EuroCup changes from WarCraft 3 to DotA.
The ClanBase Eurocup has been one of the most important tournaments in eSport's history, but lately it has been looked over by players as the prizes in other leagues have been considerably higher. The last time, EuroCup tried their best with prize money and LAN finals, but nonetheless it did not help that much. Now they have announced their game titles for the 14th season - be surprised.
The ClanBase obviously saw themselves not being competitive against big leagues such as the ESL Extreme Masters, for example. They figured to step away from the more popular games, CounterStrike 1.6 and WarCraft 3, which they hosted for the EuroCup the last few times. Instead, they announced CounterStrike: Source, WarCraft3: Defence of the Ancients (DotA), Quake4, Call of Duty 2 and WarSow.
(Grubby - no chance
to defend his title)Most of the games are not that popular in Europe or at least lacking leagues. CS:Source did not yet make the jump above CS 1.6 in Europe, DotA might lack some leagues although it is quite popular, Quake4 lost it's most important (and almost only) tournament with the WSVG and CoD2 as well as WarSow are not the biggest game titles as well.
Obviously the ClanBase is trying to fill gaps in the tournament map in Europe, a step that is pretty risky but can pay off if successful. Several tournaments, including big ones like the WSVG, have not been successful because of their choice of unusual games - will the EuroCup fail as well?
They can be successful if they find the right balance between costs and expenses, which will be very tough, since it will be hard to calculate the interest of the communities in there more or less unusual games / game-types.
For the DotA community this is a good news, but will it hurt the "normal" WarCraft 3 scene? It does not look like it is too bad for them, since the interest in a WarCraft 3 EuroCup has been very low the last times.
Links
ClanBase.com - ClanBase website
