Category: Gaming

Once again, we lead the charge in advancing esports and gaming performance with a revolutionary new partnership with Unikrn, a leading esports brand in the rapidly growing esports community. From our inception 10 years ago, we were the first and original non-peripheral-based company to support and promote esports, and here we are today moving this same support on into and beyond the 21^st Century.

Made official on January 11, 2018, we are extremely excited to partner with Unikrn. What makes this partnership so unique is that we will be the first company to allow UnikoinGold (UKG) to be used to make purchases on gunnar.com via the Unikrn Wallet. If you buy GUNNAR products, you’ll also earn a UKG kickback when you sign up for Unikrn’s Connekt platform. GUNNAR products will be earnable via Unikrn’s jackpots, which users can enter for free after earning UKG just for playing the games they love. UnikoinGold is owned in over 200 countries, traded on major crypto exchanges around the world, and widely used on their own Unikrn platform.

From Unikrn CEO, Rahul Sood, “This is the first Unikrn Wallet partnership we’ve completed, and GUNNAR Optiks are once again ahead of the game. As one of the OGs in esports, it’s nice that GUNNAR recognizes Unikrn’s explosive growth and global reach. By integrating the cutting edge Unikrn Wallet Blockchain, GUNNAR may accept UnikoinGold from virtually anywhere, seamlessly and effortlessly. Just awesome!”

For those of you unfamiliar with Unikrn, they are like Disneyland for esports. Since launch, Unikrn has established itself as a leading esports brand that’s been woven into the fabric of the rapidly growing esports community. Their global product portfolio and contributions include the Unikrn wagering platform, esports team ownership, tournament series, multiple original content platforms, sponsored community creators, and a group that works with casinos to attract modern gaming audiences. Unikrn raised venture capital from Mark Cuban, Shari Redstone, Elisabeth Murdoch, Ashton Kutcher, Guy O’Seary, and many others including a leading investor well-known for early investment into Snapchat and the partners with similar track records in a variety of Silicon Valley successes, including Twitter and Instagram. Unikrn recently sold over 127,000,000 of their UnikoinGold tokens in what was the largest token sale in esports and gaming history.

“This partnership with Unikrn marks a new era in ecommerce, technology, and gaming for GUNNAR,” stated Scott Sorensen, GUNNAR President, “We have supported gaming and esports for a decade now and this partnership will allow us to take our support to the next level. We are very excited to partner with visionaries such as the Unikrn team because both of our brands share a passion for making your gaming experience extraordinary.”

You can find out more about Unikrn here and here. And before you dive into watching their content and esports teams, be sure your eyes are protected! We have several styles available right now.

The 2017 convention season is starting to pick up so we thought we’d share a bit about the upcoming events where you can find GUNNAR. There’s not much else in this world that gives us all the nerd-chills as much as hanging out in some foreign city, seeing friends, checking out the latest games and equipment, and eating a lot of unhealthy food. This year is no exception and we’re super pumped to see everyone’s faces at the various shows we’re planning to attend.

Up first, Team GUNNAR will be in Austin, Texas, for Rooster Teeth Expo which goes from July 7 to 9. Aside from everything else associated with this awesome show, we’re also very excited to pay Via 313 another visit for their incredible pizza! After RTX, we’ll be right in our own backyard for some more shenanigans at San Diego Comic-Con from July 20 to 23. We can’t tell you what we’re doing specifically, but you might want to stretch and be ready to run. Once SDCC has passed, we’ll be turning around and heading north for DEF CON. Calling Vegas home for many years, this is the quintessential show for all things hacking, digital espionage, and coding. It takes place July 27-30. Following DEF CON, and for those who are in the ergonomics industry, we’ll be heading back to Vegas to once again attend ErgoExpo August 22-25. This is a bit more of a laid-back show mostly because it’s all about being comfortable at work, and we’re perfectly okay with that.

Summer will be winding down after these shows have passed, but that doesn’t mean we will! After ErgoExpo, we’ll be in Seattle for PAX West from September 1 to 4. Great breweries, delicious sea food, and of course, some of the biggest gaming enthusiasts in the world – we can’t wait! Finally, winding down the season will be TwitchCon, and this year is shaping up to be the best one yet. It’ll be in Long Beach and takes place October 20-22. Swing by our booth to snap some selfies with us!

