Brazil has a new esports, gaming, and geek culture TV broadcast channel, with the launch of Loading. 

Owned by retailer Grupo Kalunga, and headed by CEO Thiago Garcia, the new channel is aiming to bring online-type content to broadcast television, and has enlisted local esports journalists Bárbara Gutierrez (from IGN Brasil), and Chandy Teixeira (from Globo’s GE). 

Grupo Kalunga is no stranger to esports, being main sponsor and naming rights partner to Red Canid Kalunga, owner of a Brazilian League of Legends Championship (CBLoL) franchise. 

In addition to esports, the channel will also feature music like K-Pop, anime and other nerd culture subjects in an attempt to attract Brazil’s younger generations. 

The launch of Loaded follow’s Grupo Kalunga’s acquisition of the broadcasting concession of the former MTV Brasil channel. In addition to airing on broadcast TV, Loaded will also be available via pay-TV, on-demand channels, live streaming, and social media. 

AYO.NEWS says:

While this is great news for the development of esports and wider video game culture in Brazil, the commercial viability of any broadcast TV channel as we enter the second decade of the 21st century must be doubtful. Will Loading manage to revitalise broadcast television, or will it quickly evolve into an online only channel? Time will tell. 

‘AYO.NEWS says’ features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited or its affiliates or associates. 

All original content featured on this site is © Pentagon Digital Limited, 2020.

Indian Gaming League (IGL) has announced a women’s Call of Duty Mobile tournament for this weekend. 

The Call of Duty Mobile Women’s Cup will run from Saturday 28 to Monday 30 November, and is intended to encourage the participation of girls and women in competitive esports. 8 of the top Call of Duty Mobile players, including KashPlays, have been invited to participate. 

A Rs 5,000 prize pool has been confirmed, and all matches will be streamed live on IGL’s YouTube channel, starting on Saturday at 6pm, with the highlights being available on IGLTV and IGL’s Instagram.

Commenting on the initiative CEO of Indian Gaming League, Yash Pariani, said:

“It is highly necessary to provide equal opportunities to the women segment for taking up Esports. Usually, the Esports industry is highly dominated by male players but regular Women based tournaments will help to equalise the bar. With this thought, we have come up with this COD Mobile Women’s Cup Tournament”.

AYO.NEWS says:

Despite a miniscule prize pool (unless there was a typo in the announcement, the entire prize pool is around €57), it’s good to see IGL encouraging women to get involved with competitive esports. Let’s hope it’s just the start, and the prize pools get serious. 

Staying with the Indian esports scene, last week US tech company Qualcomm announced its debut mobile esports program in the country, Snapdragon Conquest. 

‘AYO.NEWS says’ features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited or its affiliates or associates. 

All original content featured on this site is © Pentagon Digital Limited, 2020.

Hong Kong-based Talon Esports has entered an agreement with Denmark-based sponsorship and analytics solution provider Cavea.

The partnership will see Cavea utilise its AI-powered platform to analyse Talon’s data ecosystem, optimising the provision of information to commercial partners. 

Discussing the collaboration co-founder and CEO of Cavea, Mircea Gabriel Eftemie, said:

“We are more than happy to announce and welcome another great addition to the client roster – Talon Esports! 

“[They are] joining us in our mission to standardise media valuations in the esports market by enabling our visual data capturing capabilities and automated reporting towards partners. We are looking very much forward providing our services and making Talon Esports data strategic across their entire organisation.”

While CEO of Talon Esports, Xiao (Sean) Zhang, added:

“Cavea.io is an all-in solution that simplifies the complexity of reporting on the huge amounts of data that is generated within Talon’s ecosystem. As an organisation that manages social media accounts and streaming channels across numerous teams, players and influencers, Cavea.io is an advanced tool that allows us to better track, analyse and quantify our social presence in one application.”

Cavea also has similar partnerships with esports organisations like Astralis, Fnatic, and Ninjas in Pyjamas, and tournament organiser DreamHack. 

