Competitive gaming event comes to Cavan

In a first of its kind for the county, Cavan is set to host ‘Border Breakdown’, bringing together some of the region’s best joystick junkies to duke it out on a virtual competitive platform.

A far cry from the bedroom button-bashers of the 80s-90s, the world of competitive and collaborative video gaming, or eSports, has evolved into a billion euro multi-media industry, attracting competitors and interested viewers from around the world.

Hosted by AsOne Productions, the event will take place at the Cavan Crystal Hotel on October 27, entry €10, featuring a Street Fighter V tournament on the main screen to be streamed through AsOne’s twitch channel with live commentary.

Every competitor can enter the tournament, with a chance of winning prizes of vouchers for gaming and merchandise site, www.player1.ie.

Emerging from the Irish fighting games community, initially in the arcades of old and later on newer consoles, Aaron Jackson of AsOne says the company has had huge success in hosting variousevents outside of the capital, with real interest in some of the more rural counties.

This year proved a major marking point for the company who recently hosted a stop here in Ireland for the Capcom Pro Tour that sees players compete for an ulti- mate prize of $250,000.

“Video gaming is certainly more mainstream now than it use to be. We already provide competitive gaming nights in Dublin across multiple genres and its been something we’ve been keen on for quite a while now, to bring it beyond that. We hosted events in other parts of the country now to great success and now we’re looking at other areas too,” Aaron told The Anglo-Celt.

The Cavan event, which is BYOC (Bring Your Own Controller), will also feature an opportunity for attendees to play the likes of SFV (PS4), UltraSF4 (Xbox 360), Street Fighter II HDR (Xbox 360), Smash Bros. 4 (WiiU), Pokemon Tournament (WiiU), Mario Kart 8 (WiiU) and FIFA 17 (PS4). “These sort of events are beginning all around the world, in the US and UK. It’s coming out of Asia, but it is fast becoming a global phenomenon and right now we’re the guys in Ireland who are pushing the boat out in that regard,” explains Aaron.

“The anticipation is that we can help to grow and mature the gaming community right around Ireland with our events in these locations, like we have in Dublin. There we have weekly events in association with BodyTonic Music, and bigger quarterly or monthly ones with the likes of Capcom and other event organisers. Rather than having to come to Dublin every six-months or so for those bigger events we’ve identified the Border counties and the Midlands as real areas of potential.”