Amarillo, TX - September 19, 2023 - Bob Cooney - For the first time, a player from the USA has broken into the top three places in the Global VAR BOX League of Colleagues
Superbrae, AKA Brayden Wilhelm, who works at Cinergy Entertainment in Amarillo, came in 3rd place in the August League of Colleagues tournament on VAR BOX and first in the USA tournament. The first monthly double winner he gets $100 from the US tournament and $50 from the international prize pool.
“VAR BOX has been a very competitive game amongst my colleagues," said Wilhelm, department manager at Cinergy Entertainment Amarillo. "It started with us competing with each other but soon became about trying to show the global leaderboard that we can keep up. We encourage each other and promote it to other employees to join us. We plan on starting our in-store tournament soon.”
On his way to the third-place finish, Brayden had to beat out players from the USA, Taiwan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and the UK. His score of 150 on the game “Overkill” is the highest ever for a US player.
Second and third place in the USA League of Colleagues tournament also went to Cinergy employees. Chewdingo, AKA Matthew Simpson came in second with a score of 123, which got him 6th on the global leaderboard. Coming in third was HedgeHog, AKA Cayden Willis, with an 81. All told, US players took five of the top 9 scores in the global tournament, the nation’s best showing yet.
“Cinergy Entertainment has always been an early adopter and supporter of VR as a part of their entertainment offerings," said Todd Maunsell, VP of Operations for Cinergy Entertainment. "VAR BOX created an attend-less tournament platform that was super appealing for creating repeat playability. The strategy of engaging our team members to be “champions” of the VR arcade game allows us to influence guests and drive sales through positive hype of our team members. The League of Colleagues fits in well with Cinergy’s company culture.”
The League of Colleagues is the industry’s first employee-only VR esports tournament. Played among employees of VAR BOX locations and distributors worldwide, cash prizes are awarded each month to the top players globally, nationally, and locally. Winners also earn rare skins they can use in-game to show off their status as champions.
The League of Colleagues leaderboard resets each month, so everyone has a chance to win. Every VAR BOX location can get involved in the League of Colleagues. Employees register on a secret webpage so every score they rack up is entered. They can track their progress via the online leaderboard at https://tpc-ranking.
The League of Colleagues helps engage employees of arcades featuring the VAR BOX virtual reality esports platform. Engaged employees are more likely to encourage customers to download the VAR BOX mobile app and enter the global player tournaments starting in Q3 2023—over $100,000 is awarded each year to players of VAR BOX.
For information on how to get involved in the League of Colleagues and VAR BOX esports tournaments, reach out to Bob Cooney via The VR Collective at info@thevrcollective.com