Intel and ESL Announce the Anniversary Season of Intel Extreme Masters
ESL, the world’s largest Esports entity, have once again joined forces with electronic giant Intel in order to create the 10th season of Intel Extreme Masters.
The Intel Extreme Masters, also known as IEM, is an elite professional gaming tour that features professional gamers from all over the world, competing at various locations in order to get their tickets for the World Championship to be held in March 2016 at the Spodek Arena in Katowice, Poland.
The most important change for the anniversary season of the IEM is that Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) is included in the titles to be played throughout the IEM world tour. Other games include StarCraft II and League of Legends (LoL), both of which were featured in the previous season of IEM as well.
Regarding the inclusion of CS:GO to this year’s IEM, here is a statement from Michal Blicharz, Managing Director of Pro Gaming at ESL
“The success and the legacy of the Intel Extreme Masters was partly built on Counter-Strike and it’s a great feeling to go into the tenth season of the circuit with CS:GO back in it. Adding a third game makes this IEM season the largest in years!”
This year’s tour include the following stops:
- IEM Shenzhen, China (July 16-20) at the Shenzhen Cartoon and Animation Festival
- IEM Cologne, Germany (August 5-9) at gamescom
- IEM San Jose, USA (November 21-22) at the SAP Center
- IEM Cologne, Germany (December 2015) at the ESL Arena
- IEM Asia stop, event details to be announced at a later date
- IEM Katowice World Championship in Poland (March 2016) at Spodek
It should be noted that the IEM Southeast Asia event is to be held in early 2016, just before the IEM World Championships.
IEM has been running for ten seasons since the year 2006. Previously featured titles included Warcraft III, Counter-Strike, Quake Live and Defense of The Ancients (DoTA).
Source: Intel Extreme Masters website
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