This year Thermaltake showed off a brand new upcoming Cherry MX RGB mechanical keyboard that is just beautiful and has a great feel when typing, as this is what the Cherry MX switches are known for.

Also on display was the brand fully modular Core X1, Core X2, and Core X9 computer cases which not only provide plenty of room for the user’s imagination to run wild with customizing options.  The cases also stack and provide even more area for some really awesome options like mounting truely immense water cooling radiators inside.  Also on display was the new Tt eSports Theron Plus smart mouse that features Bluetooth connectivity so that it can link to a mobile device and log mouse usage and statistics.

Tt eSports Theron Plus smart mouse

Ipad running TteSports+ application for data logging of the Therons Plus smart mouse

Software for an upcoming mechanical Poseidon Z keyboard that features a touch sensitive space bar that can even be programed with macros.

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Tt eSPORTS just released its newest headset, the VERTO which is going to get a closer look today.  The headset brings another unique model to the large line that Tt eSPORTS has currently.   The VERTO offers a design with nice lines, a secure fit, decent sound isolation, pleasing mids to highs, and a fulfilling low end.

In an ever growing field of gaming headsets, it may be hard to choose the one that will be the best for your needs.  Tt eSPORTS knows this and has a huge line of gaming headsets at various price points and feature sets, each with a different unique style.  The VERTO is brand new, just going for sale at Newegg and Amazon within the last day.  The headset is more of a subtle design that most of the others the company currently has in its lineup.  It definitely has a striking design with its lines and attention to detail in the build quality.  It is an over the ear headset that will be more comfortable for those who don’t like on ear headsets.  Sound Isoltaion is also helped with the over the ear design and the incorporation of the protein leather ear cups.  The left ear cup has a permanently attached microphone boom that tucks nicely against the ear cup for when it is not in use.  The headband and parts holding the ear cups are made out of stainless steel that looks and feels powder coated.

The Verto comes in a nicely illustrated box with the headset’s features and technical specification detailed on the back of the package.  Inside the headset is seated in vacuum formed plastic keeping it snugly in place while being shipped.  The VERTO comes with a carrying bag that is made of a pleather-like material and two cables.  The 3 meter PC cable has 3.5mm audio and microphone plugs, with integrated volume control and microphone mute function in the cable.  The second cable is a 1 meter mobile cable that will allow use of the audio and microphone with a mobile device.  It is worth noting that the cables were definitely over the stated lengths which was a pleasant surprise.  Also the  quality of the cable sleeving in both of the cables and the headset was immediately visible.

Included are a carrying bag, mobile headset cable, PC cable, and booklet .

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Robert Morris University Illinois and gaming system builder iBuyPower have made history by launching the first varsity-level eSports arena in the United States.

RMU Illinois has gained the prestige of being the first university in the world to feature an on-campus facility for gaming for educational and competitive purposes.

Competitive gaming under the official eSports banner now joins RMU Illinois’ roster of collegiate activities, alongside traditional sports like football and soccer. Like their football team, the university’s eSports team will be known as the Eagles.

But it’s not all about fun and games–RMU is quite serious about its competitive gaming presence.

iBuyPower has officially sponsored RMU’s eSports arena, providing the facility with a slew of powerful hardware to fuel competitive gaming.

The Illinois university offers a full scholarship program focused on eSports, giving gamers the chance at higher learning utilizing their digital prowess.

“We’re thrilled to be launching our eSports scholarship program and putting eSports on the map in higher-education,” said Kurt Melcher, Associate Athletic Director and eSports Coordinator at RMU Illinois.

“With the iBUYPOWER eSports Arena at RMU, we’re changing the way the world thinks about gaming and education.”

The campus arena is full-scale eSports battleground that’s powered by top-of-the-line hardware straight from iBuyPower.

RMU’s Eagles will have the latest and greatest of PC gaming solutions from NVIDIA with GeForce GTX GPUs, and Intel with Core i7 processors and ASUS monitors–all of which ensure the very best in performance.

This landmark moment may kick-off widespread interest in the growing eSports sector and prompt other universities to embrace collegiate-level gaming. It’ll be interesting to see if this trend catches on, and who RMU Illinois’ Eagles will face off against in their first arena competition.

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Valve has just announced that ESPN networks will be carrying the DOTA 2 International Championships, which just recently broke a $10 million prize pool. The International DOTA 2 Championships will be held in Seattle, Washington from July 18th to the 21st and will culminate in a final where the winners will walk away with nearly $5 million thanks to so many people buying Compendiums.

