ZoneRank News

Interview with eSTRO's Head Coach Daniel Lee (April 2008)

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The Starcraft portal SCforall has published a video interview with the head coach Daniel Lee of the Korean eSports team eSTRO. The interview brings up different aspects of his team, how they stay in shape and he also shares his thoughts about Starcraft2 and professional gamers.

Lee is initially asked a few questions about his team's routines, practises and how they keep in shape; he says that it is important that his players maintain their schedule, practise hard during off seasons and that they work out 1.5 hours at a gym everyday to stay healthy.

He also shares his view on what differs professional gamers in Korea from casual gamers to which he replies that the professional gamers in Korea are professional athletes not only because they practise hard and are paid to do what they do but also because there are twelve professional teams paying salaries, three major leagues with many sponsors.

You can watch the interview here.

New Online Game Platform in Germany (April 2008)

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The launch of a new online gaming platform called VOIPlay Arena Deutschland in the German market have been announced. The company behind the launch of the new platform is Gamerock, the owners of the Swedish correspondence called Spelarenan.

According to Gamerock they have 230 000 members and a market share of over 20 % of all E-Sport gaming in Sweden with their product Spelarenan. The arena services offer gaming and community functionalities such as:

Ranking and statistics
Skill differentiated server access
Online competitions
Gathersystems

GameRock is an operator of online gaming platforms in the popular titles Counter-Strike and Battlefield. Based on their success in Sweden they are now entering other markets in Europe with in close cooperation with broadband operators and gaming media partners as with the German launch.

Turtle Entertainment Announce ESL Wire (April 2008)

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Turtle Entertainment, the German eSports company behind Electronic Sports League, announced a new game client application for their users called ESL Wire - an all-in-one solution for gamers according to ESL.

The application consists of some core areas as:
Game Lobbies - A lobby that will help you find other gamers, chat with them or play against them.
Gather Integration - The ESL Gather system is now fully integrated into ESL Wire which now also includes the option to create own gathers.
Virtual Private Network - Using VPN will improve your bandwidth a latency as it is optimized for multiplayer gaming.
Games Detection - Detects all your installed games and shows them with many additions details.
Buddy Management - A unified buddy list where all your friends from your accounts at ESL, ICQ, AIM, and MSN are gathered.

The application is at the moment in the beta phase but will be fully released at the Games Convention in late August.

CGS announces partnership with Eurosport (April 2008)

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The Eurosport Group and Championship Gaming Series (CGS) announced today that Eurosport has signed a deal with BSkyB (Sky) that grants Eurosport exclusive European broadcast rights for the CGS. In addition, Eurosport also gains secondary broadcasting rights for the UK and Ireland as well as mobile and broadband broadcast.

The first CGS broadcast on Eurosport will be highlights from the 2007 series and will be aired on Eurosport 2 from April 28 to May 3, followed by the 2008 season later this year. 41 nations will be covered in Europe, including France, Germany, Spain and Italy. According to the press release, the addition of Eurosport 2 coverage will expand the ammount of potential viewers to 400 million across five continents.

“Our broadcast production values are, by far, the best in pro gaming and this distribution deal with Eurosport will introduce CGS to more than thirty million new European households and raise the profile of our sport with the television audience throughout Europe.”, said Andy Reif, Chief Executive Officer and Commissioner for CGS.

“We're delighted to have established this relationship with CGS and to consolidate our strong relationship with Sky," said Jean-Thierry Augustin, General Manager, Distribution and Development at Eurosport. "CGS is the right professional gaming partner for Eurosport as it shares our belief in high production values and passion in sports and combines this with an infrastructure which will turn competitive video gaming into a major spectator sport across the globe."

ProGamers to carry the Olympic torch (April 2008)

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

It has been announced that numerous Chinese professional gamers were to carry the Olympic torch to the 2008 Olympic Games' ceremony. Professional players such as Jae Ho “Moon” Jang and Li “Sky” Xiaofeng will be part of the torch relay, which began in Olympia, Greece (where the first Olympic games occured, in 776 BC) and will finish in Beijing, where the 29th Olympic Games will take place.

Here is the full list of chinese pro-gamers who will carry the torch:

Jae Ho “Moon” Jang
Xiaofeng "Sky" Li
Li Jia "xiaobai" Sheng
Lei "BET.Leilei" Shen
Junchun "Pj" Sha
Chenglong "Sai" Zhou
Wei "Jaystar" Ding
Dapeng Chen

Adidas Sponsors ENC 2008 (April 2008)

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

ESL announced a new partner for the European Nations Championships 2008. The new sponsor is the clothe company Adidas, famous for its sports collection and sponsorship with several top sports teams.

ESL ENC is the third organisation Adidas is sponsoring in Europe as they joined forces with SK Gaming last year and earlier this year announced partnership with Mousesports.

ENC is an eSports tournament presented by Electronic Sports League in its fourth year now; the 2008 season finals have €55000 in prizes and ends in August.

Betting Site With Licence Launches (April 2008)

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Today it has been reported that a new eSports bookmaker - XLBet, will launch next week fully licensed and regulated in The Netherlands Antilles on the island of Curacao and owned by E-Zone Company XLBet N.V.

XLBet is founded by actors with experiences from the betting market and major unknown investors in Scandinavia, with solid funding according to the website, and has the objective to provide a secure and safe product for the growing eSports market. The goal is to provide fixed lines for events and leagues from a wide selection of events with fixed odds for games such as Counter-Strike, WarCraft and Fifa.

XLBet will however not only limit themselves to eSports and has therefore also betting for horse racing and regular sports such as football in Europe and possibilities to play in the poker and casino games.

