Plantronics Gaming Teams Up with Riot Games as Official Headset Partner of the

League of Legends Championship Series
Santa Cruz, Calif. – May 15, 2013 – Plantronics (NYSE: PLT), a global leader in audio communications, today announced it has been selected by Riot Games as the official headset partner for Season 3 of the League of Legends World Championship Series. Plantronics eSports headsets will be used exclusively throughout the series, including the World Championship tournament. League of Legends attracts everyone from beginners to pro players who demand the best gaming peripherals available, and Plantronics headsets feature a powerful microphone, superior sound quality, and long wear comfort critical to successful competitive gaming.

“At Plantronics, we are big League of Legends fans and players, so we are particularly thrilled to be the official headset partner of the League of Legends Championship Series,” said Chuck Frizelle, Head of Gaming at Plantronics. “Our headsets offer competitors a true eSports tournament headset – designed to provide outstanding audio quality in the noisiest LAN environments, while fitting comfortably for marathon gaming sessions.”

“We wanted an official headset partner that produced a headset made specifically for eSports professional gamers, while also offering quality headsets to our audience at all gaming levels and price points,“ said Dustin Beck, Vice President of eSports at Riot Games. “Partnering with Plantronics, we are able to provide an exceptional audio experience for our players throughout the Championship Series.”

Currently the world’s most played online game, League of Legends blends the speed and intensity of an RTS (Real Time Strategy) with RPG (Role Playing Game) elements. Players form teams of unique, powerful champions and battle head-to-head across multiple battlefields and game modes. Throughout 2013, the best players on the planet will compete in the League of Legends Championship Series, a professional gaming league with teams from North America and Europe, featuring multiple regular season matches each week, as well as HD streaming broadcasts available globally for free.

Providing audio excellence across multiple fields, Plantronics Gaming offers a unique live environment eSports headset. Working closely with Riot Games, Championship Series tournaments will exclusively feature Plantronics headsets designed to isolate noise from the thousands of dedicated League of Legends fans that come to experience live matches at events such as Gamescom, PAX Prime and the League of Legends World Championship.

At A Glance: Plantronics Gaming and the League of Legends World Championship Series
Season 3
• Tournament participants will use Plantronics eSports headsets throughout the series, including the Season 3 World Championship
• Gamers will be able to experience Plantronics retail headsets at the free-to-play LAN areas of various events including the Fall 2013 North American and European Championships
• Weekly North American and European matches will be broadcast online. More information can be found at Gamecom.Plantronics.com

ConsoleDeals.co.uk have kindly sponsored the Insomnia 49 HALO 4 tournament this Summer. Thanks to Console Deals, the prize pool has increased from £2,000 to a minimum of £3,000! Check out our prize page to see how the cash prize breakdown will work out for you guys.

ConsoleDeals.co.uk is a dedicated video games console comparison site, currently comparing prices on Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Playstation Vita, Nintendo Wii,Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo Wii U. By visiting over 20 different retailers to find the best console deals, games and bundles we make finding and buying a perfect bundle much less painful. Check out their Facebook here.

Weve teamed up with premier peripheral supplier, Plantronics to bring you our first ever Online ShootMania 1v1 Joust tournament. With a prize pool of £1,200 and a stunning 7.1 surround sound GameCom 780 headset up for grabs for the winner, youll not want to miss out!

"The Plantronics GameCom 780 USB headset with Dolby® technologies transforms standard audio into a stunning 7.1 surround sound experience. The noise-cancelling microphone kills background noise so your commands are loud and clear. When you need to take a break, built-in spin joints let the earpods lay flat for easy storage. Need to adjust volume? No problem. The controls are right on the earpods so you’ll always have your eyes on the game. The GameCom 780 is built to last with superhero-strength cords and joints; ultra-comfortable ear cushions and headband let you stay in the game for as long as it takes."

In order to sign up, check out the Online Tournaments page with all the details youll need to enter. Good luck!

Update on the ESET UK Masters Starcraft 2 at Insomnia49

ESET UK gave away £10,000 in season 1 of the ESET UK Masters, which saw the epic finals hosted at Insomnia48 in March. Some of the best players in the world faced off in Telford, England and the champion was crowned.


Snute is the reigning champion from Season 1

Season 2

Season 2 qualifiers will begin soon online, with yet another £10,000 prize fund available for the championship tournament at the end of the season. This will be in the form of online tournaments hosted over on esetukmasters.com and include open tournaments and invitationals.

