age compliance is in our nature.

With player age verification built into an API, operators can leverage the data to match the compliance needs of any given jurisdiction. This can be done by integrating player age data via the API, it can be included in their feed via our odds product with the flexibility to add exclusions where necessary, or if an operators wants it in a simper form, it can be done via request.

Player age verification might seem like a simple item, but is a compliance matter that’s essential to operating in a proper fashion. Noting the concerns and greater focus on player ages in esports, it’s something that’s important to get right: player age verification should be entrenched in esports products themselves to give operators the flexibility and simplicity that they need.

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Author: Oliver Niner, Head of Sales at PandaScore.

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eSports

CS2 Intel Extreme Masters Rio 2024 SuperComputer: NaVi to bounce back after Blast Fall Final loss

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Final: Natus Vincere (36.5%) to beat Team Vitality (28.1%)

Semifinal 1: Natus Vincere (52.6%) to beat MOUZ (16.3%)

Semifinal 2: Team Vitality (47.7%) to beat G2 Esports (18.7%)

Quarterfinal 1: G2 Esports (39.8%) to beat FaZe Clan (32.8%)

Quarterfinal 2: MOUZ (35.9%) to beat Eternal Fire (24.7%)

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Group stage

  1. Natus Vincere – 48.7% to finish 1st; 17.0% to finish 2nd; 84.1% to make playoffs

  2. Team Vitality – 40.8% to finish 1st; 17.4% to finish 2nd; 77.7% to make playoffs

  3. G2 Esports – 19.3% to finish 1st; 20.4% to finish 2nd; 56.7% to make playoffs

  4. MOUZ – 14.5% to finish 1st; 21.8% to finish 2nd; 53.0% to make playoffs

  5. FaZe Clan – 13.9% to finish 1st; 21.0% to finish 2nd; 50.2% to make playoffs

  6. Eternal Flame – 40.7% to finish 1st; 16.2% to finish 2nd; 40.7% to make playoffs

  7. Liquid – 16.3% to finish 7-8th; 35.7% to make playoffs

  8. Virtus.pro – 15.4% to finish 7-8th; 29.9% to make playoffs

  9. Astralis – 28.9% to finish 9-12th; 31.5% to make playoffs

  10. The MongolZ – 32.7% to finish 9-12th; 25.4% to make playoffs

  11. Complexity – 34.3% to finish 9-12th; 21.2% to make playoffs

  12. Heroic – 26.8% to finish 9-12th; 23.5% to make playoffs

  13. paiN – 36.5% to finish 13-16th; 21.0% to make playoffs

  14. FURIA – 36.4% to finish 13-16th; 20.9% to make playoffs

  15. 9z – 44.7% to finish 13-16th; 14.6% to make playoffs

  16. Imperial – 49.1% to finish 13-16th; 13.9% to make playoffs

It has been quite the run for NaVi despite their loss with back to back grand finals in recent weeks but CSDB.gg’s predictive model suggests there will be no let up for the Ukrainian esports organisation.

G2 will also be looking to build more momentum in preparation for Majors season with NiKo on a quest to finally get over the line this year to win his first major title. Hopefully Rio won’t have to see a repeat of his reaction in the semifinals at BLAST Premier Fall Final 2024 where he punched a hole in a table after losing out to Team Vitality in a key moment.

However, the hosts of Intel Extreme Masters Rio 2024 may want to lockdown any nearby furniture and reinforce their desks if G2 are set for disappointment at the semifinals stage as predicted by the CSDB.gg SuperComputer.

A victory in Rio could be even more consequential for how the end of the year shapes up for the leading teams on the circuit. The Valve Global rankings have both teams close at the very top (NaVi at 1988 and G2 at 1953) meaning a win for either team could hand them a key advantage when it comes to who enters the Majors as top seed. 

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Back-to-back wins in T1 events for G2, should they prosper in Rio, would set the Berlin-based team on an incredible trajectory going into the winter months.

Meanwhile, Brazilian hopes for glory look slight according to the CSDB.gg SuperComputer with FURIA, the team co-owned by Neymar, having only been given a 20.9% chance of even making the playoffs. 

They are the leading contenders to make an impact for the home crowd but there are other teams flying the flag for Brazil with paiN and Imperial also set to give it their best to give local fans something to cheer on.

In terms of forecasted matchups of note, G2 and FaZe Clan could offer up a fascinating encounter in the quarterfinals should both teams qualify, with each organisation rated as having a strong chance of making the semis with little to separate them should they meet.

How was the CSDB.gg CS2 Tournament SuperComputer created?

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The CSDB.gg CS2 Tournament SuperComputer is a predictive model created using world ranking points, team quality ratings and performance trends. An element of randomness is also included in the model to avoid the best teams and players always winning, to reflect the fact that upsets can happen.

Every tournament is simulated 1,000 times with the results aggregated into a percentage rating of the chances teams or players have to achieve the predicted result.

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