NVIDIA announced the first ever GeForce eSports World of Tanks Open Tournament. Players will compete to win NVIDIA GeForce GTX 600 series graphics cards and a shot at a USD$100,000 total prize pool, which will be awarded at a spectacular grand finals event. Pre-registration is open today, and team and player registration will be open on March 28 for two weeks.
World of Tanks is a team-based, massively multiplayer online game which depicts armored warfare in the mid-20th century. The game, which has 55 million registered users worldwide, is a fast-paced PC shooter game with in-depth weaponry, economics and eSports tools such as spectator mode and replay file support. The game also set a Guinness World Record, with the Russian MMO server reaching 190,541 players online at the same time.
“World of Tanks really strikes a chord with players looking for that ultimate competitive gaming experience, thanks to its team-based gameplay and strategic action,” said Kevin Van Ness, Head of Community at Wargaming in North America. “We’re looking forward to combining our world-class community with the world-class expertise of NVIDIA for this exciting event.”
“GeForce users love eSports and World of Tanks is an easy and fun game to learn, yet incredibly deep and graphically exciting,” said James Grunke, manager of the GeForce eSports program at NVIDIA. “This free tournament and all the great video-on-demand and streaming coverage we’ve got planned are our way of providing a really fun and rewarding experience for our best customers.”
There are five regions of eligible participation: China, Asia-Pacific (APAC), the Americas, Europe and Russia. The five regional finalists will receive an all-expenses-paid trip to the Grand Finals, at a location and time to be named later. All tournament matches will be composed of seven-person teams playing a best of three game matches. There will be at least four weeks of guaranteed group play, with the top players from each group will go on to double-elimination championship brackets.
World of Tanks community favorites, David “Nagatron” Williams and James “Relics” Starr, will be shoutcasting the battles in English for VoD and in real time with live broadcasts streamed on GeForce.com and popular streaming service Twitch.tv. Localized shoutcasting content will also be available on GeForce.com sites around the world. World-class tournament features such as match setting, leaderboards, and blogging are being provided by tournament management veterans, Cevo.
“I can’t wait for this tournament to begin,” said Williams. “With this $100K prize pool on the line and the GeForce GTX Cup and GeForce Green Jacket for bragging rights, the top players will be battling out to win it all. It’s going to be big!”
“I am delighted to to cast this tournament for NVIDIA,” Starr said. “World of Tanks is a fantastic experience for competitive gaming, and this GeForce eSports tournament will help establish World of Tanks as a a prominent professional platform.”
The official GeForce eSports World of Tanks Open Tournament rules and regulations will be available on March 28th at http://esports.geforce.com. The tournament will be free to enter and international players can register and compete where allowed by law. You can also pre-register on the same site.