We are aiming to have the online tournaments take place on different evenings to the Blizzard World Championship Series so everyone can still take part. Also doing this means you can watch the stream and enjoy the tournaments from home! Watch our awesome casting team of John “JoRoSaR” Sargent, Adam “Madals” Simmons and Kaj “Lyrlian” Landman (and potentially some guest casters!) and catch some of the best Heart of the Swarm action on the ESET Twitch channel.

Unfortunately due to tournament licensing we cannot run the ESET UK Masters Season 2 grand finals at the Insomnia49 event, so we have decided to create a brand new event in September especially for our grand finals, with the venue still to be announced. We will still be hosting a qualifier at Insomnia49 for the Starcraft 2 community, so some spaces in the Grand Finals event will be available for the BYOC attendees. We are still negotiating whether we can have an extra prize pool for this qualifier, but expect an announcement about that soon!

Ladders

One other way you can get involved with the ESET UK Masters is our soon to be launched Season 2 Ladder! Taking place on the esetukmasters site, you will be able to challenge other players on the ladder and see who can be the best players in the community. Earn better seeding positions in our open qualifiers based on your ladder position as time goes on and spot prizes for the most consistent ladder players that play the most games each month!

This Summer we will be expanding our console area once again - this time with the addition of HALO 4. With a minimum prize pool of £2,000 up until we have 32 teams signed up, and scaling all the way up to £5,000 if a 64 team bracket is achieved, and several prize triggers on the way, it’s worth signing up and just having a go, you could walk away with some cash!

Tournament sign ups will be available next week and will be announced in a separate post so keep your eyes peeled! If you havent already grabbed your ticket, head on over to our tickets page and take a look at TUP (Turn up and Play) tickets, which youll need to participate in this tournament. Alternatively, you can bring your own computer/ console and still enter. Its up to you!

Shootmania is returning to the UK’s biggest gaming festival. With a prize pool of £2,000 split between the two gametypes, the team based 3v3 Elite and the 1v1 Joust gametypes, you have two chances to take a prize. Get your Bring Your Own Computer ticket and sign up today. Keep an eye on our tournaments page to find out the prize breakdown and schedules in the coming weeks!

What are you waiting for? Grab your tickets now and sign up here!

Aquatuning LOVE Team Fortress 2 community and are back to support the Insomnia 49 tournament which will be the TF2 event of the year! Many in the community are putting their money on the Insomnia 49 tournament to be even bigger than the massive TF2 event that was Insomnia46 in summer 2012.

With a prize pool of £5,000 some of the biggest teams from around the world are expected to fly in and play for the cash. We will also be running a secondary fun tournament for those that cannot quite compete at the highest level, with tickets to our next event as the prizes! Get involved by grabbing a team of 6 players and following this link.

If you havent already got your ticket, you can grab it here. Were currently running our Early Bird 20% off until May 1st, so get them cheap whilst you can!

GOOD LUCK, HAVE FUN!

 

Tonight at 10PM BST, well be live streaming Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 for 24 hours! You might be saying thats crazy talk! but we can assure you, its all for a good cause. Every donation goes to our charity of the year, Special Effect.

Check out the video below, they do some cracking work, enabling children and adults who wouldnt usually be able to play games, enjoy gaming and socialise with their friends and family.




The stream can be found on Twitch.tv/Multiplay and you can even go as far as donating towards the cause at Just Giving.
Thanks!

ShootMania Storm launches today. It’s a competitive shooter built for eSports, and as you might expect from Nadeo, the developers of TrackMania, it’s extremely malleable, with a level editor that lets you plug prefab components together to create your own arenas. It’s a game of breathless pace and precision, with its two-hit kills requiring well-timed projectiles - old hands at Quake 3 or Unreal Tournament should feel right at home.

To celebrate ShootMania’s arrival, PC Gamer is holding a tournament from 15th April to 7th May, with £800 in prize money to be divvied up between the three top teams. Whether you’re a pro-player in need of pocket money, or just a fan of old school shooters looking to recreate the twitchy thrill of a railgun duel, you’re very welcome to enter. Read on to find out how.

The game mode will be Elite 3v3, so you’ll have to find two buddies to sign-up as well. There’s no restriction on location, but the servers will be hosted in Europe, so bear that in mind if you are signing up to play from another continent.

We have partnered up with the lovely folks at PC Gamer to run the tournament, you will still need a Multiplay account to participate! Create one here if you dont already have one!. As soon as you have head over to the PC Gamer website to sign up your team!

Make sure you check out the PC Gamer coverage too: where youll see Ziggy "nVc" Orzeszek and David "Zaccubus" Treacy from Team Dignitas commenting on their Twitch TV stream each Tuesday night from 6pm GMT, and weekly written round-ups every Monday.

Signup here!