E3 2016: EA unveils brand new esports initiative at EA Play

Electronic Arts have revealed a huge push towards the esports market with plans for major tournaments and big money prize pools, plus publisher support for community- and user-staged events.

Peter Moore, EA’s new chief competition officer, espoused the benefits and key points of the new Madden NFL Championships which are made up of four “EA Major” events that promise a combined US$1 million prize pool. There will also be an eight-player Madden NFL 16 tourney kick off today and run throughout E3, to be hosted by ESPN’s Stan Verrett.

The major events will have two lower levels of competition below, including low-level challenger events and the mid-tier premier class.

“We want to make stars of all our players,” enthused Moore, “with new competitive modes and weekly contests,” released within the games themselves.

EA Sports titles will not be alone in this new esports program, Battlefield 1 also made an appearance during Moore’s presentation.

———-

This content has recently been ported from its original home on The Iris and may have formatting errors – images may not be showing up, or duplicated, and galleries may not be working. We are slowly fixing these issue. If you spot any major malfunctions making it impossible to read the content, however, please let us know at editor AT theaureview.com.

David Smith

David Smith is the former games and technology editor at The AU Review. He has previously written for PC World Australia. You can find him on Twitter at @RhunWords.