May the heavens be ready!

Mineski Pro Gaming League (MPGL), the largest eSports League in SouthEast Asia (SEA) will hold its 6th MPGL SEA Tournament Finals on November 29-30 at the SkyDome and Cyberzone of SM City North EDSA with a total pot prize of 1 million pesos (USD22,200).

During the official media launch held at Outback Restaurant in Glorietta last Wednesday (October 15), Mineski Corp CEO Ronald Robins and Mineski Corp VP for eSports Marlon Marcelo announced that the grand finals will have DotA 2 as the official game platform featuring the top DotA 2 players in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and the rest of the southeast region like Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Laos and Vietnam. Open qualifiers from Australia, India, Japan, Korea and other Asian countries will also join the event.

The first MPGL was held in 2009 with the goal of producing a competitive and consistent eSports tournament scene here in the Philippines. MPGL also pioneered eSports entertainment through sponsoring live events and broadcasting and is also recognized in the international scene as a qualifying stage for various eSports tournament such as the Asian Cyber Games for DotA 2, Dragon Nest World Championship and Assault Fire Pro-Tour.

Robins also known as the ‘Father of Modern Philippine eSports’ said that this year’s MPGL SEA Grand Finals will show the world that the Philippines can also produce an international eSports arena that will make the region proud. The Philippine team is also recognized as one of the best in the southeast Asian region and has the potential of becoming number 1.

More than just a fad, over 25% of the population in the Philippines are into eSports and with a slight disadvantage as compared to other sporting events because of the general perception that it is highly addicting and bad because of the games’ ‘violent’ nature. Robins explained and compared eSports with boxing which is a sport very much recognized all over the globe and one that we, Filipinos really excel in.

Robins said that boxing as a contact sport is very physical and may also be tagged as ‘violent’ but also ‘entertaining’. The same goes with eSports but the latter having no actual physical contact is why it’s fast gaining popularity with young people who are looking for some fun competition.

Meanwhile, Mineski’s broadcasting and content creation arm – MineskiTV was recognized as the most successful eSports Youtube channel with over 25K subscribers, 6.5 million views and 49.8 million minutes watched. Mineski’s livestream channel on Twitch.TV has over 16K followers, 16 million views and 72 million accumulated minutes watched.

Mineski.net on the other hand has over 500K unique visitors each month making it the biggest eSports portal in the Philippines.

The MPGL Season VI Grand Finals is sponsored by Gigabyte, SteelSeries, ViewSonic and secretshop.ph.