While gamers have always been more likely to stay behind their monitors in their own little caves, Dreamhack, the global festival, is something that has consistently gotten them to step out and level up in real life. Filled with gaming activities, Esports tournaments, consoles, cosplays, merchandise stores, and everything an avid gamer can think of, Dreamhack, since its debut in 1997, has become the pinnacle of global meetups for gamers.
Dreamhack Dallas 2024, the most recent instalment, drew the curtains on June 02 at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, Texas. The crown jewel of the arrangement was, unsurprisingly, the IEM Dallas 2024. It was the 100th edition of the Intel Extreme Masters, a renowned Esports IP which saw G2 Esports bagging the major share of the 250K USD prize pool and gathering almost 12 million hours watched across just 50 hours of broadcasting time. The grand final match itself reached 823.9K peak Viewers, far outperforming any other match of the event. Other esports events also included ESL Impact League S5, A CS2 Women's circuit.
But Dreamhack is not just about Esports. In this edition, Dreamhack saw a partnership with Paradox Arc, a new game publisher of deep, replayable games such as Across the Obelisk, Starminer, and the new wargame Mechabellum. Despite Mechabellum being in the early phase, Dreamhack visitors had the opportunity to try it out for free and access in-game rewards.
“DreamHack is the perfect place for publishers to showcase their new games, and Paradox Arc will bring unparalleled gaming experiences to our attendees in Dallas and Sweden,” said Andreas Jernberg, Managing Director & VP Partnerships ESL FACEIT Group/DreamHack. “Our community is passionate, engaged, and always looking for the next big thing, and Paradox Arc’s creative approach to engaging our community will have an impact on our fans, their games, and DreamHack itself.”
Apart from this the event was filled with 400+ content creators, influencers, magic shows and Cosplayers.
Dreamhack Dallas also hosted the first Qualifiers to the Esports World Cup featuring the Fortnite segment in a BYOC (Bring Your Own Computer/Console) format, which is the specialty of Dreamhack, and allowed top 6 teams to compete in Riyadh. Similarly the ESL Starcraft II Masters also served as the EWC Qualifier with a $100K Prize Pool, alongside the Overwatch Champions Series (OWCS Major), a 3 days bonanza of 8 teams competing.
However, a Dreamhack isn’t quite a Dreamhack without fighting games. So this time, Street Fighter 6 and Tekken 8, both renowned in their genre, had Esports tournaments that featured 50K USD prize pools each and were a part of the EWC Qualifying Circuit with Top 8 teams qualifying for the main stage.
There were other qualifiers as well including Mortal Kombat. And in case you were worried, football fans were also taken care of with the same EAFC Qualifier for EWC featuring another 100K USD prize pool with Top 2 players qualifying. There was even a Magic: The Gathering Regional Championship with a 130K USD prize pool and other hourly casual tournaments for this premier trading card game.
In Addition to this there were digital art contests, music performances, game expos, panel discussions, and many more. The 3 day event filled with activities dedicated for gamers and enthusiasts ended with the roar of champions in all of the Esports championships amassing over a 1 million USD prize pool.
This is not the end of Dreamhack. In 2002, Dreamhack became a bi-annual event from an annual one and, as you may have guessed, is coming back this summer with Dreamhack Summer 2024 coming to Jönköping, Sweden. It is scheduled to take place from June 14 to June 17.
One can only hope for such a fantastic arrangement, under one roof, to be held in Bangladesh as well. Given the BYOC LAN Party Format, it is very much possible to execute this in the near future with the right stakeholders in place.