WCG Hosted in China Next Year (April 2008)

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

World Cyber Games have announced the host city for next year's global event; WCG 2009 will be held in Chengdu, China. According to the official news the formal announcement will take place in Chengdu on April 23rd with officials from both parties involved in a signing ceremony.

As previous years the committee based their decision on factors such as geography, facilities, infrastructure and marketing plans along with the extra support they can get by the host city for accessibility, local government support and potential in mainstream media.

WCG is hosted by International Cyber Marketing, ICM and has hosted events since 2000 and last year it was hosted in San Francisco, USA where more than 700 players from 70 countries attended to compete in several disciplines. This year the event will be hosted in Cologne, Germany in early November with major sponsors such as Samsung, Microsoft and HP and more.

Book About Team 3D and compLexity (April 2008)

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This summer a book about the rivalry between the top American teams Team 3D and compLexity called Game Boys: Professional Videogaming's Rise From the Basement to the Bigtime will be released at bookstores nationwide in USA. A book written by Michael Kane, who writes for the famous news paper New York Post.

The book brings up different scenarios and aspects of the players lives as Michael Kane has been following the players in the two teams for almost 18 months by staying in their homes, attending meetings involving the players and making interviews. "An engrossing tour inside the rivalries, quirks, and dramas of a subculture on the cusp of big things [...] and offers a never-before-seen look at the business of playing games", says an extract from the book description.

An interview with the writer has been conducted by compLexity and can be read here where questions about his background, his eSports experiences and the book are asked.

ELC Builds a TV-studio for 5 million SEK (April 2008)

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Today a Swedish paper, Punkt SE, published more information about the coming Esport League of Champions held with top teams in Counter-Strike and Warcraft in Sweden.

The article reveals that a TV-studio is being built in Stockholm for 5 million SEK (approximately $840,000 USD) and that it will have enough space for players, commentators, technicians and audience.

The full prize money for the tournaments isn't published officially but it is confirmed that the winning team in the Counter-Strike tournament will win €25,000.

The league will begin this spring and it is revealed that ELC currently is negotiating with two TV-companies to broadcast the tournaments.

New Major Warcraft Tournament - Road of the King (April 2008)

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Today SK Gaming reports that a new major WarCraft 3 called Road of the King has been announced in China with 19,500 USD in prizes and a unique set of match conditions.

The tournament will take place in Wuhan and will invite eight of the best WarCraft teams in the world; six of the teams have already been confirmed officially such as SK and MYM. The tournament is hosted by Super Gamer, a Chinese gaming portal, and will take place from April the 30th to May the 3rd.

The tournament structure will be similar to NGL One but this tournament also has a new unique card system which allows the team captains to change the conditions of their current match. Each team has six cards, each card has different abilities and can only by used once in a each match however you can't save all cards - after each round one card will disappear.

You can read more about the card system here but for example one card can change the next game in a match from a best of three format to a best of one.

CGS to build an esports stadium (April 2008)

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The Championship Gaming Series, in cooperation with the government of Wuhan and the Wuhan Hi Tech Group announced it was going to build an eSports stadium in Wuhan, China. The stadium will be serving as the training centre for the CGS Wuhan Dragons franchise and will be the location of the CGS 2008 Pan-Asia Final which will take place from April 30 to May 3.

“By participating in the opening of this great new training centre and gaming arena in China, we are spearheading the next step in the evolution of eSports,” states Andy Reif, CGS Commissioner. “We expect attendance at the upcoming CGS Pan-Asia Final to exceed 125,000 over the course of the Final which not only demonstrates the magnitude of the event, but also underscores the value which this state-of the-art facility will bring to professional gaming.”

eSports at AFI Dallas Film Festival (March 2008)

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

At this year's annual American Film Institute Dallas International Film Festival an almost 90 minutes long documentary about eSports called Frag will be screened on the April 1st and 3rd. The movie is a story about the professional video gaming featuring several top players and the CPL founder.

Frag is about the choices young adults face while trying to become a top gamer and that lies below the surface of these simple games they play. "Frag pulls the curtain back on one of the biggest sport industries in the world that many of us know nothing about."

Lead casts in this movie are Angel Munoz, who founded the CPL, Jonathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel, one of eSports representatives with a major brand built around him with several computer hardware and Rafik "Lost-Cauze" Bryant, who signed with Able-Planet to become their global spokesman in 2007 in a $100000 deal of which he donated $25000 to charity to start a computer center with focus on education in South Africa.

Sources: AFI Dallas | Frag

i34 Announced for August (March 2008)

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Today the British event organiser of i-Series announced an expansion of the event as they are moving the i-Series to Stoneleigh Park from Newbury racecourse - which has stand host for all the past 33 events since 2001.

Stoneleigh Park will feature two major halls which is 8000 square metres big, a reception room and food court, a camping area, a soccer field for outdoor activities, an on site 3 star hotel with 58 rooms, an on site hostel with 500 beds, 4x4 cross country racing track and an huge paint ball field. The biggest hall, 4500 square meters, will have 2000 BYOC spots while the second hall will be the exhibition and main stage area and all together is expected to attract 10000 visitors.

Packard Bell has already confirmed their partnership with the event and two tournaments worth €12000 has been announced. The event will take place in the beginning of August on the weekend of 8th to 11th and a promotional video has been released with more details of the venue - watch here.

Video Interview with SK's General Manager (March 2008)

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Today SK Gaming released a video interview conducted with the general manager of the organisation Alexander "TheSlash" Müeller. Alex is one of the core people behind the organisation and has been working with SK for the past eight years.

The interview starts with the topic "who am I" where he talks about himself and what his day-to-day operations are. It continues with the topic "tough choices" where he talks about choices he makes, how he makes them and shares one of his toughest choices he has made in his career. He also talks about how it works to sign partners and shares a few words about the recent change from Intel to AMD as their head sponsor.

