Electronic Sports World Cup Adds Just Dance to its Lineup

just-dance-eswc-headerAs much of a fan as I am of eSports, I just couldn’t quite wrap my head around the latest “eSport” to join the offerings at this fall’s Electronic Sports World Cup in Paris.

If you’re a fan of dancing, you now have a reason to be interested into eSports. Ubisoft announced that their next dance game, Just Dance 2015, will be a part of the competitive lineup at the 2014 ESWC.

Ubisoft’s press release claims that the inclusion of Just Dance 2015 makes the game the first “casual” game to be a part of the ESWC, whose 2014 lineup also includes Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Call of Duty: Ghosts and FIFA 14. The founder of ESWC, Matthieu Dallon, said that the inclusion of Just Dance will “widen the definition of eSport” and make competitive gaming more “[welcoming] to all kind of players.”

For the Just Dance ESWC tournament, there will be 20 competitors who can qualify through three means. There will be an online qualifier over eight weekends using Just Dance 2014’s World Dance Floor mode that will see 10 competitors qualify (two each from the PS4, Xbox One, Wii U, PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game). Four more will be selected from the best videos uploaded through Just Dance TV. And six more will qualify through ESWC and Ubisoft qualifying events.

It’ll be interesting to see how Just Dance will translate to the realm of eSports. The big eSports games put a lot of effort into the eSports experience for the viewer. While it’s fun to dance with your friends or watch people dance in-person, I don’t know if that will translate to streaming on Twitch. Let’s face it, eSports success isn’t really driven by the live gate. The challenge for Ubisoft and ESWC is making sure that the online viewing audience can enjoy watching.

That’s not the only issue I foresee in the Just Dance World Cup. The game will be played on the Xbox One which means that the Kinect will be used. Given the motion controller’s reputation for being inaccurate, I don’t know if using that in competitive gaming is the best idea anyone ever had. The second issue I can see coming up is the fact that competitors at ESWC will be ranked based on their score, a jury judging them and an online vote. It seems more like a cross between So You Think You Can Dance and figure skating than a pure eSport.

The Just Dance World Cup will take place from October 30th to November 1st in Paris.

And here’s the official Just Dance World Championship teaser trailer:

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About Steve Murray

Steve is the founder and editor of The Lowdown Blog and et geekera. On The Lowdown Blog, he often writes about motorsports, hockey, politics and pop culture. Over on et geekera, Steve writes about geek interests and lifestyle. Steve is on Twitter at @TheSteveMurray.

Posted on June 26, 2014, in eSports and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment.

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