Huge news for the eSports world today, as the Valencia eSports Congress has been announced! But, what is this Congress? Will they be ratifying what is and is not bad manners? No, rather this Congress is the first time that heads from various eSports organizations will meet in a setting of open discussion and discuss the current and future of eSports, and how everyone can be of help to growing the scene in general.
This summit cannot come too soon either, as eSports has continued to grow exponentially, with record prize and vieweship tournament after tournament. As such, it's about time there is some global cooreration between these teams, leagues and streaming networks – there are even talks of an international eSports federation similar to FIFA being formed.
The event will be livestreamed over TwitchTV on September 21, a date that's sure to have massive impacts on the eSports world as a whole. The event will be hosted by one Paul "Redeye" Chaloner, a veteran commentator and host of many tournaments throughout the years. Some of the other industry notables in attendance will be:
- Alex Garfield – Team EG
- Alex Lim – IeSF
- Alexander Kokhanovskyy – Na’Vi
- David Ting – IGN Pro League
- Göran Hellgren – Telia Sonera
- Ilja Rotelli – Blizzard
- Kevin Lin – Twitch
- Matthieu Dallon – ESWC
- Michael O’Dell – Team Dignitas
- Ralf Reichert – ESL
- Robert Ohlén – DreamHack
- Russell Pfister – North American Star League
- Sam Matthews – Fnatic
- Simon Whitcombe – CBS Interactive
- Sundance DiGiovanni – Major League Gaming
- Tomas Hermansson – DreamHack
- Zvetan Dragulev – Own3d.TV
Tickets, though limited, are running 10 Euros right now, which works out to about 13 dollars USD, if you can find your way to Velencia, Spain at the Feria Valencia (also home to Dreamhack Valencia, going around the same time) I have a feeling most of you are just going to stay home and watch though!
If you're interested at all in the future of eSports, watch this event. And if you have a question you want answered, you can post on this Reddit thread started by Mr. Chaloner, where he will pick some of the best questions to ask the panel at some point during the proceedings. Here's the schedule of events: (Note, these times are in GMT+1, so about 6 hours ahead of EST.)
I can't stress this enough – don't miss this stream, or at least watch the archive if you miss it. Going to be huge news coming out of this one.
Dustin Steiner is GameZone's eSports Correspondent! Follow him on Twitter @VGHC_Deitis and check out Video Gaming Hard Corps, where he is a local tournament organizer for the S. FL. Fighting Game Community.