He then continues with talking about the player-organisation relationship which he says is difficult to uphold because players aren't always around in the office to see how hard the management works to create possibilities for players or find solutions to problems that arises. He ends the interview with talking about how to pick the right players for his organisation and what criteria's players need to fulfil.

You can watch the video interview here.

The end of the CPL (March 2008)

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL), one of the pioneers in eSports competitions will be closing down its operations effective immediately. Therefore, all CPL events scheduled for 2008 have been cancelled.

The CPL was launched in June 1997 and for the last ten years the CPL events experienced increased growth - commencing with a small LAN event in Dallas, Texas, and culminating in world-class competitions across five continents.

According to the official press release, CPL shuts its door due to the "current fragmentation of the sport, a crowded field of competing leagues, and the current economic climate". According to the CPL, the 2007 World Tour prizes will still be paid, however the organisation has not given any comment about Severity, the eSports-dedicated game it was developing.

Press Release

Related: The CPL Deny Shutdown Rumors

e-Stars 2008 Cooperation with Seoul City (March 2008)

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Today the organisers of the Korean based event e-Stars announced information about this year's tournament named e-Stars Continental Cup.

Last year four teams were invited from Korea, China, Sweden and Brazil but this year six teams will be invited. The teams will be picked with the help of online voting, opinions by eight special eSports experts and based on teams' performances last year.

A total of $75000 is at stake in Counter-Strike 1.6 and WarCraft3 combined but the tournament structure is different to past events; the teams will be divided into East vs. West and go up against each other.

The event will be held in late summer and now they have Seoul City's support and blessing to host events another five years.

Source: Fragbite (Swedish)

Qtour Launched in Cooperation With Samsung (March 2008)

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

QPAD, the gaming accessories manufacturer, has announced information about this year's QTOUR. For this year they have gained a new head sponsor, signed cooperation with WCG Nordic and introduced two new games.

This year QTOUR will be cooperate with WCG Nordic to host championships in countries where qualifiers will be held. The tour has also signed Samsung as their new head sponsor along with previous sponsors Sennheiser, Logitech and NextGenTel.

QTOUR is an event hosted with an unusual structure based on team games, as they host tournaments for 1 versus 1 play. 14 players are invited while the other two qualify through the offline qualifiers held before the main tournament takes place.

This year Qtour will begin at one of the biggest LAN events in the World, The Gathering in Norway and will host tournaments in Counter-Strike1.6, Counter-Strike Source and Call of Duty4.

Penalty for Fnatic by SEC (March 2008)

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Today Samsung Euro Championship has announced that they have punished Fnatic for breaking a behaviour rule during the price ceremony.

According to the official news all players were informed that they would have to wear the official SEC 2008 Event Shirt during the ceremony. However the players in the team went off the stage for an interview and took off their SEC shirts in favour of their team shirts. Shortly after the interview they were called back on stage for a final group photo and forgot to put their shirts back on and have therefore been punished.

SEC has had discussions with the Nordic WCG organizer and came to the decision that the team will be denied their auto berth to the national qualifier in Sweden as penalty. The motivation for this decision is the fact that no other company logo was shown on the Fnatic shirts and this was the first time it happened, "Next time, doesn't matter who it will be, we will be talking about deduction of Prize money or banning the players again."

The managing director of Fnatic - Samuel Mathews, said "It was a mistake and we are sorry. However it was a very harmless one!", in a short official statement.

WCG Europe

39 Percent Female Gamers Today (March 2008)

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

According to a survey made by Forrester Research there are far more female gamers today than there used to be and almost 50 percent of gamers are between 18 and 44 years of age in general.

The online survey, originally initiated by DELL, had over 14,000 respondents across UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Sweden during November last year and shows that today's gamers are not what they used to be or what is often predicted to be.

According to SK Gaming the statistics show that 39% of gamers are today represented by
Females and of all gamers 48% are 18 to 44 years old while 26% are over 45. One of the most interesting numbers is that 32% of all gamers annually earn enough to be classified, as SK puts it, in the upper income segment.

Sources: SK Gaming & Forrester

Swedish Video Interview with CEO of ELC (March 2008)

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The Swedish Counter-Strike portal Fragbite has recently interviewed Johan Lidén, CEO of the Esport League of Champions during CeBIT after the announcement of the new league.

Johan talks about the league was initially created. He says that he felt that major leagues were needed, they wanted the major sponsors to enter eSports and wanted to produce great TV coverage.

He reveals that two seasons will be held each year and one season will run for 10 to 12 weeks. The league will start with a group stage continued with double elimination and each round will be played about every other week. The players will be flown to Stockholm with all accommodations paid by ELC to participate in the matches.

He also says that they are negotiating with several TV channels to air the production but says that their main goal is to be able to broadcast this online with their partner in several qualities.

The interview is, unfortunately, only available in Swedish but can be watched here for those interested.

SteelSeries Announces Partnership with Europe’s Largest Retailer (March 2008)

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Copenhagen, Denmark -- March 10th, 2008 -- SteelSeries, a leading manufacturer of innovative professional gaming gear, announced today that the company’s line of high-end gaming peripherals is now available in Carrefour, the worlds’ second-largest retailer, the largest in Europe and a main PC distributor in France. For what has the potential to be one of the most important partnerships in eSports, both companies chose ZoneRank as their quality standard.

SteelSeries' products will be distributed throughout 60 of the largest stores in France (list of stores below), this being the first time that SteelSeries products are present on this scale within French mass-market retail chains.

An exclusively designed display stand made uniquely for this partnership, will help attract the attention of Carrefour’s customers to the fast-growing professionalism of the gaming culture. This major opportunity for gaming allows consumers who are not familiar with competitive gaming, to learn more about the top performers and the professional gaming circuit in general.

