Looks like EA is looking for that e-sports money, the current craze nowadays, as they are announcing at the EA Play press event that they will be organising their own e-sports events for selected games. The EA Majors as it called, will bring in competitive players to compete to the top level of play.
There’s also lower tiers that builds up to the Major, with Challenger events open to most people, basically grass-roots level tourneys and Premier events, a higher tiered one based on currently established gaming events, like the ones being run by ESL and Dreamhack.
The first game to be rolling in this initiative is Madden 16 with the Madden 16 Championships. Next year, the Madden 17 Championships will be offering a 1 million USD prize pool.
In a separate interview with VentureBeat, Peter Moore, EA’s CCO (that stands for Chief Competition Officer- not kidding here) talks about how they are going to push Madden, FIFA and Battlefield for e-sports currently, with the primary goal of opening opportunities for more players to go pro, rather than just growing the pro scene.
This could be a major opportunity for fans of EA games to show off their talents, and it will be interesting to see EA taking a crack on the competitive scene of gaming.