Four major eSports world championships feature at Blizzcon 2015

[MUSIC] If you haven't been paying attention, Esports is a huge industry. Some analysts are predicting it will net over $600 million worldwide in 2015 and it's only growing. At this year's BlizzCon, Blizzard's annual fan convention, Esports proved to be one of the shows biggest draws. The olympic games of Esports is happening here. Four world championships at BlizzCon. Four and it's Super exciting. Everybody here is really, really thrilled to check this out and see who the champions are going to be. Most game studios involved in esports have a single game in competition. As we mentioned, Blizzard has four. Starcraft II, the uber popular real time strategy game that pits Terrans, Protoss, and Zerg against one another in a military sci-fi epic. Mega MMO World of Warcraft arena championships Featuring PVP teams duking it out for glory. Blizzard's newest game Hero Of The Storm, a free to play multiplayer online battle arena staring playable characters from every game in the company's arsenal and Hearthstone the collectible card game for PC, smartphones and tablets, that let's players build custom decks and face off against local or online opponents. There are four very types of games. Even though every games dev team knows the in's and out's of each one, these four players always make it interesting. I think they always surprise us. They are always doing things at a level of play that are far beyond what any of us are capable of. [APPLAUSE] All those people cheering? They're cheering for a game that just came out in June. Starcraft 2 has a long standing, even bigger fan base with even more intense fans. It's so exciting, and it's amazing to be able to watch that, especially in front And see your favorite person. I'm still trying to get Life's autograph. Favorite players and teams are a staple in E Sports community, just like traditional sports. Blizzard is well aware of that fact and when it's developers work on games with potential E Sports components, they definitely like to keep players and spectators in mind. Those values that we've kind of built to make the play screen serve for the player, hopefully will be valuable for someone who's watching the game. And speaking of valuable, those winners aren't just walking away with pride. The prize pool across all four championship series at Bliss Con 2015 was 1.25 million dollars. We are in the wrong business, and need to get better at video games. It's obvious that eSports is huge, even if you've never seen a match. Yeah, the whole convention is based on passion. Passionate fans, passionate crews, and eSports themselves I think just builds that passion and builds on that passion. I mean, eSports is only going to get bigger from here. True, you know who knows, maybe we'll see one of you here for the world championships next year. [MUSIC]