About SteelSeries

SteelSeries is a leading manufacturer of gaming peripherals and accessories, including headsets, keyboards, mice, software and gaming surfaces. SteelSeries has been on the forefront of professional gaming gear since its inception in 2001, thanks to continued innovation and product development in cooperation with leading professional gamers. All SteelSeries products are developed in co-operation with professional gamers to ensure optimum performance and durability. SteelSeries supports the growth of competitive gaming and electronic sports through aggressive sponsoring of teams and support of communities, tournaments and LAN-events all over the world. For additional information, visit http://www.steelseries.com .

About Carrefour

Over the past 40 years, the Carrefour group has grown to become one of the world's leading distribution groups. The world's second-largest retailer and the largest in Europe, the group currently operates four main grocery store formats: hypermarkets, supermarkets, hard discount and convenience stores. The Carrefour group currently has over 12,500 stores, either company-operated or franchises. For additional information, visit http://www.carrefour.com .

About Zonerank

Zonerank aims at organizing and professionalizing international eSports by setting standards. Zonerank works in tight cooperation with top pro-gaming teams in the world in order to understand their needs and set standards a professional environment requires. Zonerank publishes the eSports performance-based team ranking which is officially recognized by top teams in the world. For additional information about Zonerank, visit http://www.zonerank.com .

SteelSeries Products are available from now in the Carrefour stores in France in this list: Carrefour Stores in France .

List of Carrefour stores in France with Steelseries Products (March 2008)

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Store	French « Département »
Carrefour BOURG EN BRESSE	01
Carrefour ANTIBES	06
Carrefour NICE LINGOSTIERE	06
Carrefour NICE TN	06
Carrefour AIX EN PROVENCE	13
Carrefour MARSEILLE (BONNEVIENNE)	13
Carrefour MARSEILLE GRAND LITTORAL	13
Carrefour VITROLLES	13
Carrefour LA ROCHELLE	17
Carrefour DIJON	21
Carrefour QUETIGNY	21
Carrefour EVREUX	27
Carrefour CHARTRES	28
Carrefour BREST	29
Carrefour NIMES ECHIROL	30
Carrefour LABEGE	31
Carrefour TOULOUSE PORTET	31
Carrefour TOULOUSE PURPAN	31
Carrefour MERIGNAC	33
Carrefour SETE (BALARUC)	34
Carrefour LATTES	34
Carrefour ST CLEMENT DE RIVIERE	34
Carrefour RENNES (ALMA)	35
Carrefour ISLE D'ABEAU	38
Carrefour MEYLAN	38
Carrefour NANTES (BEAUJOIR)	44
Carrefour VANNES	56
Carrefour NEVERS	58
Carrefour COMPIEGNE VENETTE	60
Carrefour ANGLET	64
Carrefour MULHOUSE	68
Carrefour ECULLY	69
Carrefour GIVORS	69
Carrefour LYON PART DIEU	69
Carrefour VENISSIEU	69
Carrefour CHALON SUR SOANE	71
Carrefour CHAMBERY (BASSENS)	73
Carrefour CHAMBERY CHAMNORD	73
Carrefour ANNECY	74
Carrefour BARENTIN	76
Carrefour MONT ST AIGNAN	76
Carrefour TOURVILLE LA RIVIERE	76
Carrefour CARRE SENART	77
Carrefour CLAYE SOUILLY	77
Carrefour COLLEGIEN	77
Carrefour PONTAULT COMBAULT	77
Carrefour VILLIER EN BIERE	77
Carrefour CHAMBOURCY	78
Carrefour MONTESSON	78
Carrefour ST QUENTIN EN YVELINNES	78
Carrefour OLLIOULES	83
Carrefour TOULON GRAND VAR	83
Carrefour EPINAL	88
Carrefour LES ULIS	91
Carrefour VILLABE	91
Carrefour AULNAY	93
Carrefour DRANCY	93
Carrefour ROSNY	93
Carrefour CRETEIL	94
Carrefour MONACO	Monaco

Esports League of Champions Created (March 2008)

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Today World Cyber Games announced the launch of a league called Esport League of Champions (ELC) with the goal to create an offline league with close integration with professional TV production.

The first ELC season will invite teams and players to participate and come to Stockholm, Sweden where the league will take place in a hi-tech TV studio specifically designed for eSports events. Not only will there be TV-production but the games will also be broadcasted live on Internet.

The structure of the league will be similar to Champions League when it comes to prizes as each team will get a start bonus, bonus for points and matches they manage to win; along with the prize money a total of €152,000 will be handed out during the first season.

New Sponsors in Three G7 Organisations (March 2008)

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

As one of the biggest IT and gaming expos is taking place right now, three G7 organisations, SK Gaming, 4Kings and Mousesports, have taken the opportunity to present news sponsors.

First off, one of the most famous eSports organisations in the world, SK Gaming, has announced the American semiconductor manufacturer Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) as their new head sponsor. This comes just about two weeks after they finished their several years long partnership with Intel. The managing director of SK Gaming Alexander T. Müller hopes that with this partnership they will be able to continue their work to further develop eSports worldwide.

Secondly the British eSports organisation 4Kings announced today that Packard Bell (who recently renewed its partnership with ESWC), is becoming the new title sponsor. Jason Fletcher at Packard Bell said in an official statement that they are pleased to be a part of 4Kings' new brand re-launch, "Packard Bell has only been part of the eSports community for a short period of time but are delighted to be supporting such a recognised global gaming brand as the 4Kings", he said.

Finally another german organisation in the name of Mousesports has announced three new sponsors. Earlier this year Mouz lost Wazap but now they announced new deals with Intel and DELL and Adidas in favour of Kappa.