We hope to see many of you at these shows! Don’t forget, it is the Summer season so jump on gunnar.com to save 30% on GUNNAR sunglasses before you head out – 50% off if you also purchase a pair with amber lenses.

We are both thrilled and honored to be able to announce today that we’ve officially partnered with Gale Force eSports.

A well-respected professional gaming organization, Gale Force has already been loyal to GUNNAR so it was an easy decision to come alongside their Heroes of the Storm team to ensure they have the proper eyewear in which to compete during the 2017 Global Championship. Already, the GFE team has been dominating in their return to competition after experiencing a few shake-ups and a retirement in 2016. It’s this will and determination to succeed that has impressed us the most, and we’re extremely excited to watch them continue their march to the finals.

We partnered with Blizzard Entertainment in 2015 in a licensing deal that saw the creation of the Heroes of the Storm Siege and Strike, as well as customized temple sleeves featuring some of the most popular Heroes from the game. Since then, we’ve carefully watched the Heroes eSports scene looking for a team that could represent both us and the Heroes of the Storm brands well. Gale Force was—and is—that team! The 2017 Heroes of the Storm Global Championship is already underway, and we want to publicly say to Michael “Michael Udall” Udall, Fan “Fan” Yang, Khalif “Khroen” Hashim, Jon “Equinox” Peterson, and Stefen “akaface” Anderson,, YOU GOT THIS!

The History

Back in 1972, Stanford University made history by hosting an event called Spacewar!. Two dozen of Stanford’s computer nerds gathered around the University’s single computer to play a video game. Spacewar! pitted the gamers against one another for the prize of a year-long subscription to the Rolling Stone. There, the Spacewar! gamers together coined the term “e-sport”.

After Spacewar! the e-sports’ take-off fizzled out, gaining little interest in popular culture. Whether due to access to computers, cultural stigma of video games, or technological limitations, e-sports struggled to get traction for many years.

But, then, e-sports blazed into favor. E-sports holds competitions all over the world, and major news networks cover their events. Professional gamers now even gain loyal followings. What led to the significant shift in popularity?

The Blizzard Revolution

Blizzard took the world by storm, providing the necessary fuel for the e-sport rocket to soar. They’ve led the battle with incredible innovation and passion, Like the Disneyland of theme parks, Blizzard’s unbelievable quality is unparalleled in the e-sports universe. Check out the one hour documentary about Blizzard below.

Blizzard’s Three Central Innovations

1. Battle.net. With the advent of the internet becoming available for many, Blizzard released Battle.net in 1996. Battle.net enabled automated matchmaking to allow competitions between users online. Such innovations exemplify how Blizzard popularized e-sports.

On Battle.net widely successful games such as Warcraft and Starcraft appeared.

2. Leagues. As video game competitions came into the mainstream, Blizzard entertainment also created leagues for competitors to compete in. The leagues mirror the franchise approach of American soccer and football teams. As a result, Blizzard’s strategic approach to forming leagues attracted many investors. With solid money flowing into the e-sports ecosystem, the new sport continued to thrive.

In 2016, Blizzard created the first ever league called the Overwatch League based on Blizzard’s first-person team shooter Overwatch games. The Overwatch League includes 12 teams, and competitions take place in Los Angeles, California.

3. Tespa. Under Blizzard’s wing resides the savvy and hard-working sister company known as Tespa. Launched in Texas, Tespa bolsters a robust and fast-growing collegiate e-sports organization.

Tespa leads the yearly collegiate e-sports championship which ESPN televises. Each year, student members of the Tespa clubs compete for the grand prize: full tuition. Overall, Tespa awards over 3.3 million dollars for student tuitions. Tespa’s mission helps students “find a path to their futures through gaming.”

