Following last week’s announcement that Enemydown, Midway and PLAY.com are to hold a massive £50,000 cash tournament to celebrate the launch of the eagerly awaited Unreal Tournament 3 on PC DVD from Epic Games, Xleague.tv today announced that it will broadcast exclusive TV coverage of the tournament leading up to the final event.
Only gamers pre-ordering and purchasing Unreal Tournament 3 from PLAY.com before its scheduled launch in November and post launch through December will receive a unique registration code allowing them to enter two massive competitions with their new game. One is a single player tournament with a fantastic first prize of £20,000, and the other is a team-based tournament with an even bigger prize of £30,000.
Xleague.tv will exclusively televise select matches from the online competitions, which will take place following the launch of the game. The finalists will then be invited to the grand-slam shoot out in March 2008 at the recently announced ‘Play.com Live’ show to be held at Wembley Stadium.
Today’s announcement further solidifies the growing relationship between Xleague.tv and Enemydown/TNWA Group, having already had a successful collaboration in the form of the Packard Bell EU open ‘Play Harder’ tournaments.
Ray Mia, Channel Head – Xleague.tv, said: “XLeague.tv is continually striving to give the UK gaming community the very best coverage of the best gaming events. I'm excited to announce our exclusive coverage of the Enemydown Unreal Tournament 3 £50,000 competition, in conjunction with PLAY.com and Midway Games Ltd.
Since our Channel launched in May 2007, we have employed a great deal of broadcast know-how into producing gaming shows that would excite the knowledgeable gamer, as well as providing compelling television to the uninitiated. We are the first broadcaster to effectively manage and create programming for multi-player games, and with the increasing success of our Gears of War and Halo 3 shows, UT3 looks set to become an important part of our gaming line-up and broadcast schedule for 2008.
I am particularly enthusiastic and encouraged by the increasing association between XLeague.tv and Enemydown. It makes perfect sense that one of the leading online gaming outfits in the UK partner with the leading games broadcaster. After we successfully co-launched three PC Leagues sponsored by Packard Bell, the UT3 £50,000 competition is excellent news for the gaming community, and now they can fight it out on TV. It's an exciting time for UK gaming, and we're proud to be part of it.”
“Having Xleague.tv onboard for this competition will add yet another appealing facet for everyone purchasing Unreal Tournament 3 from PLAY.com,” added Paul Sulyok, CEO of The TNWA Group. “They have demonstrated a perfect affinity with a broad gaming audience and transposed this into a show format that conveys the non-stop action a game like UT3 provides. This tournament will be essential viewing!”
Enemydown hosts the largest UK community of online PC gamers. The site has hosted some of the largest online gaming tournaments in recent years, attracting both amateur and professional clans. The site is widely regarded as a premier destination for Europe's competitive PC gamer teams.