ESL Cooperates with Spox.com (March 2008)

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Today Turtle Entertainment, the company behind the major European league Electronic Sports League, announced a new cooperation with the German online sports portal Spox.com. The online sports portal is one of the top 30,000 most visited websites in the world and currently ranks in the top 500 in Germany.

Spox.com will report from eSports events, leagues and tournaments hosted by ESL. Some of the top leagues in the World are today hosted by ESL such as WC3L, Extreme Masters and Pro-Series in several countries in Europe. Spox.com has already started their coverage on eSports by dedicating a page with up-to-date eSports news.

Ibrahim Mazari, Director of Public Relations at ESL, expressed happiness over their new partnership. He feels great that it is possible to integrate classic sports with eSports on one website.

Interview with GGL's CEO (February 2008)

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

GGL recently announced that they are hosting an Olympic Games sanctioned welcome event named The Digital Games at this year's Olympic Games in China to promote gaming. Today an interview was published with GGL’s CEO Ted Owen about The Digital Games and GGL’s future plans for eSports and gaming.

In the interview Owen talks about how they managed to convince the Chinese government and the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) to get the chance to host this event and what their goals are with this event, "We're definitely going to have a professional gaming category within the Olympics and they're going to get their own medals. [...] I want this to be a celebration of the culture of gaming, not just a professional gaming tournament in a hotel somewhere. We want to elevate the whole culture of gaming of which professional gaming is a part" he said.

Furthermore he gives information about what platforms that will be used and how they will be chosen. He says that they have hundred employees of which some have experience from professional gaming which will help them in their selection of games.

The interview can be read here.

UGAME Launches Private Beta (February 2008)

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

UGAME.net us a social network similar to Myspace or Facebook dedicated to online gaming. UGAME will allow players to find and interact with friends, set up their own team or guild pages, write blogs, support gaming teams, organize offline and online events, upload galleries and much more. After 10 months of hard work, and over 6000 hours of development, the website will be open to a select few individuals in a private beta format. The private beta will be used to improve upon the services provided by UGAME, with more invitations being sent out over the course of the beta. UGAME has also obtained the help of professionals from Team Fnatic in order to obtain feedback on the site's services and usability.

Patrick "cArn" Sättermon, in-game Captain of the Fnatic Counter-Strike team had the following to say about the website: "I have had the pleasure of using the service over these past months and have seen it evolve and grow. It is definitely a great place for gamers to interact and share their experiences, not just for the professional players but for every gamer. I look forward to seeing a lot of teams sign up, share, interact and improve their skills by playing others on the UGAME network. But most of all I can’t wait to get all my friends, fans and even my opposition under the one roof. It will be a great way to stay connected and of course be endless fun!"

"I’m really glad to see the UGAME website reaching the beta phase. We’ve been working hard to reach this status and we will make the site even better with the feedback that will be gathered during the beta," said UGAME's Lead Interface Engineer, Vincent Croes "So far we are really happy with the results; we are creating a website for all gamers, from the most hardcore player to the casual gamer. In the future we have a lot of new features coming which we are excited about. We always look forward to the challenge of creating great web applications for the gaming community!"

More information is available on UGAME's website and Techcrunch

The Digital Games during Olympics in China (February 2008)

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Today CNN reports that Global Gaming League will host a new gaming event named The Digital Games alongside the first four days of the Olympic Games held this year in China. The Digital Games will be an event promoting gaming and among other activities host a variety of competitions.

According to the CEO of GGL Ted Owen announced that they will probably host this historic event in the Football arenas in Shanghai during the Olympic Games and will use a similar structure as the World Cup with national preliminaries finishing with a world final in Shanghai. "Video gaming is rapidly becoming one of the world's most popular spectator sports, with audiences, especially in Asia, numbering many millions both live and on TV", he said.

"This is historic because it is the first time that video gaming becomes part of the whole Olympic celebration. [...] This event will be heavily covered by the media", said Fong Hong, General Secretary of the China Internet Gaming Organizing Committee.

Source: CNN Money

Blizzard Hosts $147,000 WoW tournament (February 2008)

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Today Blizzard Entertainment announced that they are hosting their own World of Warcraft tournament for players in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, South Korea, Europe and North America.

The tournament is divided into three phases starting with a six-week long online qualification round in April. The best will then advance from the online round to the regional finals to compete for over $27000 in cash prizes and spots to the global finals where $120000 in cash prizes will be distributed.

Blizzard has decided to use the arena system in the game and teams will play 3 versus 3 but the teams are allowed to register up to 6 players.

G7 Teams February Update (February 2008)

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The G7 Teams organisation, which strives to promote and help the growth of eSports through various partnerships has today published a new update after a G7 meeting in Cologne that representatives from Fnatic, mibr, mouse sports, SK, MYM, wNv, PGS as well as Craig "Torbull" Levine attended. During this meeting, the G7 Teams has decided to make some important changes.

In order to keep the community more informed of its activity, the G7 Teams organisation has released a list of short term goals in order to tackle the immediate needs of eSports.

The list is as follow:

- Re-building and re-launching the g7teams.com website
- Issuing regular updates with the status of each project
- More frequent interviews with media agencies around the world to directly represent community opinions
- Creating a global calendar of all events so that fans, players and teams can plan their schedules and budgets accordingly, and event organizers can avoid date conflicts
- Continuing to work with ZoneRank to ensure their rankings take into account from relevant tournaments, are calculated fairly, and their ranking mechanism is clearly communicated to the community
- Creating an affiliate program to involve and represent the interests of other, non-G7 teams.
- Exploring creating and planning an annual G7 sanctioned event that will include the tournament of champions with the top teams from the official G7 ranking system (Zonerank.com), community awards show, and celebratory party
- Evaluating all of the current teams enrollment status and candidate teams
- Reviewing the rules of all major leagues and tournaments and offer suggestions to improve their rule set
- Reviewing, aggregating, and publishing the terms and conditions and policies of each major league and tournament

G7 Teams has also announced its two elected spokespeople for the first half of 2008, Alex “TheSlaSH” Mueller of SK Gaming and Craig “Torbull” Levine.