Prizepool

People wanting to watch the DOTA 2 International Championships on TV or online can do so using ESPN 3, and ESPN 2 for the final match. You can also access most of the matches and the final match on WatchESPN, ESPN’s streaming application which is available on smartphones, tablets, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.

This means that eSports just gained another level of legitimacy that I don’t think very many people expected. Because Valve was able to bring Disney/ESPN onboard for the DOTA 2 International Championships, they are in effect making eSports one of the most legitimate forms of sport today. ESPN already had great success with the world cup and they clearly are recognizing an opportunity here to once again capitalize on a very excited audience and are doing so by announcing this the day before the DOTA 2 International Championships.

Hopefully ESPN will not be the only ones that will start broadcasting eSports on TV for people to watch and enjoy. I suspect that League of Legends from Riot Games may eventually get streamed/broadcast by someone like Fox or Turner Sports who all will want to get in on the eSports buzz and craze as they are some of the most loyal audiences and also have some incredible spending power, as shown by the DOTA 2 International Championships’ crowd funded prize pool of over $10 million. This is just the beginning and it will very likely only get more interesting very soon.

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We’ve been covering the International DOTA 2 Championships since they announced the prize pool for the event. Initially, Valve, the makers of DOTA 2, put up $1.6 million of their own money for the event and gamers have contributed to the prize pool for the event through the purchasing of the Dota 2 International Championships Compendium. DOTA 2 is a MOBA game (Massively Online Battle Arena) much like League of Legends, which is one of the more popular of the two and is made by Riot Games. DOTA 2 has only officially been out for a year or so (but has been in beta since 2011), but the momentum of the game is picking up even faster than anyone had suspected and is likely trying to compete with Riot Games for their user base.

However, Riot games funds their World Championships and last year’s season which was from a pool of $2 million, with the first place team splitting the $1 million prize. Similarly, Last year’s International DOTA 2 Championship was around $3 million ($2.8 million) with half of the prize going to the winning team, Team Alliance. This year’s $10 million prize so far eclipses both of those figures that it has now propelled eSports into the level of incredibly real sporting competitions. Many comparisons have been drawn with the FedEx cup which is the highest paying sporting event in Golf and actually eclipses any other horse racing event in the world and many other sports including Cricket, Rugby and virtually any other sport that isn’t Soccer or American Football. Obviously figures change from year to year, but at $10 million and counting there’s a good chance that a lot of people are going to want to switch to play DOTA 2 instead of League of Legends.

After all, the $10 million is split among the top 8 teams that compete, which means that there’s still a ton of money being played for even if you don’t finish in the top 4 where the real money can be had. Looking at the DOTA 2 split from last year, the top team gets 50 percent and the rest of the teams split the remainder. The 2nd place team gets 22 percent, 3rd place team gets 10 percent, 4th place team gets 7 percent, 5th and 6th get 4 percent and 7th and 8th get 1.5 percent. That means, if Valve continues with these percentages for the $10 million pool this year, 1st place will get over $5 million. That means that each and every member of the team walks away with $1 million and immediately become millionaires. Sure, there are coaches and other costs, but in the end there’s $1 million per player being awarded which can’t be said about most sports, team or not. Being able to become a millionaire in a Team eSport is mind boggling on its own.

DOTA 2 International Championships Prize Pool split via Alliance Gaming

Now, if you take the same percentages from last year and apply them to this year,  2nd’s place stands to win $2.2 million (over $400k per player), 3rd place stands to win $1 million (over $200k per player), 4th place stands to win $700,000 (over $100K per player) and 5th and 6th places each take home $400,000 (over $90K per player). Last (and least) the 7th and 8th place teams would likely take home $150,000 which still comes out to $30,000 per player which is nearly what the entire team got for winning last year in the same place. The sheer size of this tournament is really starting to weigh on me now.

Now, if we compare those numbers to last year’s League of Legends final, we will see why there’s a good chance that a lot of people will soon consider switching to DOTA 2 (unless Riot Games significantly ups the prize pool). Mainly that the 3rd place DOTA 2 team will earn as much money as the 1st place team did in League of Legends’ final.

