In October 2015, the biggest tournament for arcades took place thanks to Play Mechanix, Raw Thrills and their popular Big Buck Hunter series. The Big Buck World Championships have been going on for several years and with each year the competition heats up with bigger cash prizes up for grabs and greater coverage of the event that reaches a wider audience. Last year Play Mechanix teamed up with Twitch.tv and reached over 220,000 viewers within the circles of eSports.
For 2016, the qualifiers to sort out the top 64 players beings on May 1st. From the brief press release sent out today:
On May 1st, 2016 the chance to play your way to the Top 64 begins! With five tournaments across five months, you have FIVE chances to bank major bucks through each tournament prize pool.Get to your nearest (or favorite) Online Big Buck HD location to compete! Play to qualify and take your shot at the title of Big Buck World Champion.
Anyone can participate in any part of the world as long as they have access to an online connected machine. In that regard, a second email that was sent out to operators to be ready for the event. From that release:
This year we are taking the event to a whole new level, a record setting $100,000 purse.In order to qualify, players must come to YOUR locations to play. A minimum of 50 plays are required per player, so get your games ready for the masses.
That prize pool can grow, as it did last year, and with that kind of money going up to play an arcade game, that could certainly draw in a lot of new players. They are also holding a Ladies Qualifier Tournament where there is a $2500 prize pool in place for that one (the final tournament will have a higher prize). For anyone serious about participating, this is all important information to know; it’s also good news for locations with a game (and reason why home models don’t have the network access) that have dedicated players.
Are any of you AH readers out there looking to compete in this year’s tournament?
I have been waiting until I became of legal age (18+) to do this. I can’t wait to start qualifying!