" Overwatch' has been quite an anomaly," said Jason Xu, chief executive of gaming tournament software developer Battlefy.
Keeping up with the tempo, some local traders have announced cash rewards for players who excel in the tournament – a Kandahari property developer, Munir Khan, has promised to give batsman Asghar Stanikzai $10,000 £6,5000) if he scores a century against Bangladesh, while Shamim Katawazi, a trader from Paktika, has promised $10,000 to any Afghan bowler who gets five wickets in a match.
However, those developers and tournament organisers shy away from solutions like the IeSF's.
"The heart of Xbox has always been competitive multiplayer so this is a tournament platform that lets developers and tournament operators like FaceIt, ESL, etc, to be able to say we're going do a Gears 4 competition this weekend, we can take 1000 players and the prize is, say, 12 months free Xbox Live Gold membership for your whole team, and you just start competing.
Game developers and tournament organisers tend to acknowledge that the number of women in the general player base isn't reflected in the professional scene – SuperData Research estimates a 70/30 split between men and women in games commonly used as esports, such a League of Legends and StarCraft II, but on the professional circuit the ratio skews heavily toward male.
With Nextpeer's tournament and social SDK (software development kit), developers can add customizable features that enable their game's users join real-time, social tournaments where they compete against other users for top scores or achievements.
The acquisition of MLG represents a desire to oversee all aspects of the eSports tournament process – much like Riot Games, the developer of sector leader League of Legends, which has complete control over its tournaments and events.
It is not the first Rocket League tournament ever held but, as the game expands in popularity, developer Psyonix bet on its future in eSports with an ambitious tournament setup and a glitzy Hollywood finals.
In most cases there's no licensing required – the developers actually want people to create their own tournament, because it draws attention.
For example, football app developer, Onefootball, has launched a dedicated free app for the tournament.