Founded in 2017, Talon Esports fields teams in games including Clash Royale, League of Legends, Overwatch, and Rainbow Six Siege. 

As previously reported, in June 2020 the organisation teamed up French football club Paris Saint-Germain’s esports division to compete in the League of Legends Pacific Championship Series. And, in October, Talon raised $2M in a seed funding round led by the Korean Hana Digital Transformation Fund. 

AYO.NEWS says:

With the money being thrown into esports sponsorships growing by the month, brands are understandably taking an ever keener interest in their ROI, so solutions like Cavea’s are going to prove very useful for esports organisations wanting to build lasting commercial relationships. 

‘AYO.NEWS says’ features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited or its affiliates or associates. 

All original content featured on this site is © Pentagon Digital Limited, 2020.

GamingMalta has announced a partnership with the European Development Championship CS:GO series of tournaments.

The European Development Championship is organised by Eden Esports and Fantasyexpo, while GamingMalta is an independent non-profit organisation established by the Maltese government and Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) to promote the country as a gaming hub. 

Commenting on the collaboration COO of GamingMalta, Ivan Filletti, said:

“[the foundation is] delighted to see the local ecosystem grow in stature and adapting to new realities. This tournament is another example of a local based successful esports organisation forging a way forward.”

While CEO of Eden Esports, Sergey Bidzan, added:

“We are pleased to extend our partnership with GamingMalta, whose support within the last three years has played a key role in Eden Esports’ growth from a tiny local gaming centre to an international tournament operator.

“The way GamingMalta supports the esports scene is just incredible and their initiatives are an example to be followed by other governments. We are excited to move side by side towards our common goal – to make Malta one of the world’s esports hubs.”

GamingMalta has previously partnered with tournaments including Malta Vibes, and SuperNova Malta, while next year it will host ESL Pro League Events. 

AYO.NEWS says:

Being a Malta-based company, we’re probably more than a little biased, but it’s great to see Malta emerging as a serious location for esports events. Obviously, the COVID-19 crisis is having a major impact on efforts to promote the island, with air access to the island still very limited, but hopefully, once the crisis clears, the island will emerge as Europe’s premier esports and video gaming destination. 

‘AYO.NEWS says’ features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited or its affiliates or associates. 

All original content featured on this site is © Pentagon Digital Limited, 2020.

Gaming matchmaking platform FASTCUP has partnered with identity verification platform Sumsub. 

The partnership will see the companies implement customer verification to ensure FASTCUP players are unable to cheat by creating more than one account per user. 

FASTCUP is an esports league platform that caters for Counter-Strike 1.6 (CS1.6) and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), and has more than 200,000 users worldwide. 

The platform allows players to team up against each other, matches them based on rank, and provides detailed profiles with rank, statistics, previous matches etc. League matches and tournaments give players the opportunity to win real money prizes from the $5,500 prize pool. 

However, FASTCUP has been concerned about users creating multiple accounts to increase their chances of winning prizes. Sumsub’s KYC/AML solution will now stop fraudulent signups and the abuse of the onboarding system. 

Commenting on the development Chief Operating Officer at FASTCUP, Ruslan Buhryn, said:

‘When we started leagues, we faced a problem where some users would create multiple accounts. As a result, they took up more places and stole prizes from other players. So, we needed to find a way to filter out cheaters to ensure fair play. 

When we implemented Sumsub’s onboarding solution, the number of unique user accounts grew, and the number of multiple accounts fell to almost zero. Thanks to Sumsub, we don’t have to stress about security and compliance while expanding our customer network.’

While Co-founder of Sumsub, Jacob Sever, added:

‘Like many other services, gaming platforms onboard a wide range of users from different age groups and locations. Because these platforms often involve monetary prizes, it inherently brings up the question of how to fairly and securely verify such a broad spectrum of users, while abiding by compliance laws and without harming conversion rates. We are happy to help FASTCUP create a safe and cheat-free environment for their dedicated players.’

