The Asian eSports Cup debuts at Tokyo Game Show 2012

The Tokyo Game Show (TGS), Japan’s premier video game exhibition, is about to get a whole lot bigger. The Asian eSports Cup (AEC), Japan’s biggest eSports event yet, is primed to make its debut at the glitzy convention held annually at Mukuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan. Running over four days, from the 20th till the 23rd of September 2012, the competition is set to feature some of the brightest egaming talents across South East Asia and the Pacific and see them duke it out in popular titles such as Starcraft 2 and Counter-Strike 1.6 for over 1,640,000 JPY (approximately $20,000USD) in combined cash prizes.

Joe Fender, General Manager of Cyber Athlete Competition (CyAC), the leading eSports organization in Japan and the organizers of the Asian eSports Cup 2012, is extremely excited that many of the region’s talents will be converging in Japan for the first time. “That is our goal this year,” states Mr. Fender of the expansive scale of the event, “Japan is such a developed country but it has [yet] to make a mark on the eSports map, [thus] we look forward to welcoming top players from all over Asia.”

Despite having held a stake at previous TGS conventions, this is the first year the CyAC is running the AEC, but even then the company is confident that the unique atmosphere created by the TGS, as well as its huge turnout of over 200,000 gamers will help the ambitious tournament on its way. However, the relative large scale of the event notwithstanding, Mr. Fender asserts that his company will be putting up a modest display this time round. “We’ll have some decent sized booths and some great sponsorship, but we will be focusing primarily on the tournaments,” reassures the general manager.

Come September, a total of 11 countries, will vie for eight slots in the Starcraft 2 category at AEC while the Counter-Strike tournament will feature representatives from four different nations. “We wanted to include as many players as possible,” relates Mr. Fender on the limited slots at the coming games, “so we merged a few countries into one qualifier—more details on the logistics of the qualifiers [have been posted] this month. We will also hold a couple of Japanese-only tournaments such as the ESWC qualifiers and other popular FPS titles. More to be announced!” 

“CyAC is a recently reopened game tournament site and as the first year of the AEC, we are taking things slowly,” reveals Joe Fender, “although we have many years of experience in Japan, this is our very first step into global eSports, and I’m glad that we were able to make this a possibility. You’ll be seeing a lot more of us in the future!”

For more updates and details on registration on the Asian eSports Cup, head on down to the official website. Alternatively you can keep tabs on the tournament by liking official Asia E-Sports Cup page at Facebook Fanpage. The Asian eSports Cup 2012 is organized by CyAC in partnership with Rapture Gaming, and sponsored by Alienware.