The Blizzard eStadium has opened in Taipei

31 March 2017

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Blizzard Entertainment officially opened the doors to its first gaming venue in Taipei this week with an exhibition League match between local organisations Flash Wolves and ahq

Named the ‘Blizzard eStadium’ it’s 1,652 sq metres and is located in the heart of the Taiwanese capital. Inside the stadium there is Blizzard gaming memorabilia for sale, in addition to a snack bar, and the gaming room itself. 

Blizzard Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Michael Morhaime attended the opening and reportedly said that it was due to Taiwan’s importance in esports globally that Blizzard chose to establish its first eStadium in the country. Undoubtedly we can now expect more Blizzard tournaments to be set here.

They won’t be the biggest events, the stadium seats between 200 to 500, and it boasts a 6.144 x 3.456 meter main display screen and two 1.096 x 1.536 meter side screens. As such it can certainly work as a strong venue for smaller events and tournaments. It’s highly likely this will consist of a number of Hearthstone tournaments and the hope for Taiwan is that this can help to create some top notch homegrown talent in the title, that can emulate the success of Flash Wolves in League of Legends. The same goes for Overwatch too. With this partnership with Blizzard, perhaps Taipei will be given the option of an Overwatch League slot too?

The first tournament for the Blizzard eStadium will be the Overwatch Pacific Championship on April 8th. At least initially the stadium won’t be open everyday but, as reported by Focus Taiwan, it will open Wednesday to Friday evenings and from 2pm to 11pm on weekends. 

Esports Insider says: The stadium is said to have been in the works for some time with building getting underway midway through 2016. Taipei is an excellent city for Blizzard to select as the home of its first eStadium but naturally it begs the question..where will the next one be?