The complete press release is available on g7teams.com.

ESWC Not To Invite CS Champions (February 2008)

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Last season's ESWC Counter-Strike champions will not be invited to the upcoming finals of the ESWC, instead, they might have to go through the usual qualifiers in order to play in the finals. The reason behind this is that the players have departed their old team (PGS Gaming) to join MeetYourMakers since the ESWC 2007 finals and that the ESWC give rights to the team instead of the players.

This means that PGS Gaming has been invited to the ESWC 2008 CS finals although it does not have a CS team anymore and has already announced it would not rebuild its team. If PGS Gaming decides to stick with their plan and refuse the invitation, Poland will only be represented by the winner of the polish qualifier, instead of the winner of last season's ESWC and of this season's polish qualifier.

The CPL Deny Shutdown Rumours (February 2008)

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The CPL has now released an official statement answering the rumoured shutdown of the league:

"For weeks several staff members have been correcting news posts on the CAL website that were being quietly changed to smear the operations of the CPL and CAL. In addition we had been receiving a huge number of poster comments at the CPL site from a specific IP range in the Netherlands that were vulgar and offensive. Now we believe that these violations seem to have been perpetrated by Martijn Bloemheuvel. Today someone logged-on our system with his ID and illegally used the CAL database to send a false message to all members of CAL.

While this is not the first time in ten years that a rumor like this has been traded in online forums, this is the fist time that someone used our own database to spread it. And while Chris Moncivalles is no longer CPL's Commissioner, both Mike Allen and Thomas Hollingsworth have not been terminated as the e-mail insinuates. Also Chris still has his CPL e-mail account, manages the CPL store and is the commissioner of CAL. Unfortunately, we cannot comment beyond this as this is a legal issue now and our legal counsel will pursue this matter to the full extent of the law.

We will have an announcement soon on a new direction for CPL, but we assure everyone that it's not as ominous as the unauthorized message presumes it to be."

Original News:

After 11 years of existence, the Cyberathlete Professional League, one of the pioneers of the eSports industry, could well be on the verge of shutting down. Although the news is still under the state of rumour and the CPL has refused to comment on the issue, numerous facts hint towards the sad fate that the CPL is facing.

The rumour started with a (now deleted) news post from the CAL Warcraft 3 operations manager, Martijn Bloemheuvel. In his post, Bloemheuvel states that no timeline is available but that staff layoffs have already started. According to Bloemheuvel, Chris Moncivalles, was fired on the 27th of January and subsequently removed from the CPL staff list. He was however re-added a few days later as "Online Store Director". According to Bloemheuvel this manoeuvre is just a way for the CPL to avoid questions from the public.

CPL's IRC Manager Thomas Hollingsworth has also been removed from the staff page while Global Tournament Director Michael Allen is expected to leave at the end of the month, once the CPL's world tour has finished.

This rumour follows the rumour of a buyout of the CPL by Play&Trade recently appeared, however it appears that Angel Munoz, refused to move with his family across the country and therefore the buyout was cancelled. This comes as no surprise to anyone who followed the CPL's recent news, CPL having lost sponsorship from both Intel in 2005 and AMD in 2007 and was then boycotted by the eSports organisation G7 Teams because of a prize payout scandal.

Source: GGL

KODE5 Announce Korean Qualifier (February 2008)

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

KODE 5 has today announced yet another qualifier for its Global Finals in Moscow. This time KODE5 associated with PlayXP and Regional Supporter Moving-Star in order to host qualifiers in Korea. Only Warcraft 3 will be used for the Korean qualifier.

The qualifier will start with an online tournament taking place from February 12th to 20th and will be open to any Warcraft III gamer who wishes to take a stab at qualifying for the finals. The top 9 players will then join 23 pre-qualified players for an offline qualifier taking place at the Intel E-Sports Stadium in Yongsan. The top 4 of the offline qualifier will then advance to the KODE5 Korea finals, taking place at Kyungsung University in Busan.

Top eSports players such as ZoneRank's top ranked Warcraft 3 player Moon will be fighting for a sport in the KODE5 global finals.

“We are truly happy to hold the KODE5 Korea Qualification. Furthermore, it will be a great chance to grow the Korean gaming industry,” said Seo-ryong Kim, CEO, PlayXP Communication. “Our anticipation to cooperate with KODE5 is very high and we heartily want to continue our strong partnership in the future.”

“KODE5 Korea marks the return of the Global Gaming Revolution to the world’s most developed e-sports nation,” said Lester Lau, KODE5 Revolutionary-in-Command.

The CGS Announce Games for 2008 Season (February 2008)

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The CGS today announced its official four games for the 2008 offline season of the league. The list of games for the online season of the league will be in the coming weeks.

While only one PC game was used last season, the CGS has decided to even up the number of PC and console games. The two PC games will be Counter-Strike: Source (for the second consecutive season) and EA's FIFA 08 (FIFA 07 was played on console the previous season). On the Xbox 360, CGS has chosen to host a second season on Dead or Alive 4, while last season's Project Gotham Racing 3 has been replaced by Forza Motorsport 2.

“After concluding our inaugural season last year, we conducted an extensive game review process to identify the most compelling and competitive games in the world,” said CGS Commissioner Andy Reif. “Our official game selections for the 2008 televised season are optimized to provide an unparalleled gaming experience for the players and our global broadcast audience alike.”

The 2008 season will start in North America from March 7th to 9th at the South by Southwest ScreenBurn Arcade in Austin, Texas. Like previous season, a draft will be organised and will see some of the best gamers from the USA and Canada fight for a spot in one of the six American CGS franchises.

