Competitive gaming trends, concerns with TERA, and our near future plans.

Competitive gaming is a quickly evolving field that is gaining popularity rapidly. It's not applicable to only participants, but also casual players are increasingly becoming interested in following e-sports whether simply for entertainment or to learn from the top and apply it to their own play. Event streams are known to have anywhere from 1,000 to 50,000+ simultaneous viewers.

With TERA being the first major International title with a special combat system using hybrid elements from both action role-playing game and first-person shooter genres, there is definitely a high potential for skill ceiling and player differentiation to be expressed. But a major concern within the community is where the competitive future of TERA lies and if there will be support for it. Is anyone going to run events? Will the right people join the game to even make a healthy scene possible? Will developers implement game systems to facilitate organized competition?

We have plans to do our part to help.

Koreans are already publicizing videos of organized TERA competition from their Closed Beta Test phases with fancy video editing, overlays, and commentary. The Western Focus Group Tests are not far behind their CBTs, but we don't have anything of the sort yet. This potential should not be wasted. Which is why we want to jump start the scene early on and get active about it. Run tournaments. Provide coverage such as match reports, interviews, videos, and more. In fact, we're looking into starting this during the next testing phase and are working with En Masse to make it happen.

Please look forward to our future tournament announcements!