Welcome to the debut edition of e-SportsCenter, a new weekly column bringing you the latest news, updates, and info about all things to do with e-sports…if I can stop watching the MLG Orlando streams for long enough to write, that is.
In case you’ve been hiding under a rock, MLG Orlando has been going on this weekend, with streams live on the official MLG website. During this event, they’re streaming StarCraft 2, Halo: Reach, and Call of Duty: Black Ops, but it’s pretty clear where the focus is. Four different channels are dedicated to StarCraft, with only one each for Halo and CoD. Nothing against the other two, but StarCraft really does seem to be the future of e-sports.
In fact, fans of some professional StarCraft players like MarineKing (MKP for short) are so dedicated that they began internet campaigns to get him to MLG Orlando. Although he wasn’t originally invited to this year’s MLG Orlando, fans on reddit raised funds to sponsor him. In an interview before the tournaments began, MKP thanked reddit and stated that he was going to place first in a championship pool in order to repay the community.
So far MKP has not lost any games. Let’s see if he can live up to his ambitious promise!