A New Esports Venue In London

God Save The Queen! Esports is coming to London in the form of a specific arena designed for tournaments, league play and ladder competitions. Gfinity, a company whose mission statement is “to help push esports within the UK to a professional level, to raise awareness and to provide an arena for gamers to showcase their talent” is working on the first building of its type in the country.

No stranger to the realm of esports — Gfinity hosted G3 and its $145,000 prize pool spread across four different games — the arena is already slated to hold an astonishing 30 live events next year. With seating for up to 500 spectators to view the competitions unfold, the building may not be as large as Major League Gaming’s (MLG) new Ohio event building, it is nonetheless a great first step. The confirmed events include games such as StarCraft II, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Halo, FIFA 15, League of Legends and Hearthstone. Gfinity has set aside $500,000 for these tournaments in addition to their weekly cups (weekly tournaments) plus six “open” events where anyone can come to the arena to chase their professional gaming aspirations.

Though this is new to the United Kingdom, mainland Europe is no stranger to hosting massive local area network (LANs) games and live tournaments. From DreamHack to Electronic Sports World Cups (ESWC), esports have spread across Europe as quickly as their internet connections will take it. The UK has hosted previous annual large-scale LANs before, notably the yearly Insomnia events, however nothing in the same scale as what Gfinity has planned for 2015 and beyond.

With new venues, tournaments and competitions, esports — despite recent controversies — continues to grow around the world. With a multitude of streaming platforms ranging from Twitch.TV to YouTube to MLG.TV, the way to watch and esports at home is wide open. The live-and-in-person options are finally catching up.

(Header image via Gfinity)