In a country where professional gaming is still far from being accepted as a career choice, it is extremely heartening to see Mountain Dew take a serious step towards changing the status quo.
With the Dew Arena, a nationwide online tournament of PC, consoles and mobile games, the brand is offering a platform for serious and amateur gamers to rise to fame with the promises of an all-star cash prize, and a chance for the winner to have their face on Game Fuel bottle.
The Championship is currently in full swing, and we can see gamers from all over the country actively participating. It kicked off three weeks ago, and will be on till the 11th of September, with the grand finale on the 25th of September.
Registrations for the tournament are open till the 1st of September: http://esl.gg/dewarena6
Here’s a roundup of the current championship:
CS:GOers
Counter Strike: GO is immensely popular among Indian gamer, owning to its low system requirements and affordable price, coupled with tense packed team based first person shooter gameplay. There will be four online qualifier matches played between teams of five players. The winner of the first qualifier has been team iNvictus, a semi-pro CS:GO team with its members from different cities.
Currently the third qualifying round is underway. The fourth qualifier kicks off on the 2nd of August, and already has 44 registered teams.
Dew Arena is offering a cash prize of INR 3, 00,000 to the first place winners of the CS:GO tournament.
For more details on the CS:GO Dew Arena tournament, visit http://play.eslgaming.com/counterstrike/csgo/csgo/major/dewarena-india
Dota 2
Dota 2, a staple food in engineering colleges, is also in its third round of qualifiers. The third round has already begun and the fourth round begins on the 2nd of September.
The winner of the first round is Mumbai based, Team Beyond Infinity and second round is another Mumbai based team, Invisible Wings
Just like CS:GO, the Dota 2 tournament has a lucrative cash prize of INR 3, 00,000 for first place and INR 50,000 for runners up.
The tournament closes on the 11th of September, and the Dew Arena Finale is slated for 25th of September.
FIFA 16
Literally a must have game for all console owners, the FIFA 16 Dew Arena tournaments have been very well received, with players from all over India flocking to participate. The winner of the first round of qualifiers is “Bluefar”, a FIFA player from Bangalore, whose real life name is Muhammad Farhan. The tournament is taking place for the Xbox One console only.
Other Games
Game Fuel has also announced tournaments for other popular multiplayer games. We were pretty sure Street Fighter players were feeling left out before, but not anymore, as it is now also a part of the Dew Arena lineup. For the speed thrills and automobile enthusiasts, there is Forza 6 Motorsport too.
Truckin’ it up!
What’s more, Mountain Dew Game Fuel has also organized online gaming trucks across major cities in India to raise awareness of the Dew Arena tournament and to encourage e-sports amongst youth. These gaming trucks mean exactly what they sound like, i.e., a truck in which you game in. The truck will be making rounds across Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Delhi.
The trucks started from the 12th of August’16 from Chandigarh, Punjab and Jaipur, Rajasthan, and will be stopping at popular joints and colleges across states to enable gamers to play to their hearts content.
Stay tuned to the Mountain Dew Facebook page to check when the trucks will be in your city: https://www.facebook.com/mountaindewindia/
Or, on the following event page:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1153416704729358/
