Esports and fashion come together in a unique way. The evolution of gamer streetwear serves the cross over of two niche audiences and many companies have found success in this arena. At the 2019 Inven Global Esports Conference [IGEC 2019], a panel of experts will break down the specific intersection of these two industries, how this area differs from traditional fashion, and what these companies see in the near future.
In theory, anyone can write about esports. Free blog websites allow a template, Twitter permits a platform for it to be shared on and there are more than enough games in existence that scribbling down notes from time to time can give one the illusion of playing "journalist." At the 2019 Inven Global Esports Conference [IGEC 2019], this panel of long-time experts in the industry will explore the current esports journalism landscape, dissect how the explosion of social media has flipped the profession on its' head, and more.
There's a new champion in the world of collegiate Heroes of the Storm esports. In a highly-contested series, Rutgers University took down Cal Poly Pomona 3-1 in the grand finals of the Tespa Collegiate Series on Sunday afternoon at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas. The roster consisted of Dominick “BegForMercy” Maisano, Rick “hiimrick” Green, Hexuan “NatsumeAl” Ma, Dustin “Supertai” Nguyen, Peter “noOreos4u” Thach and Stan “msMarvel” Potapov. Each player, in addition to a championship trophy and bragging rights, will receive a $500 scholarship prize to their respective university and one ASUS ROG laptop.
On Thursday afternoon, members of the Heroes of the Storm design team took to the game's official subReddit (/r/heroesofthestorm) to answer questions fans had and talk about the future of the title itself. For those who want to peruse the full thread, the AMA can be found here. If you're looking for the most, in my opinion, important bits of information scattered throughout the over 1,200 comments on the AMA, the four most noteworthy topics are laid out below that shed some light on the future of the title in 2019.
Since the release of Hearthstone's most recent expansion, Rise of Shadows, one month ago from today, the game's development team has been hyping up the single-player adventure mode as the biggest in the game's history. On Thursday afternoon, a video was revealed that revealed the name of the adventure mode, when it is being released, what it includes and more.
For almost five years, PlayStation 4 owners have had to sit back and watch Electronic Arts (EA) offer their subscription-based gaming service, EA Access, to Xbox One owners. That changes in July. EA announced on Tuesday morning that their service will extend to PS4 owners this summer. Currently, EA Access costs $4.99 per month or $29.99 annually for the Xbox and that same offer will be on the table for PS4 players. EA's vault of games, which includes more than 50+ titles for the Xbox One, includes popular new and old titles such as: NBA Live 19, Star Wars: Battlefront 2, Titanfall 2, Anthem, Battlefield V and many, many more.
Epic Games was back at it again Saturday afternoon with Fortnite's most recent in-game event taking place that destroyed numerous iconic locations across the map and brought back a gun from the vault. Thirty minutes before the event was set to kick off at 3 p.m. EST, players could only play in a select game mode titled "The Unvaulting" and when the countdown timer in Loot Lake hit zero, the madness began.
Supercell, the creators of Clash Royale, decided to give their players a math lesson to figure out when the next season of the Clash Royale League would begin. In a video released on their esports' Youtube and social media pages Friday afternoon, players were asked to solve a math equation to #CrackTheCRLCode. While the video did not explicitly say that the answer would spell out when the pro league would begin, fans were able to put together the pieces of the puzzle relatively quickly.
Early Friday morning, the Clash Royale team released details of the upcoming May balance update that is scheduled to go live on Monday. In the brief balance update video posted on their official Youtube channel and in-game client, six cards are seeing tweaks in the patch. Shortly after the videos went live, members of the development team took to the game's official subReddit to provide some context on the changes taking place.
In the wee hours of Thursday morning, Fortnite revealed the contents of their v.8.51 patch which went live before most were awake in North America. Upon waking up and checking Twitter and the Fortnite Battle Royale subReddit, players were met with a combination of excitement and frustration with the newest addition to the game: Smoke Bombs.
Looking to get into the world of fighting games? Footsies may be the place to start. Now, before you assume you’re being asked to find someone you’re attracted to and twiddle your feet under a table, that won’t be necessary. All you need is a PC or Android device in order to learn the fundamentals of a game genre growing more and more complex with each newly released title. There are no Brutalities, Hadoukens or even color. Just two pixelated dudes in headbands with an old school computer-generated soundtrack that plays on a loop in the background.
Slowly but surely more information regarding the upcoming Clash Royale League for 2019 is surfacing. On the official game's news tab, as well as on CRL's official Youtube channel, the 12 teams representing the Western region were revealed on Friday morning. The full list of teams spread throughout Europe, North America and Latin America are compLexity Gaming, Cream Esports, Dignitas, Fnatic, Immortals, Team Liquid, Misfits Gaming, NRG Esports, Pain Gaming, Team Queso, SK Gaming, Tribe Gaming.