Tespa and GUNNAR

With 270+ chapters and 120,000+ student members, Tespa’s collegiate efforts majorly influenced the rise and acceptance of e-sports nationwide. Perhaps just as important, Tespa provides not only tuition to students, but a huge community for gamers as well. While video games bring gamers together online, the e-sports competitors together in-person. In Tespa’s “The Heroes of the Dorm competition”, the winners in the 2015 and 2016 competition received Heroes of the Storm™ Siege and Strike as gifts from GUNNAR Optiks for their amazing accomplishments.

If the e-sports revolution doesn’t give you what Blizzard loves to call nerd-chills, then we’re not sure what will.

GUNNAR Optiks proudly partners with Tespa and Blizzard. We can’t wait to see the exciting advancements to come in 2017!

For Blizzard fans around the world, the most epic event all year happens soon! BlizzCon notoriously sells-out at record speed as thousands upon thousands of hopeful participants virtually line up to get tickets to the exciting event. We recommend getting your BlizzCon Pass as soon as the tickets become available online on April 20^th and 23^rd, as last year’s tickets sold out instantly.

How to Watch

BlizzCon 2016, or BlizzCon X (the tenth BlizzCon event) located in the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim California. The event will be held on Friday, November 4^th and Saturday, November 5^th.

If you can’t make the event in person, don’t fret! For the first time ever, BlizzCon announced they will offer “virtual tickets”. For only $40, virtual ticket holders can stream the e-sports events and major panels from home in high definition.

What to Expect

In honor of the tenth BlizzCon, Blizzard will be going all-out this year. Certainly, by stowing some big surprises up their sleeves, BlizzCon X will not disappoint.

The two-day event covers all things StarCraft, Diablo, World of Warcraft, Heroes of the Storm, and Overwatch. The games spark an impressive amount of passion from attendees and world-wide viewers. Several of most exciting e-sports competitions take place on jaw-droppingly gorgeous stages.

Grammy Award winner “Weird Al” Yankovic will close out BlizzCon 2016 with an epic concert to celebrate Blizzard’s big reveals for BlizzCon X.

You must suit up for the event by checking out our Heroes of the Storm frames, Siege and Strike, as well as our Heroes temple sleeves all in stock now on gunnar.com.

We Will See You There!

Through our renewed partnership with Blizzard’s sister company Tespa, GUNNAR Optiks proudly participates in this year’s big event. Tespa works as a groundbreaking and premiere collegiate e-sports organization, and we couldn’t be more excited to keep our relationship going with Tespa.

We admire Tespa for their dedication to providing collegiate victors with scholarships and tuition. GUNNAR Optiks will continue to support Tespa’s efforts in making students goals and dreams come true.

For more information about BlizzCon, click here. We hope to see many of you at the show in Anaheim on November 7 and 8!

How do you sum up a whirlwind weekend in downtown San Diego at TwitchCon which was filled with thousands of fans and well-known personalities? Just another day at the “office” for GUNNAR! Twitch’s convention rolled out this year into our backyard and we have to say, it was pretty damn epic. Day 1, 2, and 3 were busy for our crew not just with inquiring attendees looking to protect their eyes, but also with all the Visionaries and friends who stopped by and hung out.

Who are these people? Oh, just some of our most favorite friends and supporters like Mari Takahashi and Matt Sohinki from Smosh, Pamela Horton, MissesMae, Trick2G, Bajheera and Warcraftjen, LifeWithLaughs and FrankWithLaughs, Towelliee, Lisa and Rick Malambri, Anthony Kongphan, kittyhouseknife, Hotted, Rebecca Grant, and Meg Turney just to name a few. Yeah, you can pretty much say we’re feeling the post-con blues now!

Protect your eyes with one of the most popular styles that sold out at TwitchCon: Enigma. In stock right now.

