Perfect World and MarsTV announce collaboration

Perfect World and MarsTV have announced a collaboration today at a large press conference. The collaboration includes the creation of a new international competition, new media content, and a brand new broadcasting platform.

You can find the official press release here, but we provided a rough translation of the key parts:

"Online game distributor Perfect World (Beijing) Ltd have announced a collaboration together with MarsTV to manage the competitive scene of the world-class game Dota 2. Both parties organized a press conference at a hotel in Shanghai, and announced that they will create the top tier professional competitions in Dota 2, as well as managing the second and amateur tiers.

Both parties have signed a contract to manage Dota 2 together in multiple aspects: from managing and operating the competitive scene, to streaming and streaming contents. The major point in this collaboration revolves around the competitions and streaming of Dota 2. From this year onwards, Perfect World and MarsTV will organize competitions, and will also invite top teams from the international scene to participate in them. At the same time, both parties will use world-class streaming methods and production to provide the viewers with a close to perfect competitive setting and experience. This collaboration will improve Perfect World and MarsTV’s own competitiveness in their respective fields, and both parties will also strive to make Dota 2 the most favoured game in China.

The competition organized by Perfect World and MarsTV will be hosted on the brand new HuoMaoTV platform, which will be based in Shanghai and focus on video game broadcasts. It will also provide coverage of professional eSports, celebrity commentary, variety shows and other forms of televised media. It will be the first TV station of its kind."

At the press conference, there was also a large retirement ceremony for LaNm, rOtk and BurNing.

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This collaboration seems to be a direct replacement to the old WPC-ACE, a tournament that has been overshadowed by a lot of controversy, most notably a lack of payment to the players and teams. An exact date for any tournaments has yet to be released but it seems likely that these will come once both WEC and i-League are finished.

In addition, in light of the press conference, there has been talk about a possible players association. With Perfect World getting involved, the scene is bound to undergo infrastructural changes, especially in regards to ACE's past actions.

It is not the first time that Perfect World has announced a partnership to host tournaments. A year ago, the company announced partnering up with Gamefy to host the Dota 2 Super League which saw TongFu take home about $80,000.