Avalon Heroes

Electronic Sports League and burda:ic announce eSports-cooperation – Europe-wide leagues and tournaments for Avalon Heroes start February – Release on February 10th, 2010 – Play Avalon Heroes at CeBIT against international eSports stars

Cologne, February 12th, 2010 – Electronic Sports League (ESL) and burda:ic introduce Avalon Heroes into Europe’s largest gaming league. The Free2Play-Online strategy game was released this Tuesday and is available free of charge through avalonheroes.alaplaya.net. Just in time for the release, the ESL, Europe’s leading gaming league, has opened its doors for competitive Avalon Heroes play in both the German and European division – a perfect environment for a new eSports game to attract fans from all over Europe.

Starting today, Avalon Heroes players can sign up for the 2on2 Opening Cup, which will run until February 25th. All winners will be awarded professional Gaming Headsets. More cups and challenges are already in preparation. Together with burda:ic and the Avalon Heroes community, the ESL will host a regular Cup Series starting March and will crown the best player of each quarter every three months.

Everyone eager to improve his chances at winning this title or just looking for casual sparring partners from all parts of Europe can easily do so by joining the ESL Ladder where ambitious gamers face each other to collect ladder points.

Avalon Heroes featured in ESL Major Series and at CeBIT

Only the best eSports players have a chance to make it into the ESL Major Series for Avalon Heroes. This makes Avalon Heroes the first Free2Play-Online strategy game that will be featured in the European top league. Qualification for the ESL Major Series - which is endowed with prize money - will start in the middle of March.

For all those daring to face international eSports stars, action starts early March. As an ESL partner burda:ic introduces Avalon Heroes at CeBIT international trade fair 2010 in Hanover where visitors can play against eSports stars from Europe and Asia at the booth in hall 23. The field of pro players includes the Korean players from WeMade FOX who are among the best strategy gamers in the world.

But even after its release the development of Avalon Heroes won’t stall: burda:ic will release new game content and patches on a regular basis throughout the year, creating new and exciting matches and scenarios for the community. This enables the ESL to surprise the players with further cups and challenges around the Avalon Heroes universe all year long. And the community will be given a voice in the world of Avalon Heroes: With the help of the ESL message boards, the developers will receive direct feedback for their work and the opportunity to include the player’s requests.

„The developers of Avalon Heroes created the game with the idea of making an eSports game in mind. Today’s release proves that this goal was achieved: Avalon Heroes is the game that implements the "DotA idea" in the best possible way and offers various improvements compared to similar titles. In a nutshell: This game is close to being a perfect eSports game.” says Alexander Albrecht, Director Publisher Relations at Turtle Entertainment. „I am certain that players from all over Europe will accept Avalon Heroes. The genre is Asian, but our continent is more than ready for a game like this.“

„The ESL is a social network for gamers with a huge international community. It’s all about eSports and the competition – important factors that played a big role during the development of the game. Now it’s time to raise awareness for Avalon Heroes and embed it into the existing eSports infrastructure. Together with the ESL we are confident that we can reach this goal and create a large community that enjoys the game together.” says Achim Kaspers, Managing Director at burda:ic. „In order to level the playing field we have reset the game progress of all players from the beta stage. Everyone will have a fresh start.“

The ESL and Avalon Heroes have already been working together in the past months during the beta stage and offered a tournament to put the game’s eSports capabilities to the test together with the community. With the release at hand, the ESL and Avalon Heroes are now happy to announce that regular league play at www.esl.eu/de and www.esl.eu/eu can start as of today.

Detailed information around Avalon Heroes is available at the official website: www.avalonheroes.alaplaya.net

Avalon Heroes can be found in ESL Germany under www.esl.eu/de/avalonheroes/. International gamers go to www.esl.eu/eu/avalonheroes/

Electronic Sports League

The Electronic Sports League (ESL) is the largest and most important league for gamers in Europe consisting of more than 2,3 million registered members and more than 540,000 registered teams. ESL is operated by the company Turtle Entertainment GmbH since 2000 and offers more than 3,500 professional leagues and amateur ladders from a variety of games. More than 220.000 matches per month are being played worldwide using the ESL technology. The ESL website currently reaches above 1,1 million unique visitors a month and about 10.000 people register every month.

burda:ic GmbH

burda:ic GmbH is a publisher of PC online games, marketing and running massively multiplayer online games (MMOG) in EMEA as well as North and South America, including Ragnarok Online and Florensia. burda:ic also builds interactive gamer communities such as alaplaya.net. www.burda-ic.com

About alaplaya

The free multiplayer games portal offers top-quality games such as Audition, Fantasy Tennis, S4 League, Florensia, and Avalon Heroes. Another game, Land of Chaos Online, is currently in the making. Meanwhile, more than 4 million users are already playing alaplaya games. The portal is offered in eight languages; the games run in all of Europe including Turkey, some of them even in Russia as well as North and South America, at www.alaplaya.net.

Turtle Entertainment GmbH

Turtle Entertainment was founded in 2000. The company quickly grew to be the European leader in the sector of electronic sports (eSports). The Electronic Sports League (ESL), operated by Turtle Entertainment, is active in 37 different countries worldwide. The league portal www.esl.eu reaches above ten million visits a month generated by more than 2,3 million registered users. Turtle Entertainment broadcasts ESL events via IPTV channel ESL TV since 2007. The headquarter has 174 employees and is located in Cologne, Germany. Turtle Entertainment owns the majority of the Chinese eSports league PGL (Pro Gamer League) since 2007. Important business partners of Turtle Entertainment are global corporations such as Intel, adidas, Volkswagen, Dell, Nokia, ASUS, BitDefender, Sennheiser, Windows 7, Sidewinder, Ra zer, Alienware and gamed.de.

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Further information is available at www.turtle-entertainment.com.

Online resources at a glance:

- This press release as PDF: www.turtle-entertainment.com/Dateien/PM_AvalonHeroes_EN.pdf

- Avalon Heroes Website: www.avalon.alaplaya.net

- Avalon Heroes in the ESL: www.esl.eu/eu/avalonheroes/

- burda:ic GmbH: www.burda-ic.com

- Turtle Entertainment (press section ): www.turtle-entertainment.com/?press

- Electronic Sports League (ESL): www.esl.eu

- Company Trailer Turtle Entertainment GmbH (browser flash movie): http://files.turtle-entertainment.de/video/eslpromo.html

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Contact:

Turtle Entertainment GmbH

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Ibrahim Mazari

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50679 Cologne

Germany

Phone +49 221 880449-231

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www.turtle-entertainment.com

presse@turtle-entertainment.com