This week in esports, as always, has been full of interesting stories and big industry developments. From Tencent and Square Enix forming an alliance to The International leaving North America next year, here’s your weekly recap!
We have a twice-weekly newsletter that contains every significant industry happening – you can subscribe here.
The International 9 will be hosted in Shanghai
Valve is making a major change to The International when it returns for its ninth iteration: it’ll be located in Shanghai, China.
After the first TI was hosted in Cologne, Germany, the prestigious Dota 2 tournament has been held in North America. This is the first regional relocation in seven years.
Read the full article here.
League of Professional Esports launches featuring only traditional sports clubs
Japanese entertainment company Akatsuki Inc has launched the League of Professional Esports (LPE), solely featuring teams attached to traditional sports clubs.
The announcement states that teams taking part can be from any sport, but the only ones involved – so far – are involved with football clubs. Competitive titles haven’t been revealed for the league as of writing.
Read the full article here.
Square Enix and Tencent entering ‘strategic alliance’
Video game developer Square Enix has entered a strategic alliance with Chinese conglomerate Tencent.
Signing a letter of intent, the two parties plan to create a joint-venture company where they will develop AAA titles based on new intellectual properties and licence existing intellectual properties.
Read the full article here.
Pochta Bank, Russian eSports Federation enter strategic partnership
Russian banking giant Pochta Bank has joined forces with the Russian eSports Federation to create a new esports hub, Cyberlab. This is part of a strategic partnership which has the aim of growing the industry in Russia.
Pochta Bank will also act as the general partner to the Russian eSports Cup, which will start on November 3rd and will wrap up on December 16th.
Read the full article here.
[maxbutton id=”3″ ]
