The 14,000-square-foot MLG.tv Columbus Arena - slightly larger than the typical CVS store - will be established in an existing space near Easton Town Center. The specific location was not available yesterday.

Video-game tournament organization Major League Gaming has chosen Columbus for its first arena outside the company�s New York studios.

The 14,000-square-foot MLG.tv Columbus Arena � slightly larger than the typical CVS store � will be established in an existing space near Easton Town Center. The specific location was not available yesterday.

The arena will be the organization�s �flagship venue,� said Sundance DiGiovanni, Major League Gaming�s co-founder and CEO.

It will join MLG Studio in New York City and the forthcoming MLG Stadium in China, set to open in 2017, as host locations for Major League Gaming�s ongoing championship series.

The local arena will have bleacher seats for spectators, soundproof booths for players and teams, a broadcast platform for live reports, video screens broadcasting the competition and warm-up areas for players, a spokeswoman said.

The new arena will be the site of tournaments and other live events, beginning with the third-season playoffs of Major League Gaming�s Call of Duty: Ghosts Pro League, set to begin on Oct. 24.

After the playoffs, the arena will be the site of other events and serve as the backdrop for MLG.tv programming.

Major League Gaming chose Columbus for its first arena after successfully presenting tournaments here for more than a decade, said Adam Apicella, executive vice president of MLG Properties, in a statement.

�Columbus has hosted some of our most successful events,� Apicella said. The thousands of college and high-school students in the 11-county area have formed a �passionate� video-gaming community, he said, and the proximity to the organization�s East Coast headquarters makes the city � a great location for our MLG.tv Arena.�

Video games have become a multibillion-dollar industry in the past few years, and video gaming � also known as eSports � has grown vastly more popular as well.

In 2013, more than 71 million people worldwide watched competitive gaming at events or through online streaming via sites such as MLG.tv.

A few weeks ago, Activision�s new video-game franchise Destinylogged $500 million in sales in its first week on the market. Although that was impressive, the biggest video-game launch in history was a year ago for Rockstar�s Grand Theft Auto V, which posted $1 billion in sales in its first three days on the market.

Such sales have made video-game companies increasingly valuable. Last week, Microsoft paid $2.5 billion for Mojang, the privately held Swedish company that makes the popular game Minecraft.

tferan@dispatch.com