September 25th, 2012 by Mitchell Lockey
More positive news for the growth of e-Sports: the IGN Pro League has announced that a $100,000 ShootMania tournament will take place at their Las Vegas event happening on November 29 to December 2.
Developed by Ubisoft’s Nadeo studio, ShootMania is a FPS game stripped down to what is essential to an e-Sports centered platform. This marks the first FPS to appear in the IPL, and qualifiers for the game being on October 1.
The game, which uses ManiaScript (also powers TrackMania, highly customizable the racing game) is heavily moddable, allowing players to create their own levels and scripts. For the IPL 5 however, Elite mode will be the official mode used for the tournament, which is played by two teams of three players each. Here’s a video of what to expect during the matches:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Nkx3oCWchQ&feature=player_embedded
“There will be two online qualifiers for Europe, and four online qualifiers for North America. They will be open qualifiers with a best of three format throughout. The winning team for each qualifier will earn free flights and hotel stays for the event (as part of the prizing), which takes place November 29th – December 2nd in Las Vegas, Nevada. Winning teams will be placed into groups at IPL5, with guaranteed prize money being awarded to every team that qualifies. There will also be an open element at the event itself, where walk-ups will be able to participate in a Wild Card tournament and earn their way into the group stage of the larger, $100,000 tournament.” – IPL
Click here to head to the announcement page, where you can find forms for entering your teams to the open qualifier rounds.
If you’d like to get the beta, you can do so by either heading to the ShootMania site, or following the instructions found on the announcement page, linked above.
$100,000! Pretty big stuff. Definitely an encouraging sign as more companies test the waters with e-Sports centered games.
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