Twitch and BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Asia Announce TEKKEN World Tour

The fighting game community might not be as big as the MOBA or FPS Esports scenes, though they do make up for it with sheer passion and excitement in their tournaments. To expand the fighting game scene to a wider audience, Bandai Namco has partnered with Twitch to create the TEKKEN World Tour.

Social video platform Twitch and BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Asia Pte. Ltd., publisher of TEKKEN™ 7, have announced an exclusive partnership to create the TEKKEN World Tour. In addition to being the exclusive broadcasting platform for this competitive gaming league, Twitch will manage TEKKEN 7 league operations, circuit events, and content on a global scale. The goal of the partnership is for Twitch to work alongside BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment to build the community and infrastructure to sustain long-term growth of the historic fighting game franchise.

 

Details of the Asia Pacific events are available on the Tour website, with the first event in the region taking place July 1-2 in Thailand. Participants will be able to register to compete through each partnered event’s registration pages. The season, which will culminate in November 2017, will have a total global prize pool of more than $200,000 USD. All tournaments will be broadcast exclusively on Twitch.tv/Tekken.

 

“The Fighting Game Community on Twitch is among our platform’s most vibrant groups of players and fans, with the TEKKEN World Tour created to celebrate their enthusiasm,” said Richard Thiher, Program Manager, Twitch. “It’s also notable because Fighting Games represent the roots of esports. The genre has grown from local tournaments in arcades and living rooms to global attractions filling convention centers and stadiums, withTEKKEN being a major franchise and influence during this evolution. Twitch’s partnership with BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Asia for this new tournament series will help keep Fighting Games at the forefront of esports, while building toward a sustainable ecosystem for all of the players, fans, and organizers involved.”

 

“Supporting our passionate and ever-growing TEKKEN community across Asia Pacific is one of our key priorities in the region, so it was important for us to join forces with Twitch to provide a home for our fighting game fans,” said Jennifer Poulson, Senior Vice President of Marketing at BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Asia Pte Ltd. “Our collective goal with the TEKKEN World Tour is to create an unparalleled competitive tournament experience and share the bone-crushing excitement of TEKKEN 7 through Twitch’s social video platform so that TEKKEN fans around the world can enjoy and participate in the action.”