Intel Extreme Masters, Massive Video Game Tournament, Coming to San Jose

The e-gaming event is expected to draw 4.5 million viewers online.

The games are on. A major video game tournament – that is, "e-sports" – is coming to SAP Center in downtown San Jose.

SiliconBeat.com brings us word of the Intel Extreme Masters tournament, which comes to the 18,000-seat arena Dec. 6-7.

The games of choice are StarCraft and League of Legends. But can watching the best of the best click and move against each other be enough to draw the masses?

It is in South Korea: A League of Legends tournament is expected to draw as many as 50,000 spectators later this year, the website reported.

Certainly e-gaming is big business: As the Mercury News's tech blog notes, Amazon and Google were in a bidding war to acquire Twitch, a livestreaming site for gamers. Twitch says that the tournament will be streamed live to "4.5 million viewers."

These are big games indeed.

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