Few individuals in Hearthstone’s five-plus year history have a better understanding of the competitive scene better than James “Firebat” Kostesich. The first ever World Champion even has a card named after him. So, prior to him leaving for the Hearthstone World Championships taking place in Taipei, he opened up about the upcoming changes to the competitive scene with the upcoming “Specialist format” being introduced as well as his recent selection as one of the North American Grandmasters.
Jeremy “DisguisedToast” Wang understands Hearthstone’s official subReddit (/r/Hearthstone) almost better than anyone else on it. He got his start curating content on the page before anyone knew who he was and years before anyone would ever see his face. Once that began gaining traction, he took his talents to Youtube where he has over one million subscribers across his two channels then began streaming on Twitch where his success has continued. Last Wednesday, Toast was streaming when it was brought to his attention that there was a thread about him on the subReddit that he should check out. Toast, who has seen hundreds of threads about him over the years, sat perplexed when he saw that shortly after the post had gone live it already had over 4,000 upvotes. Less than a week later, that number currently stands at nearly 13,000, one of the most popular in the past year.But the thread wasn’t showcasing a play he had made or a funny response from Blizzard on his content, like usual. It was in reference to recent videos he had made with clickbait thumbnails. While lighthearted in nature, hundreds of comments began pouring in calling Toast’s integrity into question and pointing out his clickbaiting ways.
Fans of the Heroes of the Storm franchise went through a lot this past week. From weird highs to depressing lows, the full spectrum of emotions was experienced. Maybe it’s fitting that the end of this week fell on 4/20 as the “holiday” can allow individuals who celebrate to cope with the pain or comprehend the oddness that occurred. An icon left the company, Heroes of the Storm is now labeled as a “Classic Game” and more took place that left us thinking...what?
One week from today, 16 of the world’s best Hearthstone players from around the globe will be competing against one another in the Hearthstone Championship Tour (HCT) 2019 World Championship. Taking place in Taipei, a $1 million prize pool is up for grabs, as well as the glory of the title itself. On Wednesday, all 16 competitor’s deck selections were made public. Each player got the opportunity to select four decks from four different classes. The full list of decks can be found here. Below are a few takeaways from the pool of decks and cards that will be showcased next week.
When Cohh speaks about the growth of his Twitch channel —now with over one million followers and thousands of monthly subscribers— he rarely describes it as his own or uses the word “I.” That’s because, while it is technically his channel, he is quick to defer the attention off of himself and onto his team and community he has built over the years. There is no “CohhCarnage” without the group of individuals, some of them full-time employees, that help him with day-to-day tasks such as moderating his chat, fixing back-end technological problems while he streams, work on upping his production value with various graphics, etc. The same goes for his dedicated viewers which tune in each day and support him in a wide variety of ways. His team and community are called the “Cohhilition” and they mean the world to Cohh. So much so that, as his channel has grown larger and larger over the years, he has spent a great deal of time brainstorming ways to maintain the level of intimacy with each of his supporters, despite, on any given day, that number can be in the thousands.
Ben “CohhCarnage” Cassell is one of the largest Twitch streamers on the platform. With a little over one million followers, CohhCarnage, who often goes by "Cohh," specializes in strategy games --mainly RPGs-- and has turned his one-time hobby into a full-blown career. Cohh, who is in his mid-30s, is known for his community he dubbed the "Cohhilition," his relatable personality and entertaining gameplay. Over the weekend, Cohh sat down with InvenGlobal to discuss his journey on Twitch. A little over a week ago, Cohh did something he had not done in over five years --2,000 days to be exact-- ...he took a day off. That’s right. For almost five and a half years, Cohh would wake up, turn on his Twitch stream at 8 a.m. EDT and entertain an audience for, typically, eight or nine hours, then log off and do it all over again the next day, and the next day, and the next day. The allure of the “weekend” where one can kick back and relax while catching up on errands or sleeping did not exist in Cohh’s world. Every day was the exact same. On Sunday, April 7, that changed.
Millions of Clash Royale players opened their applications on Sunday to a new video from the development team that laid out the long-awaited April update. Featured in the upcoming patch is a revamp to the player progression system, a new card, and the two latest game modes.
Early this morning Supercell, the company behind global phenomenons Clash of Clans, Brawl Stars and Clash Royale, teased an upcoming piece of content coming to the latter title in an expected April update. Players were treated to a simple image in-game of what appears to be a vial with a cork sealing the contents. On Clash Royale’s official Instagram page, they captioned the same photo with emojis of the earth and explosions surrounding it.