League of Legends 2013 final split, source: Curse Gaming

Based on the above numbers, the winners of this year’s DOTA 2 International Championships will actually walk away with more money individually than the entire team of SK Telecom T1 did last year. Additionally, 2nd place players in DOTA 2’s Championships will walk away with more money than the entire 2nd place team did in the League of Legends finals ($400K vs $250K). The numbers just continually get more and more drastic with the 4th place team in DOTA 2’s Championships walking away with almost as much per player as the entire 3rd and 4th place teams did in the League of Legends final.

This means that the stakes are higher than they have ever been and Valve has found a way to make their game more competitive with Riot’s League of Legends, by simply allowing the community to incentivize the game’s growth. $8.4 million out of the current $10 million was added to the prize pool by the community, so they clearly want to see DOTA 2 succeed and by the looks of it, this is going to be one of the most talked about eSports events, ever. I even remember when I first heard about League of Legends $1 million prize for their final and how big of a deal that was. Now we’re looking at $10 million which is no chump change, and likely explains why universities are handing out eSports scholarships, even though right now they’re only for League of Legends (not sure how long that’ll only be League of Legends now that DOTA 2 has a $10 million pool).

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Robert Morris University-Illinois, a small private university in Chicago, will offer eSports scholarships later this year. Beginning this fall, the scholarships will cover up to 50 percent of tuition and room and board; which is worth up to $19,000 per student. This is the first substantial scholarship of its kind in the U.S. The school plans on offering 45-50 athletic scholarships to competitive League of Legends gamers.

League of Legends has 70 million players per month and in terms of hours played, it was the most popular video game in the U.S. and Europe in 2012.

RMU is also looking into hiring a coach for its team. League of Legends is a highly competitive game that requires a lot of teamwork, strategy, and skill.

A competitive college league already exists in the form of the Collegiate Star League dedicated to video gaming. The CSL is comprised of teams at 100 universities such as MIT and UC Berkeley. Most teams exist as clubs or informal groups at their respective schools. The RMU Eagles will be an official team in this league.

Source: NPR

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Some places are calling this new acquisition rumor of Twitch.tv to be one that has YouTube as a suitor and others are calling it a Google acquisition. Ultimately, Google is the parent company even though it would directly associate with YouTube in terms of media delivery and sharing. Whether you say YouTube is acquiring Twitch or Google, the end result is that Twitch is getting acquired for $1 billion in cash according to Variety, an interesting source of M&A news. While I would certainly allow this rumor to mature and ferment a bit in the rumormill, this may actually be the most reasonable acquisition (and acquisition price) in quite some time.

Also, keep in mind that this rumor is likely a little bit off in terms of accuracy since Twitch.tv is actually a subsidiary of Justin.tv which is a much older site and serves all types of video traffic. In fact, it is a direct competitor with YouTube since it delivers live stream video feeds much like YouTube does now (YouTube didn’t offer this before). In fact, the Variety article mentions the fact that that Twitch.tv was born out of Justin.tv but they don’t acknowledge its direct ownership by Justin.tv (which is now incorporated as Twitch Interactive, Inc.). In fact, Twitch.tv is a higher ranked website globally than Justin.tv with Twitch.tv ranking 279th and Justin.tv 2742nd. But the real problem here is that I have a VERY strong feeling that there is a lot of cross-use of proprietary IP between Justin.tv and Twitch.tv and we’re likely looking at a full acquisition of Justin.tv and Twitch.tv as a whole by YouTube (or Google).

The reason why Google’s acquisition of Twitch.tv makes so much sense, even for $1 billion is the absolutely insane growth of game streaming and eSports. We just reported on Friday the fact that Dota 2’s International competition Prize pool had reached $5 million. Well, at the time of publication, it has already reached $5.7 million and likely has much further to go. And with games like Dota 2 reaching such crazy levels of prize pools there are sure to be more people watching these games get live streamed on services like Twitch.tv. Not just that, but with Google and YouTube’s infrastructure we could see a vast improvement in Twitch.tv’s functionality as well as upload capability which would allow a lot of streamers to upload their streams more easily to YouTube and simplify their income from online gaming/streaming.

While Twitch.tv’s earnings and profitability remain secret, I do believe that $1 billion is a fair price for the website and their audience of 43 million users. Sure, they’re no WhatsApp or Viber but they do have a very loyal and strong base and they are growing at a pace that is more than encouraging. Not to mention, there is already quite a significant amount of revenue streaming through Twitch.tv which a lot of apps like WhatsApp and Instagram simply didn’t have when they were acquired.

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