Green Day once famously sang the lines of “Wake me up when September ends,” and now that we’ve reached the end of the month— here’s a quick recap of what went down in the online community and gaming scene for September.
Spoiler alert: it’s more than just celebrating the current hype of Among Us and Fall Guys in the previous month, though it did comprise a great part of course!
It’s official, Ninja and MrBeast are getting Fall Guys skins after a $1 million charity bid. The online superstars also collaborated with G2 Esports and Aim Lab to make the pledge in an intense bidding war.
A team composed of Tyler “Ninja” Blevins won the charity competition to have their exclusive skin included in Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, considered as one of the hottest BR titles of the summer.
During the last minute of the 2 week-long competition, the Fortnite icon announced he would team up with YouTuber MrBeast, G2 Esports, and Aim Lab to donate $1 million to a UK-based charity “SpecialEffect” that helps those with physical disabilities experience video games.
In hopes of creating a positive impact on the community, the devs promised to introduce a skin to Fall Guys representing the brand (or any personality) that was willing to donate the most amount of money to SpecialEffect.
Interested players quickly made their donation in hopes of getting a personalized skin added to the Battle Royale game. Initial bids poured in ranging around tens of thousands of dollars, but as the game reached greater heights, things also quickly escalated.
Warframe developer Digital Extremes pledged $20,000 to the charity auction. The leading bid was $510k before Ninja and the others joined in with their pledge.
The Los Angeles-based eSports organization FaZe clan announced LeBron “Bronny” James Jr’s latest addition to their growing family.
The 15-year old, their newest recruit as of writing, is the son of NBA superstar LeBron James. Bronny‘s off to show his in-game skills on titular games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Fortnite.
Although he already has made a name for himself as a high school basketball player, and continues to do so, the gamer is also known for creating social media content and streaming gameplays on NBA 2K and Call of Duty: Warzone.
FaZe continues to expand its branding portfolio outside of gaming, and now the organization has recruited basketball players slash gamers to join their family. And when it comes to gaming, Bronny James is not only skilled on the court but it seems like his skills span in-game.
Being the son of Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James, it is presumed that he already has plenty of connections in the industry. However, his new contract with FaZe Clan marks the beginning of his career in esports. He has also played with other FaZe members prior to joining.
In streaming, Bronny James has experience sharing his live gameplays on Fortnite, Warzone, and NBA 2K to his 327k Twitch followers. He has only signed to be a content creator for FaZe, but who knows, Bronny’s skills may just earn him a spot in the organization’s competitive teams in the future.
As of writing, FaZe currently has signed over 40 streamers and content creators, six teams, and some well-known investors.
StreamElements officially announced the 20 recipients of its $100,000 Creator Diversity fund, which aims to provide creators from underrepresented groups on Twitch with professional live streaming services.
These small, up-and-coming streamers are working hard towards establishing their names in the competitive landscape of live streaming. And since they are from underrepresented groups, they continually face even harsher competition by the day.
It’s what the Creator Diversity Fund is primarily designed for, to provide these streamers “a wide range of support from StreamElements which includes graphics, production, and mentorship.”
Furthermore, SteelSeries will also provide all the 20 recipients with Arctis 1 Wireless Gaming Headsets. StreamElements said in a statement that they were inspired to create the fund due to an acknowledgment that creators in underrepresented groups continue to face additional challenges in the livestreaming industry.
The said fund aspires to be “a way to help elevate their presence and voice in an ecosystem where discovery and access to information is an issue.”
The recipients were selected by the type of content they were producing, their passion and dedication to live streaming, and the personal insights they provided when they applied.
Riot Games confirmed that the highly-anticipated 2020 League of Legends (LoL) World Championship will still be taking place amid the concerns of COVID-19. More details about the end-of-season event’s location, format, schedule, participating teams and more were also announced.
The World Championship or simply known as “Worlds” is considered as League’s most prestigious tournament. Top teams from each region gather annually in hopes of lifting the Summoner’s Cup and winning the prize pool.
There were initial concerns for Worlds 2020, given recent events and the pandemic, especially after the Mid-Season Invitational has been cancelled. However, Riot confirmed to LoL fans that the event will still push through for China. LPL teams will be fighting to retain the Summoner’s Cup for the third year in a row on their homeland.
China is going to host the 2020 World Championship, but each stage of the tournament will no longer be held in different cities due to health risks and concerns. Moreover, the tournament will be exclusively held in Shanghai, with the finals at the new Pudong Soccer Stadium.
Worlds 2020 will begin on September 25, spanning over a month of top-tier League of Legends competitive gameplay action before its conclusion on October 31 with the grand finals. Riot also confirmed some changes for Worlds in the next few years. The tournament will return to China for a full tour as originally intended in 2021, pushing back North America’s chance to host at least until 2022.
