The Olympics is seen as the fittest, strongest and most athletic human beings on the planet competing to find out who really is the greatest of their generation. Over the past decade or so, we’ve seen Usain Bolt break multiple records, we’ve seen a Brit win a long distance race and now we’re about to see something completely new.
We all knew that there was going to be a Gaming competition at Rio this year. The competition will be referred to as “eGames Rio 2016” and will look to find the very best gamers from around the world.
Britain, Canada, Brazil and the USA are the only confirmed countries as of yet, however, there is expected to be a lot more soon.
This year’s contestants are being rounded up by a professional body. However, in later Olympics, the teams shall go through qualifying rounds to find out who will win.
eSports and the gaming industry has become absolutely huge over the past few years and looks to continue to be growing for sure. Top competitive players can earn over £1m a year at the moment with competition wins, sponsored content, and promotional opportunities.
The eGames will be the only eSports tournament that won’t offer out a monetary reward and will simply offer a Gold, Silver and Bronze set of medals to the respective teams. This has some people concerned that some of the best teams may not bother entering or trying on the big stage. However, we’d hope that these teams will realise they are now part of a sporting event that has been going for millennia.
“There will be a mix of PC and console games, maybe mobile,” says Chester King, chief marketing officer for non-profit organisation IEGC
“Currently most competitions are single games like Call Of Duty or Fifa so we will try to emulate the magic of an Olympics by having legends/champions from various eSports all in the same location.”
“There will be an eGames Association set up in each country which will organise the national qualifying, which will have open heats and finals,”
This is all round great news for gaming fans and of course the eSports athletes themselves!
