Esports will make their E3 debut this year at the E3 ESPORTS ZONE, Powered by ESL. The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) and ESL, the world’s largest esports company, today announced a partnership to bring esports to the world’s premiere show for video games. The partnership is a result of the exploding growth and interest in esports and E3’s vision to showcase world-class esports activities.

“E3 is the biggest event in video games and esports has one of the fastest growing audiences in not just video games but all of entertainment,” said Rich Taylor, senior vice president of communications and industry affairs at ESA, the trade association that represents the US video game industry. “We are excited to partner with ESL and bring a dedicated esports stage to E3.”

The E3 ESPORTS ZONE Powered by ESL, which will be located at Booth 947 in the South Hall of Los Angeles Convention Center, will feature a full-size esports stage and spectator seating. Competitions will feature top teams and the popular esports titles including Vainglory (Super Evil Megacorp) and the new Quake Champions (Bethesda / id Software). The competitions will also be streamed live on Twitch and simulcast on E3’s live-stream portal HERE.

“With the growth of esports over the past four years, we’re now seeing more developers and publishers build games with a focus on competitive game play and esports tools. This creates a very exciting outlook for the future of esports to have more game titles engaging new players and new fans,” said Craig Levine, CEO, ESL North America. “E3 has a tremendous global audience and is the biggest video game industry event of the year. We are excited to partner with ESA to reach gaming enthusiasts and industry leaders by allowing them to experience high-quality, professionally produced esports live and in-person.”

The esports industry is expected to accelerate from roughly $200 million in revenue in 2015 to $1 billion in revenue by 2018, according to Baird Equity Research. And by 2020, esports viewership will exceed 10 percent of all US sports viewing and attract more viewers than the finals of other major US sports, including baseball, hockey, and basketball.

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Super Evil Megacorp, maker of the leading touchscreen eSport Vainglory, and Twitch, the world’s leading social video platform and community for gamers, have inked a three-year partnership in North America and Europe for the official Vainglory Championships and supporting eSports structures. The collaboration will include a multi-million dollar investment from each company and a multi-pronged program across sales, promotions, broadcasts and live events.

Vainglory was the fastest growing mobile game on Twitch in 2015, with 150 million minutes viewed. The touchscreen eSport was also the largest with a $350,000 prize pool around the world last Fall, and professional teams like TSM, SK Gaming, Team Secret and G2 Esports joining the fray in the last few months. Vainglory’s Winter Championships, which were recently held at Red Bull’s eSports Studio in Santa Monica, California and the Gfinity Arena in London, grew its audience more than three times the Autumn Championships, drawing more than 1.5 million views on Twitch.

The Twitch partnership will help better serve the millions of players and fans of Vainglory and its eSports teams and the robust Vainglory support exhibits Twitch’s commitment to eSports and touchscreen games. Twitch will expand and grow Vainglory’s presence with key promotions of Vainglory streamers and eSports broadcasts, dedicate a team to help run Vainglory eSports events, build official eSports websites as well as handle sponsorship and merchandise sales.

“The eSports industry has been dominated by PC and console titles, but Vainglory is ushering in a new mobile games movement,” said Nick Allen, Director of Esports Operations at Twitch. “The incredible engagement Vainglory has garnered on our platform is testament that our community welcomes the convergence of eSports and mobile gaming.”

Starting today, teams of three players hopeful to win the Spring Championship can register on Vaingloryleague HERE. The three-month season kicks off with open qualifiers and will have a total prize pool of $80,000 USD.

“We’ve been working closely with Twitch since even before the global launch of Vainglory, and their massive, wildly passionate gaming community has helped our game develop a loyal and growing following,” said Kristian Segerstrale, COO and executive director at Super Evil Megacorp. “By working with Twitch in this new and expanded capacity, we’re going to be able to bring our eSports programming to the next level and provide better and more frequent coverage to fans.”

Vainglory’s Spring Season has today kicked off with a new game mode (in beta) “Battle Royale”, a new hero “Alpha”, a new map skin, a massive “Halcyon Days” event and new skins for Fortress. New players will be eased into the game in new, bite-sized tutorial pieces, and the competitive season begins late April. In the beta Battle Royal mode, each player is assigned a random hero, and the game starts with heroes already leveled up; as opposed to starting from level one with a certain hero like in a normal match.

2015 was a momentous year for Vainglory, with more than $350,000 in prize money awarded to players across live events held in North America, Europe, Southeast Asia and China. 2016 has already been action-packed, with the North American Winter Season Championships having just taken place at the sold out Red Bull eSports Studio in Santa Monica, Calif, and the European Championships at the Gfinity Arena in London. Amazon and NVIDIA are two of the key sponsors that have returned this year.

Recently, renowned professional eSports organization Team SoloMid (TSM) acquired the reigning North America champions, following a series of recent eSports team acquisitions in the Vainglory competitive world, including Team Secret, G2 eSports and SK Gaming. The Vainglory eSports scene also includes hundreds of original teams, including home-grown professional teams paying players under contract such as GankStars, Halcyon Hammers and Phoenix eSports.

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