When I traveled to Vancouver last year to cover the Steam launch event for MechWarrior Online, I was surprised when Piranha Games also took the opportunity to announce the launch of the 2016 MechWarrior World Championship. A six-month-long bracketed tournament featuring dozens of teams across three separate geographic divisions (the Americas, Europe and Africa, as well as Asia and Oceanic) seeded with a $100K prize pool that grew to $143,490 through the sale of player-purchased sponsor packs by the time the last three teams remaining were ready to compete. It seemed ambitious. Maybe even overly optimistic.
As an MWO veteran since the first days of open beta, I was personally excited at the prospect of watching the best of the best mechwarriors slug it out in their favorite giant stompy robots for glory and spoils. The Solaris VII arena made real. But, even during the hype and fervor of the announcement, I had my doubts the game would find a wider eSports audience. MechWarrior, as joyfully complicated, finicky, and granular as it is, always seemed like a difficult sell for anyone who wasn't already fully committed to the nitty-gritty of battlemech combat.
This weekend I again traveled to Vancouver for the first annual Mech_Con to watch the grand finals of the tournament and witness the final thunderous shots that would decide the winners. Now that the dust has settled, I still don't think MWO is destined to become an eSports phenomenon. But, I'm also positive that doesn't matter to the competing teams and hundreds of fans who also made it out to the event and all the rest watching on stream. For them, it isn't about eSports glitz, personal fame, or even the prize money – it's all about the community.
via destructoid http://ift.tt/2ggQNmw