By Chris Higgins with PC Games N
Right, I’ll level with you digital sports fans, of all the news I expected out of TwitchCon last night, world-renowned electronic music disk jockey Steve Aoki buying into an eSports team was fairly low down the list.
I wonder which of these Overwatch characters Steve plays?
The global superstar, more well-known for headlining festivals out in Ibiza than getting Play of the Game on Ilios, has become a partner in ownership of eSports organization Rogue, based out of Las Vegas.
Rogues is perhaps best known for their stellar European Overwatch squad that finished third in this week’s Overwatch Open, though they also have a fairly new CS:GO team on the books too.
Aoki apparently became interested in owning a team after a lifelong gaming passion brought him to PAX East last year where he was invited to take part in a Street Fighter V exhibition match. Presumably this was part of the same PR stunt that saw rapper Lupe Fiasco defeat Daigo “The Beast” Umehara in the first official SFV head-to-head during the game’s launch week.
This isn’t his first foray deeper into gaming either, as in July he was confirmed to be providing music and his likeness to a non-playable character in Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2.
Speaking of Aoki’s decision to invest in his organization, current Rogue CEO Franklin Villarreal said: “Our organization was expanding to the point where we wanted to bring on another partner. We couldn’t be happier that we met Steve when we did. His genuine passion for the eSports scene was exactly what we were looking for.”