AYO.NEWS says:

While we frequently hear about the importance of KYC solutions in the igaming industry, with online casinos and sportsbooks going to great lengths to remain compliant and protect their businesses, it’s an issue that is less talked about in the world of video gaming and esports. However, with the rapidly increasing popularity of platforms like FASTCUP, and the serious money now involved, we expect to see many more adopt KYC solutions like Sumsub’s. 

Staying with Sumsub, just last week Curaçao-based online betting operator, Pinnacle, announced it would be using its identity verification platform to improve onboarding for users.

‘AYO.NEWS says’ features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited or its affiliates or associates. 

All original content featured on this site is © Pentagon Digital Limited, 2020.

The Premier League and Electronic Arts (EA) have announced the third season of the ePremier League. 

Part of the EA SPORTS™ FIFA 21 Global Series, the competition enables UK-based players to win the ePremier League title for the club they support. Players can register for the competition from 5pm GMT on 3 December at e.premierleague.com, with online qualification starting in January 2021. 

All twenty Premier League clubs will be represented, competing to reach the online playoffs, with live finals set to take place in spring. Like last season, the finals will be broadcast live on Sky Sports, Premier League channels, and the EA SPORTS FIFA Twitch channel. 

Over the past two seasons, the ePremier League finals reached over 22 million fans. 

Commenting on the upcoming season, Premier League Commercial Director, Will Brass, said:

“The EA SPORTS FIFA video game series is one of the key channels through which fans all over the world can engage with Premier League clubs and players. We are looking forward to another edition of ePremier League after the first two seasons delivered some thrilling entertainment while giving UK-based fans the chance to represent their teams in high-profile competition.

“ePremier League is a great platform for players of all abilities and a real mix of competitors have progressed to the final stages of both tournaments so far. This includes some of the highest-ranked professional FIFA-gamers in the world and relatively inexperienced players who have proved they can take on the very best.

“We have been able to deliver the live finals to a wide audience in the UK and around the world, thanks to EA Sports and our broadcast partners, and we hope fans enjoy watching and having the chance to participate in another exciting season of ePL action.”

While FIFA Deputy Commissioner, Sam Turkbas, added:

“EA SPORTS FIFA esports popularity has the strongest momentum of all time and a key accelerator in its growth is through the power of its accessibility and authenticity. ePremier League gives competitors the opportunity to fulfil their dreams by representing one of their favourite clubs on the virtual pitch.”

The competition is open to UK residents aged 16 and over and will once again take place on PlayStation®4 and Xbox One. The winner will take home the trophy and a share of the £40,000 prize pot, and there will also be seats on offer for top-ranking players at the EA SPORTS™ FIFA 21 Global Series (FGS) European Playoffs. You can find more information about the EA SPORTS™ FIFA 21 Global Series (FGS) rules here.

Watford FC’s Thomas ‘Hashtag Tom’ Leese won the 2020/21 instalment of ePL, while World No. 1 Xbox One player, Donovan ‘Fnatic Tekkz’ Hunt won the inaugural season for Liverpool FC.

During this season’s online qualifiers, all players will be required to play in 90-rated Online Friendlies mode as their chosen Premier League club. Those who progress to the playoffs and beyond will play on FIFA Ultimate Team™ (using Premier League players only).

ePremier League evolved during the 2019/20 season, with the introduction of the ePL Invitational tournament while football was suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic. This saw first-team players and other famous faces compete on behalf of all 20 Premier League clubs in an online EA SPORTS FIFA 20 tournament. Two instalments of the competition were broadcast across five continents as then-Wolverhampton Wanderers player Diogo Jota and Leicester City’s James Maddison were crowned champions.

ePremier League is operated by esports tournament organisers Gfinity. For more information visit e.premierleague.com.

AYO.NEWS says:

Given the surge in popularity of FIFA, and video gaming and esports in general, throughout this year, it seems certain that the upcoming ePremier League is going to be by far the most popular and most viewed yet, and fans can look forward to some intense action next year.

‘AYO.NEWS says’ features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited or its affiliates or associates. 

All original content featured on this site is © Pentagon Digital Limited, 2020.