More information is available on thecgs.com.

Worldwide Invitational in Paris (February 2008)

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Today Blizzard Entertainment gave information about the upcoming Worldwide Invitational. For the first time Blizzard will host the event in France. WWI is an event that brings the company together with its core audience.

Tournaments in Blizzard's games series will be held but exclusive tournaments in Warcraft 3, StarCraft and World of Warcraft will also be held as they will invite players from all over the world.

Other activities such as discussion panels, artist and developer signings, opportunity to test the new WoW and StarCraft 2 will be offered during the two-day event held in Paris the 28-29th June.

iD Tech Camps announces Camp Fatal1ty (February 2008)

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

iD Tech Camps has announced their new limited-edition course in cooperation with Johnathan “Fatal1ty™” Wendel. Camp Fatal1ty is a 2-week course offered at Emory University, Stanford University, UCLA and Villanova for the summer of 2008 course. It is the very first summer camp aimed towards gamers who wish to learn advanced skills from top eSports athletes.

Based on unreal Tournament 3, the course will allow gamers to learn various tactics and strategies developed by Fatal1ty and other Free Player Organization professional gamers. Students will be able to test their skills against other players through various tournaments. Other related subjects such as the creation of machinimas and in-game videos will also be taught.

“We are excited and honored to partner with Johnathan on this new initiative. With this new collaborative offering, we continue to provide cutting-edge instruction to our teen gaming students. Professional gaming is a fast growing profession”, said Pete Ingram Cauchi, president and CEO of iD Tech Camps.

For more information, visit the iD Tech Camps website.

The New York Giants team up with GGL (February 2008)

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The New York Giants, recent winners of the 42nd edition of the Super Bowl, have teamed up with GGL to sponsor an online videogame competition and community portal for Giants, NFL, and gaming fans. .

The portal, named the Giants Game Day Live will allow players to sign for any team and track progress, statistics and performances of their favourite team. Through raffles and competitions held on online games such as Madden 08, players will be able to win prizes such as Giants tickets, signed footballs and football gear.

"With Giants Game Day Live, we're bringing together the excitement of both to deliver the culture of videogames for players of all levels looking to experience a high-level online gaming tournaments," said GGL's Chairman Ted Owen.

"Giants fans are increasingly utilizing the internet to enhance their involvement with each other in the truest sense of community and we are partnering with GGL to provide our fans with best-in-class videogame technology," said Mike Stevens, New York Giants' chief marketing officer.

Interview with GotFrag's Founder (February 2008)

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

CompLexity TV has done a webcam interview with Trevor "Midway" Schmidt, who is the founder of GotFrag but today works on both coverage and administrative duties within the company. The questions are asked by fans and he has answered them through his webcam for over 90 minutes.

Midway shares his views on his past, GotFrag and more current happenings such as CGS; he talks about their choices of games, their problems and what they need to do to become bigger and compares it to ESWC and MLG.

He shares his opinions on different aspects such as suggestions of banning video games, he talks about which league currently is the biggest, answers a question about the CS:1.6 and CS:Source and reminds everybody that actors in eSports today are companies that wants to make profits and achieve their objectives.

The video interview can be seen here.

Progam3r With a New Website (February 2008)

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

MyGameRoom, owners of the eSports magazine Pro Gam3r has today released the new website for its magazine. While the old website only gave some information about the magazine itself, the new website will feature original content, be it interviews, columns or league coverage. Additionally, the website feature additional content from other esports websites.

ProGam3r also announced that the third version of its paper magazine was to be released in the next few days. For those that missed the first two editions, ProGam3r has decided to offer content from issue one and two on the website and as a downloadable PDF version.

Finally, ProGam3r is planning on hosting community events through IRC chats, contests, quizzes, Myspace and Facebook. They also plan on having exclusive blogs written by professional gamers on the Myspace page of the website.

For more information, check www.progam3r.com.

Related Articles: Interview with Abe Zarran from ProGam3r magazine.

ESWC Hosted at NVISION 2008 (February 2008)

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Today NVIDIA has confirmed the dates and venue for the upcoming Electronic Sports World Cup and their own event named NVISION 2008.

The event NVISION will be hosted from August 25th to 27th and will be a major IT and gaming event with expos, sessions, press areas, BYOC area but most interestingly the Electronic Sports World Cup finals.

Over 800 players from over 50 countries will advance to the grand finals of the ESWC which will take place, in San Jose, USA. This is the first time since the creation of the ESWC that its finals are not played in France.

eSports Federation in Denmark Established (February 2008)

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

A total of eight organisations based in Denmark have decided to join forces and create a Danish eSports federation called eSport Denmark.

ESD will act as an umbrella organisation and its purpose is to expand, promote and further develop the eSports scene in cities around the country but also on a national scale. They want the eSports scene to grow but also to make sure that values and morals such as fellowship, responsibility and health are followed.

ESD will also co-operate with Regroup Events - a company with license to host the ESL ladders and tournaments in Denmark - and the big LAN event organisers SLAP and the-eXperience.

Press release

SlayerS_BoxeR to Resume StarCraft Career (February 2008)

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

After a year within the Korean Army and with the end of his army duty, StarCraft phenomenon Lim "SlayerS_BoxeR" Yo Hwan has announced his comeback to competitive starcraft playing as he confirmed ge would appear at the GomTV "Xnote Star Invitational" league which will start on February 17 a yet to be decided team..

Yo Hwan has become noticeably less active and less strong since he joined the Korean Air Force, although he created the ACE team in cooperation with his country's army, which allows professional StarCraft players who join the Air Force to keep on playing throughout their Army duty.

