Johnathan 'Fatal1ty' Wendel and Fatal1ty Brand Partner, Creative Labs, announced today that they have joined forces to produce a series of online gaming tournaments that will be streamed live.  League of Legends, as one of Fatal1ty's must-play games, was chosen to kick off these multi-title, multi-platform video game tournaments. The inaugural event will run from March 9, through March 18, 2012.  

"I'm always amped to get on line and play League of Legends,” said Wendel. “For way too long, I've had the urge to organize my own tournaments as another way to help promote gaming, and for competitive video gaming to be recognized as a new-age sport -- I'm extremely excited we were able to put this program together."

"Creative Labs, from the earliest days of competitive video gaming, has been a supporter of the gaming community at large,” said Phil O'Shaughnessy, vp of corporate communications, Creative Labs. “With our commitment to join Fatal1ty and brand partners in sponsoring these events Creative reaffirms our commitment to the pursuit of gaming. We are excited to work with Fatal1ty to help produce these free online events."

In addition to cash and product prizes for winning contestants, Fatal1ty brand partners will offer special promotions on select Fatal1ty products, which will be available on NewEgg.com to everyone over the course of the tournament, or until the products are sold out.

Free registration, on a first come, first served basis, will be open to all gamers interested in participating in this tournament via Fatal1ty.com starting on March 2, 2012. The tournament's inaugural prize fund is valued at over $14,000 dollars in cash and prizes with the Grand Champion Team taking home $5,000 in cash and the second place team receiving $2,000. Gameplay will be streamed live throughout the tournament on Fatal1ty.com.  

The Fatal1ty Gaming Gear League of Legends Online Tournament will be contested via four qualifying events with the Championship decided during the Grand Final per the following schedule:

*  Qualifier # 1     March 9 & 10            

*  Qualifier # 2     March 11 & 12                      

*  Qualifier # 3     March 13 & 14                      

*  Qualifier # 4     March 15 & 16          

*  Grand Final      March 17 & 18

About the Author

John Gaudiosi

Editor-in-Chief

John Gaudiosi has been covering videogames for the past 17 years for outlets like The Washington Post, CNET, Wired Magazine and CBS.com. He has focused on the convergence of entertainment and videogames for outlets like Video Business, Home Media Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. He currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of Gamerlive.TV and is also a freelance game columnist for Reuters and writes for outlets like Playboy Magazine, NVISION Magazine, GamePro Magazine, Official PlayStation Magazine, EGM Now, Maxim.com, AOL GameDaily.com, GeForce.com, and Yahoo! Games. John also serves as the video game expert for NBC in Washington D.C. John was named one of the Top 50 Game Journalists in the world by Next-Gen.biz in 2007. He is the co-author of Scholastic Books' How to Get into Videogames, Prima Publishing's Madden: Twenty Years of Videogame Football and Electronic Arts: The Official History.