Andy Boxall
Competitive gaming teams are about to get a great new training opportunity in both Asia and Europe. Following the success of its GeForce esports boot camp in Silicon Valley, hardware giant Nvidia will be opening similar camps in both Munich and Shanghai later this year.
The Nvidia GeForce esports boot camps are designed to allow top-tier gaming teams to refine their skills and stay sharp while they’re traveling around the world for events. The camps offer three meals each day to team members, as well as gaming rigs “mirroring the setups of the world’s biggest gaming tournaments,” complete with 240Hz G-Sync monitors. These monitors offer 4K resolution and high-dynamic range, as well as a dynamic refresh rate that automatically syncs between the GPU and the screen. Nvidia also promises ultra-low latency on the monitors, which should help players in quick-moving first-person shooters.
“If you’re part of the top esports scene, you have to prepare yourself and your team to win,” Nvidia said in a blog post. “Communication, teamwork, team building, physical workouts, diet, sleep routines, strategies, and, of course, game skills all have to be honed.”
Nvidia highlighted games like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive for the camps, but it appears another game could be a popular choice. Blizzard apparently wants The Overwatch League’s matches to be played in teams’ own cities by 2020, and it just so happens that one of its current teams is based in Shanghai. The Shanghai Dragons likely need the extra help more than any other team in the league, as the team managed to post an unspeakably bad 0-40 first season.
Other games Nvidia is helping teams prepare for include Dota 2 — as The International is quickly approaching — as well as League of Legends. Fighting games, which have traditionally found an audience on consoles rather than PC, don’t appear to be emphasized.
Esports have continued to soar in popularity in recent years, and they’re even being considered for inclusion in a future Olympics. A forum to discuss this possibility was held by the International Olympic Committee and the Global Association of International Sports Federations in July. If allowed in, esports will likely first appear in the 2024 games.
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