MechWarrior Online is holding a tournament with a $100K prize purse

Guess it’s time to dust out the cockpit

MechWarrior Online has been a lot of things to me, interesting experiment, occasional tormentor, and video game comfort food. But, I never thought I’d see the day it could be a potential payday. In fact, I still don’t. Last time I played I was absolutely destroyed by a new meta that made missiles, of all the bloody things, the dominant weapon.

But, for people more skilled than me, there has never been a better chance to make some money with stompy robots.

Sign-ups are open for teams that wish to compete in the MechWarrior Online 2016 World Championships. The tournament is being seeded with a base $100K prize purse that will grow larger based on the proceeds of player purchased sponsor packs in a similar system to what Valve does for Dota. Smaller in-game prizes are promised for teams that don’t make the cut, while the big prize money will be split 60%, 30%, and 10% between the three top teams.

Regional matches will commence shortly near the end of May while finals will be handled near the end of the year in Vancouver during the first ever MechCon event. A gathering of robot obsessed fans? Sounds like my kind of scene.

MechWarrior is a game that has it’s share of problems (which I will tell you about in excruciating detail if you let me), but it’s good to see PGI sticking by the game and its diehard fanbase like this. Compared to other free-to-play titles out there, MechWarrior doesn’t have the biggest fanbase, but the people who like it, like it a lot.