March Mayhem: Round 3 Voting Now Open

With a few down to the wire match-ups and a couple huge upsets, Round 2 fueled the competitive fire for the Round 3 match-ups.

Round 2 closed Wednesday afternoon and brought with it some upsets, a close point battle and a lot of chatter in the forums. Here is your Round 2 highlight breakdown:

• Number 5, 2K Marin, the developers of BioShock 2, upset Number 4 and March Mayhem veteran Harmonix. With the Boston rockers on their way home, 2K Marin will face off against last year’s division champion, Nintendo. Chat about it here.
• Number 7 and tournament cinderella, Zynga, brought down Number 2 and tournament favorite, Infinity Ward. With the largest amount of votes in a single match-up yet this year, the real action happened in the forums where fans went back and forth in support of their favorite developer. That doesn’t look like it’s going to change in Round 3 as Zynga looks forward to locking horns with Grand Theft Auto developer, Rockstar North. Chat about it here.
• Number 3 seeded, Capcom, and Number 11, Obsidian, had fans casting votes up to the very last minute of the 48 hour period, only to have Capcom come away at the end with the win. Did Obsidian’s valiant effort in Round 2 take any of the steam out of Capcom’s sails as they heard towards Round 3 against Bethesda Softworks? Chat about it here.
• Number 4 seeded, Epic Games, and Number 5 seeded, Naughty Dog, had an amazing match-up, which even took on it’s own persona due to Epic’s Cliff(y B)leszinski’s Twitter post. For the whole story, click here. At the end of 48 hours, Epic came out victorious over Naughty Dog and now faces BioWare for their chance to get into The Great Eight. Chat about it here

Other Highlights

North Division
• Turbine (1) defeated Platinum Games (9)
• Square Enix (4) defeated Double Fine Productions (12)
• Rockstar North (3) defeated Lionhead Studios (6)

West Division

• Nintendo (1) defeated Rocksteady Studios (8)
• Bungie (3) defeated GSC Game World (6)
• Blizzard (2) defeated Insomniac Games (7)

East Division

• Valve (1) defeated Visceral Games (8)
• Ubisoft (5) defeated Namco Bandai (13)
• Bethesda (2) defeated PopCap Games (7)

South Division

• BioWare (1) defeated Gearbox Software (8)
• Kojima Productions (3) defeated Mythic Entertainment (6)
• Relic (2) defeated CCP Games (7)

With 16 developers now vying to earn a spot in The Great Eight, Round 3 is going to be a breakout battle for every vote. Head over to the brackets NOW and vote for your favorites!

Voting will be open until noon EST on Saturday, March 27th.

Good luck to everyone.