Arena of Valor announced the 2018 Arena of Valor International Championship featuring sixteen teams from different regions, including India for the first time.
Released in 2016, Arena of Valor is a mobile multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game published by Tencent and Garena for Android, Nintendo Switch, and iOS. The game is popular in Asia, especially in China and Southeast Asia.
Arena of Valor has a fast-growing esports scene with competitive leagues in Europe, Latin America, North America, and Asia. This year, the game is taking the next step with the 2018 International Championship set to run from November 23 to December 16 in Thailand.
16 teams from the different regions are competing for the title and a portion of the $600,000 (£460,000) prize pool. The teams are qualifying according to the standings in the different leagues. Arena of Glory, the Vietnamese tournament will have three representatives at the event. It remains unclear the process to select the representative from India, the region is taking part in the international competition for the first time.
So far, 2018 Arena of Valor International Championship has one team confirmed. Singaporean organisation Tamago is representing Southeast Asia after winning the Valor Cup in Manila back in September.
Arena of Valor continues its efforts to grow the competitive scene, efforts that started in 2017 with the International Championship: Asia. Early this year, the Arena of Valor World Cup took place in Los Angeles with a $550,000 (£420,000) prize pool. Korea took the title at the world famous TCL Chinese Theatre.
Esports Insider says: Mobile games are taking the esports scene by storm. Publishers are putting resources into these games and the competitive scenes. Mobile games are popular even among people that don’t consider themselves gamers of any kind. This side of the industry will open a lot of opportunities for new independent developers.