In August, Pokimane made headlines as she announced a month-long break from her streaming endeavors citing “burnout” as a primary reason.
“Since quarantine began, it’s been hard for me to find the same joys and motivation for making content. This has led me to feeling burnt out for quite some time and because of that, I’ve been planning to take a month off… I want to be happy and excited to make content for you all, and I’m looking forward to getting back into that headspace.”
Now that it’s been over a month, the Twitch streamer announced her official return to the platform on Sept 11, as he confirmed the news on Twitter.
Pokimane has not been completely off the grid away from any social media presence despite her high-profile “burn-out break.” In fact, she has done a six-hour surprise broadcast on the extremely popular game Among Us amid her hiatus.
It’s because of her month-long extended break that Poki admitted to have found herself feeling excited once again about streaming on Twitch. As the days passed, the streamer said she felt more relaxed and excited. Welcome back, Pokimane!
Blackpink in your area? It seems like Jisoo, Jennie, Rose, and Lisa will soon be making their appearance on Erangel, Miramar, Sanhok and Vikendi.
PlayerUnknown BattleGrounds (PUBG) Mobile confirmed its upcoming collaboration with South Korean girl group BLACKPINK, after teasing the exclusive collab on their social media accounts.
Teasers also hint at a BLACKPINK-colored themed airdrop box, a pink car, and the lightstick — associated with the BLACKPINK fandom called BLINKS. The lightstick might even be a usable weapon in the form of a “lightstick hammer.”
PUBG Mobile’s decision to collaborate with BLACKPINK can give a marketing boost to the BR title. The famous K-POP girl group broke YouTube’s record for the biggest music video premiere with their song “Ice Cream,” featuring singer Selena Gomez. It even landed the 13th spot on the Billboard Hot 100 list.
As the K-pop stars prepare to make their PUBG Mobile in-game debut, Kpop fans are looking into playing the mobile title to see and experience it for themselves.
With BlackPink’s recent collaboration with PUBG Mobile, it seems like the KPOP fever is taking the gaming world by storm! This time, K-Pop superstar boy band BTS will be making an appearance on Fortnite in an epic crossover.
Epic Games announced a new exclusive for the Fortnite community later this month, with BTS to debut the choreography of their latest music video “Dynamite” in Party Royale on September 25.
For those who are unfamiliar with the game mode, Party Royale is a non-combat mode in Fortnite where players can get together with friends to attend various events, concerts, movies, or just hang around and socialize for fun.
Players can watch the BTS choreography through the Party Royale mode at 8 pm EDT, with the exclusive video being played on the Main Stage of the Party Royale Island. Additionally, there will be other exclusive items coming to Fortnite which takes inspiration from BTS.
Starting on September 23, players can score exclusive emotes choreographed by BTS. Fans may use the emotes to dance along with RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook during the #DynaNite event.
It appears Riot wants to take the next step towards growing the Valorant esports scene with the announcement of First Strike. The tournament is a Riot-produced global competition aimed to recognize the best teams in their respective regions.
After the Valorant Ignition Series, First Strike will create new opportunities for competitive players from around the world to rise through the ranks and be crowned as regional champions.
The competition will comprise a global set of tournaments, with regional finals taking place around the world.
Participating regions are as follows:
- North America
- Europe
- CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States)
- Turkey
- Asia
- Oceania
- Brazil
- Middle-East
Regional qualifiers for First Strike will start in the second half of October. The top eight teams will then meet in their region’s finals sometime between December 3-6.
First Strike will be restricted to purely online events, considering the current worldwide travel restrictions.
Amazon recently detailed its new cloud gaming service named “Luna,” and the new platform is slated to be accessible on Apple devices starting in October.
It hopes to become the next rival of Google Stadia, Microsoft’s xCloud, PlayStation Now, Apple Arcade, and GeForce Now.
The tech giant previously confirmed the development of the platform back in April, but it was only officially announced on September 24 ahead of its US launch in October.
The service comes with an introductory price of US $5.99 a month for the Luna+ channel. The early access enables Luna premium subscribers to play Luna Plus channel games across two devices at the same time, offering 4K / 60fps resolution.
It will also initially have 100 different games via the Luna Plus channel. Launch titles include Resident Evil 7, Control, Panzer Dragoon, A Plague Tale: Innocence, The Surge 2, Yooka-Laylee, GRID, Abzu, and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons.
Luna will be supported by Amazon Web Services (AWS). In turn, users are enabled to stream games on Amazon Fire TV and PC, as well as iOS devices (iPhone and iPad).
sSupport for Android devices will be made available in the next few weeks.