When 3 AM ticked over on September 1 and we started our trek to the Pacific Northwest, we had a feeling this year’s PAX in Seattle would be pretty big. What we didn’t expect was just how epic the show would be, and it’s taken us a few days to truly wrap our heads around it. We saw an overwhelming number of people visit our booth, check out our latest styles, and each one of them kept us very busy. Even on Sunday and Monday when most events like this seem to wind down a bit, we never had more than a few minutes to take a breather or rest our feet. And you know what? It didn’t matter because we were fired up to bring you the very best in computer eyewear! Here’s a quick 30-second video highlighting our weekend at PAX West:

There’s a certain vibe in Seattle that’s hard to shake, and we’re already missing it and everyone we met. Yes, we were pretty exhausted by the time we got home, but that all changed when we started thinking about the next event we’re planning to attend. Featured at the show were our new styles, Enigma and Havok, which sold out pretty quickly. Click their names to check them out and to order up a pair for yourself! To check out some of the photos we took at the event, head over to our Facebook page and click on the PAX West album. Toss us a Like if you haven’t yet!

Much <3, PAX friends, see you at the next show!

Blizzard has been predictably silent when it comes to officially announcing plans for Overwatch eSports. That, however, hasn’t stopped the eSports community at-large from prepping for what’s likely going to be an extremely popular competitive game to watch. Sure, small, unsanctioned tournaments have been popping up quite a bit, but what most are anxious to see is how exactly Blizzard plans to handle Overwatch. There’s a lot to consider, too, so it’s not much of a shock that we haven’t heard anything just yet. According to BlizzCon.com, there are currently no plans for Overwatch to be part of the eSports content for this year, though it would be hard to believe Blizzard isn’t at least considering some kind of an invitational given the apparently lack of new “news” for them to share.

Regardless of what Blizzard plans to do, the one thing we do know is that the community and players are anxious to see it come together. In preparation for Overwatch finally joining other games at tournaments, some of the largest, most successful eSports organizations have already formed teams. EnVyUs, Cloud9, and Liquid are just a few to name who have put together what they hope will be a winning collection of players who are poised to swarm the eSports scene once Overwatch is officially inaugurated. The anticipation is so high, even ESPN has begun publishing a series of articles analyzing the meta game providing readers with guides to each available hero. The first focuses on offensive characters, and it appears there’s more to come on a weekly basis.

Our take on Overwatch eSports? Make it happen, Blizzard! And we know you’ll do it right. In the meantime, channel your very best inner Tracer with a pair of GUNNARS that are as electric and popular as the character: Intercept.

Holy smokes, PAX East was a whirlwind for GUNNAR Optiks this year! When we first stepped foot onto Boston soil, it was probably one of the most gorgeous days they’d seen in months – sunny, in the 70s, and clear skies all around. Not only that, but the area around the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center was teaming with life, fantastic places to eat, and spectacular views. Couple everything together with the ocean air, the vibe of the city, and all of the enthusiastic folks who came by our booth, and we ended up having an amazing time at the show.

This year’s event weekend went really well. We had several Visionaries come to our booth to hang out, get pictures with us, meet up with fans, and help spread the word about ensuring eyes are protected. Scott Cole from ESPN, popular streamers, Trick2G, Shahmeen, and Wooty, the one and only LeeAnna Vamp, Michele Morrow who was representing Legendary Entertainment, and many more took time out of their busy schedules to swing by and spend time with everyone. Not only that, but we had an incredible turnout for our daily raffles! Prizes from us, Filthy Casual, and DXRacer were huge hits, and of course, grand prize winners all walked away with even bigger smiles to go with their free glasses. Take a peek at some of the images we snagged while we were there:

We weren’t too fond of having to leave such a great city, but we certainly took home a lot of great memories. From our time with the NVIDIA GeForce team at their after party to hanging out with the good folks from Universal Pictures and the Warcraft movie, PAX East 2016 was one of the most exciting shows we’ve been to in recent memory. We’ll never forget the mind-blowingly delicious lobster rolls, but more importantly, we can’t say thank you enough to every single one of you who stopped by the GUNNAR booth. We hope to see you again at the next event!

