I feel that way with for all four of these teams. It'll be heartbreaking to see three teams not win but I'll be happy to see one of them actually become heroes of the dorm. It's very easy to find protagonists in this tournam

The final map was the Dragon Shire and Cal-Berkeley ultimately prevailed in a back and forth fight. Blizzard has not yet uploaded video of the grand final to its official site, but highlights can be watched on ESPN.c

This weekend included a banner day for eSports with a competition for Blizzard's Heroes of the Storm getting broadcast live on ESPN 2 . More on that later, but first, there were also major developments across Dota 2 , Hearthstone and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. It's all on this week's eSports Rep

But that might change soon thanks to an announcement a few days ago from Valve. The Dota Major Championships are coming, and will now organize the competitive Dota 2 calendar into seasonal action across four major tournaments , including The Internatio

So what's the future business model for games? It depends on the individual company and the product they're producing. A single-player RPG seems like fixed price is the right model, but considering the popularity of online multiplayer, we're seeing fewer and fewer of them. As time goes on, the purely single-player experience may fall by the wayside—already, we're seeing more games implement multiplayer modes in previously single-player ga

It was mentioned at the top of this column that Heroes of the Storm got some major attention on national television on Sunday. Blizzard's Heroes of the Dorm competition had its grand finals, with the winners getting tuition money for the duration of their college care

As someone who plays Dota 2, I thought "'worth'? What do you mean 'worth'?" It hit me pretty quickly that they meant worth money. The concept of paying real money for a hero eludes me, as a Dota 2 player, with a game that has more than 100 heroes available to everyone, free of charge. While League of Legends is technically free to play, players can get a better experience by buying access to better champions - champions that have "worth." Dota 2, not so. There's not a single item in the game that can be purchased in any way to give players an advantage. This got me thinking how Dota 2 really is the only game that does Free to Play right, that is, in a way that benefits the player as much or more than the company.

The latter is even more surprising, since Tearaway actually beat out Irrational Games' BioShock Infinite for a Best Game nomination. BioShock Infinite , the spiritual sequel to Irrational's critically-acclaimed FPS BioShock , suffered a critical backlash after the initial praise that it received and this seems to still be in full effect. BioShock Infinite did manage to achieve nominations for Audio Achievement, Artistic Achievement, Original Music and Best Performer (Courtnee Draper), but the snubs for Best Moba Game Beginner guide and Best Story seem rather poin

H1Z1 's developers aren't the only ones pursuing this avenue. Peter Moore, COO of EA, told Kotaku that he believes that microtransactions will one day be a part of every game , and that this shift is a difficult time for both developers and gamers alike. "We're just picking our way through and nobody is any way trying to gouge anybody," Moore s

Blizzard dropped the ban hammer this past week on four different players for "win trading," including two well-known professional players. All four players are now disqualified from the World Championship, and the two pros have apparently had their entire Hearthstone account shutdown as w

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft continues to have great success in the eSports scene, with tournaments for top players getting held just about every weekend and some streamers on Twitch regularly bringing in tens of thousands of viewers. Blizzard is currently handing out qualifying points for this year's Hearthstone World Championship at special events and through the monthly seasonal results. While last year did have a Hearthstone World Championship, 2015 is the first time Blizzard has created a year-long path to Blizzcon. It's created opportunity for a lot new players to try and get in on the action, but it now seems that at least a few gamers got a little too overzeal

And yeah, I know these $60, AAA titles still have some greed to work through (like $10 DLC for Titanfall that's just three maps), but it's all manageable, and Dota 2 is still the only game to do free to play right. Beyond Dota 2, The Last of Us just had a completely free multiplayer map pack released for it. It can be done. All gamers want is a model that fosters mutually and equally beneficial purchasing. Give it to them.

Piracy has long been a scourge of gaming, affecting and frustrating both developers and players, for intertwined but different reasons. Game distributors have tried many things to combat piracy. It started with CD keys and progressed to DRM that limits the possible number of installations or requires internet access at all times. Some developers even include code that will glitch pirated games, leading to some truly hilarious resul