PlayStation makes another big esports acquisition
Sony's doubling down on esports after buying Evo
Sony's gaming division is expanding further into esports with the acquisition of Repeat.gg, an online tournament platform.
Repeat.gg hosts leaderboard-based tournaments in games like Fortnite, League of Legends, and Call of Duty: Warzone. Scoring typically tracks things like your number of kills or number of victories, and only your top few matches count toward the leaderboard. With those sorts of rules in mind, Repeat.gg aims to make esports more accessible to more players, and still offers cash prize pools, or a proprietary currency that can be exchanged for things like gift cards on Amazon and various game platforms.
"At PlayStation, our vision for esports has always been about breaking down barriers for gamers to compete at all levels," Steven Roberts, Sony's VP of competitive gaming tells GamesIndustry.biz. "Together with the talented Repeat.gg team, we're excited to explore more ways for players to engage in competitive gaming and expand the breadth of our esports offerings."
Earlier this year, Sony announced its intent to introduce a Tournaments feature for PS5, an extension of a feature built with ESL for PS4. It seems likely that Repeat.gg will be helping to develop the technology for this feature.
Last year, Sony acquired Evo, the most prominent tournament series in the fighting game community, as part of a joint deal with esports venture RTS. Evo continues to support non-PlayStation games, and Repeat.gg will similarly continue to host tournaments for games on other consoles, PC, and mobile.
You'd better start getting some practice time in with the best online games if you want to stay competitive for these tournaments.
Sign up to the 12DOVE Newsletter
Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more
Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.