Vainglory 101: Welcome to the Fold
By: RJ Firmeza
eSports by INQUIRER.net is pleased to welcome RJ Firmeza. Catch him covering the intersection between team-based eSports and mobile gaming here on eSports Inquirer.
There’s no doubt that the future of eSports is rapidly improving regardless of the debate of acknowledging it as a real sport. Tournament prize pools amounting to more than $15 million for MOBA game Dota 2 is a sign that future is indeed bright for eSports.
Taking advantage of this growing potential, developers Super Evil Mega Corp (SEMC) took MOBA to a whole new level by creating Vainglory— a 3v3 touch-based MOBA played on smartphones and tablets that was launched in late 2014.
The mechanics are similar to MOBA giants Leagues of Legends and DOTA2 boasting an equal level in terms of production quality. The setup is simple: 2 three-player teams have 18 available champions in their disposal and are sent on the Halycon Fold— the fictional map of Vainglory where the objective is to shatter each other’s Crystal Vain to claim victory.
Sceptics would initially raise eyebrows about this mobile MOBA but its warm reception tells another story. It first made its presence known in Apple’s 2014 Keynote and boasted 1.5 million active iOs players. It continued to make its way to Android boasting more than a million downloads from the Playstore.
Vainglory’s competitive gaming was all thanks to its community of players who took initiatives in the competitive side of Vainglory by hosting tournaments. This reception would inevitably attract eSports brand ESL resulting in the Vainglory Cup Series in Europe. OGN Korea took heed afterwards which paved way for the Vainglory World Invitational on July 2015, the first-ever official LAN tournament in Seoul’s eSports Stadium inviting top teams across NA, EU and SEA for a prize pool worth $30,000. Watch the video below and feel the excitement
Continuing from the hype and its momentum, OGN hosted the first season of the Vainglory International Premiere League (VIPL) at the eSports Stadium in Seoul on August 2015 inviting both local and international teams with a prize pool of $70, 000 up for grabs.
There is no sign of SEMC stopping after expanding to China with its partnership with Giant Interactive and having recently raised $26 million in funding as it bids to be “the world’s first mass-market eSport.”
It’s the best time to be in this community, so what are you waiting for? Go get Vainglory either in the App Store or Google Play and see you in the Fold.
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