This past weekend, the wonderful folks at Blizzard and TeSPA graciously invited GUNNARS to the Heroes of the Dorm event in Seattle, and wow, did we have a great time! The two-day finale was the culmination of a weeks long tournament that pit 64 collegiate Heroes of the Storm eSports teams from all around North America against each other in a single-elimination style tournament. And the final two days were broadcast live on ESPNU and ESPN2! The prize? Full tuition scholarships to the winning team totaling $500,000! Not only that, but GUNNAR Optiks was also honored by joining forces with TeSPA in providing eyewear to the final four teams including an on-stage presentation of new glasses to the winning team. Here are a handful of images from the event:

What a terrific venue! TeSPA, Blizzard, and ESPN really did a great job putting this together, and despite a small technical hiccup at the start on Saturday, the audience never let up. In fact, they were some of the most electric fans we’ve seen in a long time. We were also really excited to see Gutslug, a University of Tennessee player, wearing his GUNNARS he receive at last year’s event!

Throughout the weekend, viewers and attendees saw some crazy team compositions, incredible action, and thrilling engagements. In the end, the team from Arizona State University dominated the team from the University of Texas at Arlington in a 3-to-nil victory. The win for ASU was extra sweet, too, given that they lost in the finals last year.

We want to congratulate all of the teams who made it to Heroes of the Dorm! Everyone played very well, and we were extremely grateful for the chance to provide each of them with the very best in gaming eyewear. If you missed the event, you can watch it online for free on the Heroes of the Storm Twitch channel.​

It’s been just over a week since we landed in San Antonio, TX to attend PAX South 2016, and the memories are still very strong. The 3-day whirlwind event saw thousands of gamers from all over the US and the world come together to celebrate all things geek. More impressive, though, was the sheer volume of traffic the GUNNAR booth handled. Beginning the hour before the doors opened to the general public on Friday, our staff saw a steady flow of curious people come up and try on a pair of glasses. And wouldn’t you know? Before lunch hit on the first day, we had already sold out of stock on two different styles.

While at the show, the GUNNARS crew had two different giveaways going at the same time. The first was a daily raffle where fans in attendance had a chance to win one of several prizes, including one of two gift boxes loaded with GUNNAR swag and a pair of glasses. The response was phenomenal, and with roughly 30 minutes before the 4 PM CST daily giveaway time, we had dozens of enthusiastic people surrounding the booth crowding in to make sure they could hear the ticket numbers as they were called out. The second contest was a drawing held on the Tuesday after returning from PAX South where 6 lucky entrants received a 3-month supply of GUNNARS. Basically, they got 3 free pairs!

All-in-all, it was a very fun event and by the last day, nearly every single pair of glasses we brought had sold out. We’re already looking forward to next year’s show! We just uploaded all of our photos to our Facebook page so feel free to check out the celebrity visitors and crowds that came by: Click me!

Packed GUNNAR Booth for Pax East 2013

Pax East 2013 has come to a close – a week ago. After three days on the convention center floor, one finds himself feeling like a beaten down bag of potatoes. If that metaphor makes no sense, then you are in the right frame of mind for how the body and brain feel after a convention of this caliber. Three days in Boston, three days at the GUNNAR Optiks inflatable booth, three days of awesome video games and the awesome glasses to help people play those games better. This was another Pax and I’m still tired.

There is a common trend among conventions – people get sick. And while I managed to avoid getting truly sick, many did. This is because when you have 80,000 people wandering through a convention center, there are bound to be germs passing around. Sanitize those hands folks! Health lesson aside, Pax East 2013 explored new ground for the convention and was better than any previous incarnations of the show. The highlights had to have been the expanded Indie Game Showcase, which allowed over 60 independent developers showcase their wares, and the larger aisles. The show was pushed to encompass the entire convention center to make room for the expected larger crowd.

There is something to be said for larger aisles, and the GUNNAR booth was in a prime spot in-between the AAA game producers and the indie developers. Our inflatable booth was a first, and both restricted free flowing traffic and trapped people in the booth. While this may have affected sales, it also made for a constantly busy and packed booth. There was little moving around space – and this is a good thing. The conversations and glasses were flying off the shelf, no-one was leaving without at least talking with someone about the benefits of wearing GUNNAR glasses and showing off the new styles. While I was there as the PR rep, talking to the media, I was also speaking on the benefits of wearing RX GUNNAR glasses, since I’ve worn glasses for 26 years.

