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Ladies, Gentlemen and undefined nerds of TL,
Today is both a glorious and groundbreaking day for the future of eSports. For too long, the UK has suffered in eSports, with prior giants such as DeMuslim failing to get to Dreamhack, and the distinct lack of other big names having and success.
Northern Ireland has long been a country torn apart by civil war and sectarian lines, and with the existential crises involved in running normal sports like Gaelic or Rugby from religious pressure, eSports have never really been top of the chain.
With minor success in Counter Strike: Source, with local players such as whindanski rating in the top 5 in Europe and even more minor success in Quake 3, gaming cafés had been popular up until late 2009, but with such games drifting into disregard, and console games becoming the normal, we saw the demise of the very last gaming café in Northern Ireland at the start of this year.
This then begs a question: what is the future for eSports in Northern Ireland?
Well a few colleagues and I have been working on extending the Starcraft 2 scene in Northern Ireland for a while, and with our first successful tournament last week, we believe PC gaming will once again be big in Northern Ireland.
The 24th of June showed that live Starcraft playing and casting can bring in people from all areas, with 12 competitors (and many more not making the cut) and tens of people fighting their way through our door to watch the quality play - some coming from as close as Belfast, and some coming from as far as Sweden! QCon XVIII (the gaming convention in Northern Ireland) made PC gaming once again viable in a state with other things on its plate, and with a fifth of players at a LAN in Dublin this weekend being from the North, the showing is continuing at every opportunity. Not only this, but a recent team FluLess placed top2 in ESL's weekly 2v2 tournament, losing only to one of the top 2v2 teams in Europe, and hopefully will take top spot in coming weeks.
As a followup from this success, we have started the first official gaming clan for Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland Global Starcraft, NIgs!
With plans for a pro-gaming house within the next 14 months, as well as tournaments throughout the year, culminating in a bigger and better tournament at QCon XIX and an 18 month plan for sending players to Korea, the Northern Ireland gaming scene will soon be the gaming hub of the United Kingdom, and hopefully the whole of Europe!
Thankyou for reading, and hopefully thankyou for supporting us in our epic journey of gaming perfection.
Yours,
NIgsCluEleSs
PS: NIgS FIGHTING!
UPDATE:
NIgsCluEleSs.788
twitter.com/nigsc
email: nigstarcraft@hotmail.co.uk
Current Roster:
NIgsCluEleSs (P)
NIgsWombaT (P)
NIgsTheWorst (T)
NIgsKitsune (T)
NIgsFlu (Z)
At the moment, we're looking for another high level zerg, and another very good macro Terran.
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Northern Ireland26986 Posts
Living the dream boys, living the dream
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I'm the black hat guy that was at Q-Con! Add meh! <3
Pm me details if you want ^^
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Just hit me up on Bnet bro! NIgsCluEleSs#788
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Northern Ireland26986 Posts
Hey man, I was the co-caster from there
We will PM you details only if you confirm how awesome Q-Con was
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Q-Con was the best/only event i've been to and can't wait to go to more that you guys host!
P.S Ya gotta let me cast some more, I heard I interupted you alot, so sorry! Was my first dual cast xD
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Northern Ireland26986 Posts
Well yeah, the theory is that me playing SC2 full time this year instead of playing a few hours here and there for a month will allow me to actually play in the tournament
Maybe we won't have everyone vetoing DualSight 
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Yeah, I diddn't actaully know that map was dualsight. I knew the map just diddn't know the name xD
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Now that there seems to be active Ireland/Northern Ireland events, my desire to be the best player on the island has rekindled, I am very much so interested :D
savior#256
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Oh anyone can add me too from Ireland ^^ - ODKStevez #782
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Count me in ;o - Farow #523
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Northern Ireland26986 Posts
Changing your tag to include "NIgs" is not obligatory btw
I'm personally away to Finland and Estonia for like 10 days from tomorrow, but look to hit you guys up when I return
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Shame it's restricted to the North.
+ Show Spoiler +*** THIS IS A JOKE ***
And you were talking about how segregation and sectarianism has ripped your country apart and now you do THIS???????!!!!!
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Your clan is called 'Nigs'? Sounds offensive
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Northern Ireland26986 Posts
Don't worry, when the Queen single-handedly re-conquers the verdant green lands of Ireland you guys can play too
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On July 04 2011 11:06 CaptainTwig wrote:
Your clan is called 'Nigs'? Sounds offensive
Im glad im not the only one who saw this. I have a feeling this might be a giant troll.
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NISC (Northern Ireland Starcraft Clan) or NIST (Northern Ireland Starcraft Team) sounds a bit better and less likely to make us sound like a Northern Irish KKK 
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On July 04 2011 10:52 IRL_Sinister wrote:Shame it's restricted to the North. + Show Spoiler +*** THIS IS A JOKE ***
And you were talking about how segregation and sectarianism has ripped your country apart and now you do THIS???????!!!!!
Tbf, it's restricted by invite tbh! I mean, we already have a swiss player on our roster, but we're advertising our existence to the Northern Ireland gaming community, as they may not be aware of our existence!
& nah. NIgs looks better! What's wrong with it anyway?
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Northern Ireland26986 Posts
Also to clarify I mean we'd like in the future to be a competitive clan, but we're also more trying to set up a competitive scene over here in NI, get tournaments sorted, link up players with local practice partners etc. As mentioned by the OP all of the LAN cafes in my city are now closed so it's tough to try and get a scene going
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With all the LANs in Belfast having closed down, there is a clear opening in the market for NIgs to be starting their own!
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EPT
