Wargaming chief says he'll invest $10M in e-sports in 2014

Wargaming chief executive Victor Kislyi said today that his company plans to invest $10 million in e-sports in 2013 as part of a plan to support the growth of World of Tanks multiplayer tank combat game.

At a press conference in Warsaw, Kislyi described a huge upswing in World of Tanks e-sports in the past couple of years. In 2012, 30,000 professional players participated in 120 World of Tanks tournaments. In 2013, that grew to 200,000 players across more than 1,000 World of Tanks tournaments. Those are live events where players squared off against each other as well as online preliminaries.

People watch lots of e-sports events on sites such as Twitch, a leader in streaming video games to large audiences.

Wargaming already invested $8 million in e-sports in 2013. He said that World of Tanks has more than 80 million registered players. The company launched World of Warplanes last fall and is working on World of Warships, too. In our recent interview, Kislyi said he plans to conquer mobile games with World of Tanks Blitz. The company also plans to upgrade World of Tanks with all-new graphics during 2014.