I met a lot of great people. Gamers, media folk trying to make it on their own, indie game developers and so on. Pax is more than just a gaming convention, it’s a family. The atmosphere is friendly, people try to help each other out and so on. There was a girl who brought me a pair of plastic steampunk goggles that were being given away at the Magic: The Gathering booth. I didn’t have time to participate in their scavenger hunt, but expressed interest in a passing conversation. An hour later she shows up with an extra pair of steampunk goggles. That’s pretty awesome and that’s what Pax is all about. Of course, in retrospect I should have at least gotten her Twitter handle so I could have thanked her proper, you know – on social media.

Oh, and the cosplay. As you can see from the gallery above, the cosplayers pulled out all the stops to make this years Pax as amazing as they could. Sadly, I didn’t snap any pictures of all the Lara Croft cosplayers, which seemed to be this years most popular costume choice for women. The most popular costume choice for men seemed to be that of Bronies. There were a few to say the least. The best though was Barf, from Spaceballs. His tail wagged!

Pax East is a fantastic show for fans, for gamers and for developers. The fact that they are paying more attention to indie developers than ever before is outstanding. And let’s not forget about the tabletop gaming. The tabletop area was packed with amazing games this year, including one pictured in the gallery above – The Emperor’s New Clothes by Jonathan Liu.

Pax is always a great time, and it was great being there as a GUNNAR Optiks representative, even though it meant not being able to check out all the new games. I didn’t get a chance to play anything new. So, what were your favorite bits from Pax East 2013? What were your favorite games?

All images: C. Silver

Los Angeles, CA – The League of Legends World Championship is underway as the best GUNNAR ambassadors from Europe, North America, Korea, China and Southeast Asia battle it out for $2 million.  To celebrate the occasion (and forget about all the controversy and technical difficulties), we decided to hop in the GUNNAR Bus and take our summoners on an exclusive adventure to Medieval Times!

Here’s an inside perspective from guest blogger, Brad “Pluto” Ramey, an American-based League of Legends caster for Team Curse.

This past Sunday was GUNNAR Knight Out with myself and Team Curse, and I can adequately describe the experience in one word: amazing. To start the night off, the team was picked up in the luxurious GUNNAR RV. The RV included three big screen TV’s, drinks, snacks, a DVD player and an Xbox 360 that we used to properly school each other in NHL 13. We quickly realized that none of us were well versed in hockey, and should stick to Summoner’s Rift if we wanted to be successful. The nuances of a stick and puck fell far beyond our reach.

Once we arrived at Medieval Times, we were introduced to our Knight of the night (see what I did there?): the Red and Yellow Knight. We were promptly whisked into the arena and were welcomed by our lovely server Teresa, who was, most definitely, the fairest in the land – we didn’t need a mirror on the wall to tell us that. Shortly thereafter, the games began and while our knight of choice faired well in the outlying games (ring jousting, spear throwing, etc), he fell short when it really mattered. The blue knight was the destined victor that evening, which wasn’t the worst because he was one of our few “allies” in the games.

Whilst watching the games unfold before our eyes, our stomachs were transfixed on the delicious food: BBQ Spare Ribs, Half of a Rotisserie Chicken, Potato Wedges, and an Apple Turnover. While the food was delicious, it seemed almost foreign to NYJacky, because there was not a chopstick in sight, and no ketchup for his lonely Potato Wedges made him one sad camper.

Needless to say, the night was one to remember. Gunnar treated us exceptionally well, and our night couldn’t have gotten any better. I want to personally thank everyone that came along from Gunnar to make it one heck of a “Knight Out” – even if our chosen Knight did not win gold that particular evening, we all shared a golden experience together as a team.

And so a great time was had by all. Thanks for the guest blog Pluto and thanks for attending Team Curse and Dignitas!

Good news: the playoffs resume tonight!

–n8corn

The dust has finally settled and the madness that was E3 and the Major League Gaming Anaheim Spring Championships has ended.  From new game releases at E3 to intense StarCraft 2, League of Legends, and Mortal Kombat action at MLG, Southern California played host to some of the top gaming and industry professionals from around the world.  A number of teams and players at the event were seen wearing GUNNARS during their games, including the League of Legends champions, Team SoloMid!

