CD Projekt Red announced the hot new virtual card game from The Witcher, Gwent will have its very own eSports League tournament called Gwent Challenger.
The competition will put four players against professional gamers in the digital CCG, which is in beta for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. They will compete for a prize pool of $100,000. You can sign up for the tournament here, Gwent Challenger will take place with the PC version of the game.
This is Gwent’s first step into the esports world, following in the footsteps of other digital card games such as Hearthstone. The total value of eSports revenue is estimated at $892.8 Million in 2016, with fans spending $231 Million on tickets, merchandise and prize pool contributions according to Super Data Research.
Hoping to capture some of that attention and drive ongoing support for the stand-alone card game, Gwent: The Witcher Card Game looks to push eSports hard during their Beta period. The eSports push across PC games is a major driver behind the record growth in PC gaming according to The Open Gaming Alliance (OGA).
“It’s a real privilege to observe how active GWENT players are in the realm of competitive gaming. Community-powered tournaments like The Passiflora Championship, The Seven Cats Brawl or The Gwentlemen’s Open are a source of inspiration for the entire team, and we definitely want this part of GWENT to grow,” said Paweł Burza, Community Manager, CD PROJEKT RED.
The four pros in the tournament come from other established games such as Hearthstone and DOTA 2:
- Trump (Jeffrey Shih)
- Lifecoach (Adrian Koy)
- Noxious (Kacem Khilaji)
- Ppd (Peter Dager)
“GWENT: The Witcher Card Game was created because The Witcher community wanted it. Now we’re seeing more and more gamers wanting to play GWENT competitively, so here we are with a chance to play against some heavy-hitters, and a prize pool to spice things up,” said Marcin Iwiński, Co-founder, CD PROJEKT RED. “I can’t wait to see who wins!” Iwiński adds.
Gwent started life as a minigame inside The Witcher III: Wild Hunt, an open-world role-playing game that CD Projekt Red in 2015. Now, the digital card game is becoming a standalone, free-to-play title.
Registrations for GWENT Challenger Qualifiers are now open and you can find them on the official website.
