UPDATE:
If this wasn’t concrete before, I think IGN just made it a done deal. It was recently discovered that sixteen professional StarCraft II players have profiles on IGN’s people.ign.com page. The list includes:
Original Post:
Today word got out that gaming industry giant IGN Entertainment will be getting into the eSports scene, specifically with StarCraft II. According to an IGN employee and “a credible source who wishes to remain anonymous at this time,” IGN will be hosting a Proleague with a prize pool between $150,000 and $200,000. This news seems to be confirmed by this website, which shows a count down April 5th. To make the case even stronger, a cashed version of the Proleague site reveals a list of players and matches.
The matches listed are:
sixjaxViBE vs ROOTKiWiKaKi
FXOSheth vs ROOTMinigun
VTSpades vs coLstalife
EGIdrA vs LGAgh
There were some strong hints that IGN was planning something big with SCII. A few days ago, Edward from Root Gaming, now an employee of IGN in the e-sports division, posted some pictures showing off “a high end production facility, an employee holding a copy of StarCraft 2 and a number of the most well known players in the North American StarCraft scene,” including iNcontroL, SeleCT, Axslav, Sheth, CatZ, Spades, Painuser, TT1, Evoli and Edward from Root Gaming.
While IGN has yet to come right out and officially confirm any of this, it’s hard to dismiss all the evidence. It is interesting to note that iNcontroL was invited to the IGN office, considering that he is basically the face of the North American Star League, a direct competitor to IGN’s Proleague.
Source: SK Gaming