About ESWC
ESWC, eSports for all
The ESWC is a pioneering and leading international eSports event. During ESWC, gaming tournaments, bringing together the best players in the world and their fans, are organized and produced as entertaining shows.
In 16 years the ESWC has hosted more than 200 tournaments and more than 30 major events that have distributed more than $3 million in prizemoney to champions. ESWC is now the property of the international media group Webedia (Jeuxvideo.com, Millenium, IGN, Mixicom, Toornament.com, PSG eSport, ES1...).
Since its creation, the ESWC has been contributing to the development of electronic sports, while aiming for universality, sportsmanship and the production of innovative and entertaining content.
ESWC, the pioneered competition
The ESWC was created in 2003 by Matthieu Dallon, at the time CEO of the companies Ligarena SA and subsequently Games-Services until 2009. The first two events were organised at Futuroscope in France. The unique and innovative showcasing of gaming matches, played out on stage in front of a live audience, with live commentated broadcasts in several languages, quickly made the ESWC a pioneering event and a leader in eSport communities. Since then the ESWC finals have been held at, among other places, Paris Bercy (in 2006 and 2008) and San José, in the heart of California's Silicon Valley (in 2008).
2009 nonetheless saw a halt in the ESWC’s development due to the worldwide economic crisis and the fragility of the eSport economic models, which were almost entirely based on private sponsoring. In 2010, the ESWC was taken over by Jean-Marie Coutant, with a relaunch at Disneyland Paris, then won its audience back during Paris Games Week (the 4th biggest video games trade show in the world); first in 2011, co-produced by Oxent (co-founded and directed by Matthieu Dallon and Antoine Frankart), then from 2012 on by Oxent alone, following the acquisition of all the rights to the event.
In 2015, the ESWC decided to have multiple international finals in addition to the now-historic event at Paris Games Week, and organised 2 events dedicated respectively to Call of Duty, at the Zénith in Paris, and CS:GO, in Montreal, Canada.
While for 13 years the ESWC has been designed and has developed as the Electronic Sports World Cup, in 2016 Oxent announced a new brand positioning with an expansion that encompasses all eSports worlds and content, more in line with the current market developments and the nature of its events : ESWC becomes the "eSports World Convention".
In September 2016, Oxent and the ESWC have been acquired by the international media group Webedia (Jeuxvideo.com, Millenium, IGN, Mixicom, Toornament.com, PSG eSport).