Blizzard preps $120,000 World of Warcraft tournament!

Today Blizzard Entertainment announced that they will be hosting a series of tournaments using the Arena system in World of Warcraft. Competitors will come from Europe, South Korea, North America, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau and will have to pay a $20.00 entry fee.

Due to the fact that you don’t need to level a character to play in the tournament, and epic/arena-quality gear is available from the start, all 10 million-plus WoW players are potential competitors.

The tournament will run for six weeks on special tournament realms. Throughout these six weeks, teams will play 3-vs.-3 matches. The top four teams from each round will advance to the regional finals. Here players will compete for more than $27,000 in cash prizes. Those who win the regional will then move on to a global championship event. At the championship event, players will then compete for $120,000 in cash prizes, including a $75,000 grand prize.

Competitors won’t actually be using their characters they put all that time and effort into leveling. When they go to make a character on the special realm, they will “instantly create level-70 characters with epic equipment.” According to Blizzard, this is to place the focus “on tactics and execution rather than normal adventuring.”

This is fantastic news for eSports. As someone who played Counter-Strike: Source competitively, I really appreciate what Blizzard is doing. Games like Counter-Strike could never really make it big due to their relatively small fan base. World of Warcraft, on the other hand, has 10 million subscribers.

No eSports game has ever has such a wide demographic. This might be just what eSports needs to become a mainstream attraction.

Needless to say, the WoW forums are ablaze with chatter. Most players seem to support Blizzard’s decision, however some feel that it is a poor allocation of funds. Others think that Blizzard should focus on making StarCraft 2 the main tournament/eSports game. Either way, you have to agree that this is a major step forward for eSports.

What are your opinions? Feel free to drop a comment letting us know what you think of this announcement.

The official press release can be found here at Blizzard.com.