Cloud9 was rewarded this week with two awards at the Video Game Awards 2018, Wizards of the Coast announced a new esports tournament program for Magic, and the four largest esports events this year garnered 190.1 million viewing hours. Viewership overall is on the rise, but not all events are sharing an equal slice of the pie.
According to Newzoo, the four-largest Western esports events generated 190.1 million hours of live viewership on both Twitch and YouTube Gaming. While that's an impressive number and up around seven percent on 2017, not all events are growing on paper, including League of Legends Worlds, which saw its numbers fall from 86 million in 2017 to just 81 million hours in 2018.
It's not all bad news for League of Legends as the Worlds event this year was structured differently — the quarter-finals taking part on just two days, not four — and actual figures were up per-viewer.
Magic esports
Wizards of the Coast announced a new esports tournament for Magic, working off the already popular Magic: The Gathering scene. The new scene would bring together paper Magic gameplay and the digital card collectible game. What's more is Wizards plans to host a $1 million tournament, the first in a new series of Mythic Championships.
Blizzard's Hearthstone has felt a little lonely in the card collectible esports scene, being the only major player, but now Wizards has an answer with a huge following. As reported by Venture Beat, the Magic Pro League will host 32 top-ranked players from the game with contracts worth $75,000 each.
Weekly matches will take place, and competitors will utilize the new Direct Challenge feature in Arena, broadcasted on Twitch. Premier events will take place with larger prize pools and big audiences, the first being the $1 million invitational at PAX East in Boston on March 28.
Cloud9 crowned at VGA 2018
Cloud9 is one of the most renown names in the esports scene, and the organization was rewarded with a few awards at the Video Game Awards 2018. Not only did Cloud9 receive best esports team for the League of Legends roster, but also the best esports moment for CS:GO. Both squads had stellar seasons this year with the LoL team reaching the semi-finals at Worlds 2018.
Upcoming events
- Capcom Cup 2018 - December 14 - 16, watch on Twitch.
