An esports first, movie studio Lionsgate will sponsor the next MLG and Twitch StarCraft 2 tournament

In a first for the esports community, film studio Lionsgate has partnered with Twitch and the MLG to present the first film sponsorship of a gaming tournament. According to esports site onGamers, 32 of the best StarCraft players are going to be competing in the Ender's Game on Blu-ray Tournament.

The grand prize for the tournament will be $10,000, and, we can only assume, copies of Ender's Game on Blu-ray for everyone else. The first round will run from February 5 to February 9, culminating in the finals on February 22.

So, why is a movie studio partnering with MLG and Twitch for a StarCraft 2 tournament at all? Lionsgate executive VP of marketing, Anne Parducci says, "The skills used to develop battle leaders in Ender’s Game are drawn from real world gaming, especially the types of skills used by premier tournament-level players. We are excited to partner with Major League Gaming and Twitch, both leaders in the esports world, to present this unprecedented movie tie-in aimed directly at those who take gaming seriously."

The playerlist for the Twitch portion of the tournament according to onGamers includes:

• Chris ''HuK' Loranger
• Paulo 'CatZ' Vizcarra
• Choi 'Polt' Seong Hun
• Kim 'Violet' Dong Hwan
• Gage 'Sasquatch' DuBose
• Chad 'Minigun Jones
• Brandon 'puck' Qual
• Alex 'Neeb' Sunderhaft
• Conan 'Suppy' Liu
• Bailey 'Bails' Thomas
• Max 'Astrea' Angel
• Kevin 'qxc' Riley
• Chris 'Illusion' Lee
• Zifeng 'hellokitty' Wang
• Libo 'xenocider' Chang

The MLG portion will feature:

• Sasha 'Scarlett' Hostyn
• Tyler 'NonY' Wasieleski
• Juan Carlos 'MajOr' Tena Lopez
• Geoff 'iNcontroL' Robinson
• Sam 'Kane' Morrissette
• Ryan 'State' Visbeck
• Marc-Olivier 'desRow' Proulx
• Henry 'hendralisk' Zheng
• Danny 'ViBE' Scherlong
• Maru 'MaSa' Kim
• David 'avilo' Blowe
• Victor 'Hitman' Lin.