The Championship being organised for the third consecutive year will be held on 21st and 22nd of July 2018 at Trace Expert City and is open exclusively to teams and players from any registered business or organisation in Sri Lanka.
The event which is recognized as the largest Mercantile sports event in Sri Lanka, provides a unique platform for participants to represent their companies and workplaces across a number of team games (Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, League of Legends, Overwatch and Special Force 2) and individual games (FIFA 18, Mortal Kombat XL, Project CARS, Tekken 7 and Clash Royale) as well as a women's league (Mortal Kombat XL, Mario Kart 8 and Need for Speed: Most Wanted).
In addition to the competitive titles, participants will also be able to take part to compete in finding Sri Lanka's Fastest eRacer.
Complete with Red Bull racing seats, racing wheels and pedals, large-screen TVs and the tracks on Project CARS, this is a brand-new concept devised by Gamer.LK and aimed at promoting simulation racing in the country.
Over 60 leading corporates from across the country took part in the Championship last year including industry leaders such as Abans, Brandix, Calcey Technologies, CodeGen, Dialog Axiata, GSK Sri Lanka, IFS, Janashakthi, John Keells Holdings, Leo Burnett, LSEG Sri Lanka, MAS, Nestle Lanka, Pearson Lanka, Pyxle, Sri Lankan Airlines, SyscoLABS, Virtusa Polaris, WSO2 being amongst them.
After some exciting encounters, Virtusa Polaris emerged the Champions for the second year running with LSEG Sri Lanka and Dialog coming in second and third place respectively.
Many corporates have begun to embrace Esports as an official company sport by establishing teams and recruiting talented cyber-athletes as well.
Esports, one of the fastest growing sports in the country, is governed by the Sri Lanka Esports Association, which is a member of the International Esports Federation.
With the backing of the National Olympic Committee of Sri Lanka, Esports was introduced at the National Olympic Day celebrations of Sri Lanka as a future sport.
Esports has been included in the Asian Games 2018 as a demonstration event, for which Sri Lanka is taking part.
The Mercantile eSports Championship is organised by Gamer.LK, who are also the organisers for successful annual events such as Play Expo (featuring Sri Lanka Cyber Games and Colombo Comic Expo).
From 2016, Gamer.LK took the initiative to branch out Esports and digital entertainment into the three tiers of School, University and Mercantile as well.
The Mercantile Esports Championship – Powered by Dialog Gaming, who over the years have provided vital support towards the development of Esports in the country.
Dialog Gaming is also promoting the competitive title Special Force 2 at the event..
In addition, they will be kicking off the Dialog Gaming League later this year, for which the Special Force 2 champions at Mercantile eSports will qualify.
The overall winners of the League will get the chance to represent Sri Lanka at the Special Force 2 World Championships being held in Philippines.
Red Bull, who has supported the culture of Esports in Sri Lanka during recent years is the Official Energy Drink for the event with the Red Bull energy lounge in operation for gamers to energise themselves along with the Red Bull wings team carrying out sampling at the venue as well.
MSI came on board as the Technology Partner for the event. MSI officially launched their 8th generation high performance laptop series in April.
The latest MSI laptops will be on display at the MSI experience stall at the event, with participants being able to test and feel sheer power and capabilities available on an MSI laptop.
Frimi is the Digital Banking Partner for the event. Frimi is a fast, easy and amazingly cool digital solution to earn, spend, shop and save, while enjoying awesome deals.
Frimi will be offering a 35% cashback discount on all registrations paid through the Frimi app at the event.
TRACE Expert City was the Venue Partner for the event.
TRACE aspires to transform Sri Lanka into an economically sound, knowledge based, techno-centric, sustainable business hub by promoting innovation, entrepreneurship and professionalism by technologically reawakening our culture of excellence.
The Mercantile Esports Championship is supported by the Official Radio Sponsor Kiss FM, Official Online Store Play.lk, Digital Media Partner ReadMe and the Audio-Visual & Lighting Partner Elektro Revo.
For more information on the event and to register visit mercantile.gamer.lk and get in touch with Gamer.LK on facebook via www.fb.com/gamerlk for any clarifications.