Blizzard unveils 'Heroes of the Storm' tournament
Blizzard is using its latest action game to make a jump into the increasingly popular eSports scene.
The company is partnering with TeSPA -- a network for collegiate eSports players -- to host a college eSports tournament featuring the online team brawler Heroes of the Storm. The contest -- titled Heroes of the Dorm -- will award $450,000 in tuition and prizes to the winners.
The tournament is open to active college students in the U.S. and Canada. Open qualifiers start March 28, followed by a single-elimination bracket featuring 64 teams starting April 11, concluding with a final "Heroic Four" live event. The final rounds of the tournament will be carried live on ESPN's lineup of networks.
Details on where the event will be held have not been revealed. Players can register at heroesofthedorm.com.
Teams consist of five players. Each winning team member will receive $25,000 a year in college tuition for up to three years of undergraduate studies or two years of graduate studies. Blizzard says seniors and graduate students with no years of enrollment left will receive one year's worth of tuition to repay student loans. Members of the Round of 64 will receive a "top-of-the-line" gaming PC and accessories.
"College sports do great things for student athletes — they help pay for schooling, build teamwork and communication skills, and create lasting memories," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment. "We believe eSports has the same kind of power, and this tournament aims to bring positive experiences like these to college gamers."
Morhaime says the idea for the tournament was inspired by March Madness, and will even allow non-participants to fill out brackets to predict the winners. The bracket challenge will include $25,000 in prizes, including $10,000 to the participant with the most accurate bracket predictions.
Blizzard's entry into this formal eSports tournament is the latest signal of the genre's growing popularity. Large tournaments already exist for multiplayer online battle arena games including League of Legends and Dota. Last year, ESPN aired The International Dota 2 Championships in Seattle.
Morhaime says services like Twitch -- where users can easily stream their video game play to the Web -- have helped fuel the rise of eSports.
Citing the popularity of Blizzard's strategy game StarCraft in Asia, Morhaime says he's surprised it took this long for eSports to take off. "It really took a while to eSports to really catch on in the west. But I'm really pleased to see that's happening. We really view this kind of tournament as the future of competitive gaming."
Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @brettmolina23.