Famed gaming tournament expands to Sydney with first-ever CS: GO tournament in the first week of May.
The inevitable expansion of the gaming industry is starting to grab hold of tournaments. This time, the dominate figure head of online games, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, is taking the world’s top teams and fiber optic cables to Sydney, Australia. With this announcement, it marks the first time that Australia’s been named as a pit stop in CS: GO play.
For those unfamiliar with the Intel Extreme Masters tournament, it’s as close to March Madness and the College Football Playoff as you’ll get. Just over this weekend, the event concluded in Poland, where teams competed in the style of StarCraft 2, League of Legends and CS: GO. Spodek Stadium, the host to the Katowice, Poland, apparently took more than 1,000 crew members to wrangle the whole thing together.
The CS: GO team to defeat going into Sydney is Team Astralis, a Denmark-based team, who rallied over FaZe Clan in Poland over the weekend. Previously, Astralis had capped off another victory in the Intel Extreme Masters, adding on to their resumes of an already impressive 2017. Now with Sydney as a new stage, Astralis – and other teams – will work off their magic from scratch. The two-day event will be held at Qudos Bank Arena, known for hosting a music awards show catered towards Australian music.
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As for the gaming industry in Australia, it’s pretty much a ghost town. For right now, there are no rosters that are homegrown, but that shouldn’t take long with IEM in attendance. In their past tours, IEM has stopped by China, Oakland and South Korea – all of whom are starting to grow into their own identities in terms of gaming as a whole. Australia, on the other hand, has yet to set a competitive foot in the door.