Microsoft will launch a new eSport, the Halo World Championship, with a prize money of $1 million which will hopefully attract pro gamers to join and boost the popularity of the game Halo 5: Guardians.
The era of eSports is at its peak and game developers will surely take advantage of the popularity of the online gaming tournaments to maximize their marketing goals.
"The bottom line is all game developers everywhere are looking for ways to turn their games into e-sports titles," said Rahul Sood, a former Microsoft executive who is the current chief executive of Unikrn, a start-up that runs a betting site for e-sports. According to Newzoo, a market research firm that analyzes the e-sports gaming industry, sales from tickets to e-sports events, corporate sponsorships, and other sources are expected to increase by 30 percent and to more than $250 million this year. Many of these sales are from the most committed and avid gamers in the world who play the games, stream them online, and who pay for all sorts of extras to enhance their experience.
The Halo series was a popular e-sport game in the past. But the 4th installment of the game, which was created by Microsoft 343 alone due to the separation of the original makers Bungee Studio from Microsoft in 2012, were deemed as an upset compared to the previous versions.
Gamers have commented that Halo 4 is poorly balanced. This is due to the randomization of the weapons received by the players during the start of each round. The game is decided just by pure luck and not by skill. This randomness may be appealing for those who only play the game for fun, but not for competitive pro players who play for pride and who depend on their skills.
The Halo World Championship will feature a look at two maps: Empire, which was originally featured in the beta, and Fathom, which was first seen on Conan.
Microsoft has its sights fiixated on the international online competitive scene. They announced that the launch of Halo 5 will be on October 26.