The week initially started with E3 where I met up with professional League of Legends player, Carlos “Ocelote” Rodriguez.  Carlos plays for one of the top multi gaming organizations in the world, SK-Gaming, he and I were able to check out E3 on Wednesday and have some time to relax before the competition of MLG began.  Personally, I was really excited to see the new NHL 13 since I am a big hockey fan and I enjoy how real the games are becoming.  The physics have really evolved since the old days and now give you much more control over each aspect of the player’s skills.   After checking out some more booths we went outside for some lunch only to be greeted by thousands of hockey going fans going to the Kings game next door at the Staples Center.  Carlos is a big soccer fan coming from Spain and was still impressed with the amount of Kings Jerseys he saw roaming the streets!

After enjoying some California sun shine, we went back to our awesome GUNNAR bus to change clothes and get ready for the Noobz movie premier only a couple blocks away from E3!  Noobz, starring Jason Mewes  and Moises Arias, is a story of four gamers that play Gears of War 3 who travel cross country to Los Angeles in order to play in a big money gaming tournament.  There’s a lot of good laughs and corny jokes in the movie that make for an entertaining 1.5 hours, but one of the more awesome parts of the movie is that the two stars are wearing GUNNARS!  I had a blast attending seeing as I’ve never been a part of a premiere, and having GUNNARs featured in it made it all the better!

After E3 ended on Thursday, the GUNNAR crew (including the bus!) headed down to Anaheim for the MLG event as well as an exclusive GUNNAR photo shoot.  We invited our pro gaming ambassadors to get some photos before they started competing.  We’ll be releasing a behind the scenes video from the photo shoot so look out for that on our facebook, but in the meantime check out the photo below!

Once Friday arrived, the environment became more serious for our gamer friends as everyone started preparing for the main event.  There was over a $100k in prizes up for grabs so you can bet everyone wanted to be as focused as possible.  For GUNNAR…the fun just began!  We were actually able to bring our bus inside the show floor of the venue so we could use it as a place for gaming fans to win prizes and game with GUNNARS!   For those of you who haven’t seen the bus, it’s basically a gamer’s paradise.  Featuring 6 TV’s, 4 leather couches, a fully stocked fridge, and a sound system, this beast makes for one awesome road trip.  By checking in on foursquare or tweeting at us, participants received raffle tickets to win pairs of GUNNARs throughout the weekend.

Saturday and Sunday followed with more excitement as attendance only got better as the event progressed.  Gamers were coming from all over the west coast just to spectate their favorite pros in action.  Team SK-Gaming, Team SoloMid, and Team Evil Geniuses are three of the top multi gaming organizations in the world and had players competing across every game at the competition.  We saw players of each game wearing GUNNARs and it was really inspiring to see that and hear their feedback first hand.

For me, League of Legends was probably most exciting to watch, especially since Team SoloMid, who wear GUNNARS, were playing so well and had the crowd going all weekend. Coming from a competitive gaming background, I’m used to being at tournaments and being in the atmosphere, but seeing the energy between the players and fans this weekend was pretty astounding. As e-Sports web streaming grows we are seeing more and more actual fans pop up now that it’s easier than ever to interact with and support your favorite player. From fan signs to crowd chants, the energy was obvious and it was great to see the resemblance to actual sporting events. E-sport participants have been grinding away for a long time to help gaming make its way into the main stream and GUNNAR couldn’t be happier to recognize and support the movement.

Just like pro gaming, GUNNAR is unique and that’s one of the reasons I liked the company so much in the first place. GUNNAR pushes people to step out of the norm and embrace the present by utilizing eye wear that protects your eyes from this digital age we are in. Gaming follows a similar theme in that you really have to give it a chance before you bash it. There are so many amazing people that encompass the professional circuit, and all it takes is to look a bit deeper to see the strategy and effort that goes into playing at the highest level.

I’ll end this blog on that note and let you guys check out an epic picture of the crowd from this weekend! Don’t forget to support a pro gamer near you and… oh yeah, try out some GUNNARS ;).

Thanks for reading,

Jordan.