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Melbourne Esports Open, Ubisoft Experience, and a new Click Esports Fortnite series all form a big line up of events for the Australian esports community over the coming month. Plus an Australian digital culture report shows that esports spectatorship in Australia is looking strong.
Melbourne Esports Open Line-Up Expands with Events and Global Team Visits
Melbourne Esports Open will run for the second time Aug. 31 – Sept. 1, and over recent weeks the event has made a series of announcements that have added additional events and tournaments, plus some special guests from the global esports scene.
The event is now set to feature a mix of open and pro events across over 15 esports including Fortnite, Minecraft, Overwatch, League of Legends, Rocket League, Pokémon (both card and video game formats), Forza Motorsport 7 & Forza Horizon 4, Halo 3, Rainbow Six Siege, Starcraft 2, CS:GO, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, Street Fighter V, Dragon Ball Fighter Z, Tekken 7, and both Super Smash Bros Ultimate and Melee.
The event will host both the League of Legends Oceanic Pro League Split 2 Final and the Overwatch Contenders Australia Season 2 Final, and to add to the experience for fans of both esports they have teams visiting from overseas to take part in exhibition matches. For League of Legends, the LPL’s Golden Guardians will be visiting Melbourne, while for Overwatch it’s the Washington Justice from the Overwatch League.
MEO will also feature the finals for Australia’s META High School Esports championships across Rocket League, NBA 2K19, and League of Legends.
The event is produced by TEG Live, ESL, Fairfax Events & Entertainment, and is supported by the City of Melbourne which has been making a mission of becoming Australia’s home of esports.
Ubisoft Experience to Feature Rainbow Six Siege Charity Clash
Ubisoft is hosting a fan event in Sydney, Australia, on Sept. 14-15, with a mix of game previews for upcoming titles and retro title nostalgia to bring fans of the company’s work together for the weekend.
The weekend event is supporting the R U OK? mental health charity, which has its annual R U OK? day on Thursday, Sept. 12, just ahead of the event. To highlight the Ubisoft Experience support for the charity, the event will host a Rainbow Six Siege ‘charity clash’ tournament featuring four local region pro teams – Mindfreak, Oddity Esports, Team SiNister, and FURY Australia. Ubisoft says it will also offer opportunities for Siege fans to play alongside members of the pro teams.
The competition has not announced a charity dollar figure, but Ubisoft tells The Esports Observer that all ticket sales are being donated to the R U OK? mental health charity.
Click Esports Launching with $319K USD
? INTRODUCING THE SHOWDOWNUNDER PRESENTED BY CLICK AND FEATURING @FORTNITEGAME ? #Showdownunder pic.twitter.com/wa4UkVyEko
— Click Esports (@clickorg) August 19, 2019
Click Management, an influencer management and promotion group with a team of globally recognized Australian streaming influencers, has launched a new esports arm with the announcement of a ShowDownUnder event series.
Announced via a video posted to Twitter, MrMuselk (one of the Click influencers who also featured in the Fortnite World Cup Pro-Am event alongside other Click influencers) announced the series will carry a weekly prize pool of $60K AUD ($41K) over eight weeks, with a final total of around $319K.
The event will feature both duos and Death Run competitions, and teams from the community can win the chance to compete in the main weekly pro tournaments.
DA20 Report Shows Strong Australian Esports Spectatorship and Participation
The Interactive Games and Entertainment Association, Australia’s games industry representative body, has released its latest Digital Australia report, DA20, a biannual report that has been released regularly since 2005.
The latest report, which surveyed 1,210 Australian households and 3,228 individuals, found that 41% of participants had watched esports, with almost one-quarter of participants actively following an esports team. Thirty-eight percent said they enjoy the culture around watching esports.
At a participation level, one-quarter said they have participated in esports, with half of those saying they played for the social connections and one-third saying it was for the challenge.
The full DA20 report can be found here.