At the peak of his career, Yo Hwan is reported to have earned an income of over $US 300,000 a year excluding the 90,000 dollars contributed in endorsements and have a fan club of over half a million members

KODE5 Global Finals' Venue Announced (February 2008)

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

During the past few months, until early this week, KODE5 has announced regional qualifiers in six continents. The past few weeks rumours about where the grand finals would be held spread, today those rumours were confirmed as KODE5 announced that this season's Global Finals would be held in Russia.

In association with Proplay.ru and Playground.ru KODE5 will host the finals at the 1500 square meters T-Modul Exhibition Complex in Moscow from May 11th to 12th. Over 100 players from all around the world will advance to the grand finals from their qualifiers.

Not only was the venue disclosed but also the prize money and distribution; $55,000 has been distributed as follow in the two official disciplines Counter-Strike 1.6 and Warcraft 3:

Counter-Strike 1.6
1st - $25,000
2nd - $10,000
3rd - $5,000

Warcraft III
1st - $10,000
2nd - $4,000
3rd - $1,000

Another $5000 will be distributed in side competitions at the finals and the global sponsors Cooler Master, Corsair and GIGABYTE will provide prizes with products from their selection.

Packard Bell Goes For ESWC in 2008 (February 2008)

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

During the previous season of the Electronic Sports World Cup, Packard Bell sponsored the grand finals and provided computers for the whole tournament. Today ESWC announced that a similar deal has been signed for this season as well.

According to the news posted on ESWC's official website, Packard Bell will support the most important events during the upcoming season and the ESWC Masters held in Paris in the beginning of July.

Packard Bell will provide over 350 computers, both notebooks and desktop, to the tournament areas at the events.

ESWC China With a Major Tour (February 2008)

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The American based company Radiance Technology International announced that they are taking over the Chinese qualifiers for the Electronic Sports World Cup in 2008.

Reprentatives from the Chinese Sporting Bureau and the Wuxi Broadcasting Media Group attended the opening ceremony along with the company to announce that they are hosting a 25-city-long tour to find the national representatives for the ESWC finals later this year.

The new Chinese licensee is hosting a tour in over 25 cities from which the best will advance to the national finals hosted in the leading city of the cartoon and video games industry in China - Wuxi. A total of over 20 people will represent China at the grand finals as they will send three Counter-Strike teams, one DotA team and two Warcraft players.

ENC With Huge Prize Money (January 2008)

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The Electronic Sports League hosts several leagues and tournaments each year; one of the fastest growing ones in popularity has been the European Nations Championship. For this year ESL announced just a few days ago that they were adding a Counter-Strike Source tournament, along with the already existing tournaments in Counter-Strike 1.6, Warcraft 3 and FIFA 08. Today the prize money and distribution for the four tournaments were announced.

The total amount of money in prizes is worth €55,000 and will be distributed on CS 1.6 and WC3 as follows:

Counter-Strike 1.6 - 27,500 Euro
1. 15,000 €
2. 7,000 €
3. 3,500 €
4. 2,000 €

Warcraft III - 10,000 Euro
1. 5,000 €
2. 2,500 €
3. 1,500 €
4. 1,000 €

The ENC starts of with three qualification rounds from which the twelve best teams and players in Europe advance to the main round. From the main round only the two group winners directly qualifies to the grand finals; the second and third best team from both groups then battle for the remaining two slots for the grand finals.

European Championship at CeBIT (January 2008)

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The company behind the World Cyber Games has announced the Samsung Euro Championship 2008 as part of their regional events. Teams and players from all over Europe will be invited to participate in several disciplines and compete for prize money worth a total of $100,000 USD.

SEC will be held at the CeBIT trade fair in Hannover, Germany from the 6th to 9th March along with several other LAN finals in different leagues. In addition to the SEC main tournaments they will host smaller competitions, booths, information and player sessions for fans and visitors.

The disciplines for this year are the following six:
Counterstrike 1.6
Warcraft II
Need for Speed: Pro Street
FIFA 08
Dead or Alive 4
Project Gotham Racing 4
Command & Conquer 3

According to the official press release over 250 players from 30 nations are expected to participate in 2008's European Championship.

KODE5 Announce Regional Qualifier in Poland (January 2008)

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

KODE5 today announced a regional qualifier in Poland - making it the 19th qualifier. The regional qualifier in Poland will be held in both disciplines - Counter-Strike and Warcraft.

The structure of the qualifier is similar to several others starting with an online qualifier from which the best teams and players will advance to the regional LAN finals. The online qualifier will be hosted during three weeks ending the 1st March from which the 12 best will advance to the finals held at one of the biggest shopping malls in Poland, Blue City Shopping Center in Warsaw. Blue City will provide over 3800 square meters of space for the KODE5 Poland regional finals.

"The Polish gaming community has always been a strong one, so bringing the Revolution to Poland was a natural move" says Lester Lau, one of the executives in KODE5.

ASUS Winter 2008 Announced (January 2008)

Sun, 27 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The most famous and frequent LAN event in East Europe - the ASUS Open series, has announced the 21st edition of its kind - the ASUS Winter 2008. As previous years the event is held by ASUS in Russia with tournaments in several games and is expected to be attended by over 1000 gamers.

The prize pool is worth approximately €25,500 and will be allocated between six tournaments. Players from all over Europe attend these events which especially gather top players from East Europe as this is the culmination of events in East Europe.

Following tournaments will be held:
Counter-Strike 1.6 5v5 Masters (16 teams)
Counter-Strike 1.6 5v5 Amateur Open (64-96 teams)
Counter-Strike Source 5v5 Masters (16 teams)
Warcraft 3 DOTA 5v5 Open (32 teams)
Quake 3 1v1 (64 players)
FIFA 2008 1v1 Open (64 players)

The event is held in the capital city Moscow from the 23rd to the 24th of February.

Almost 30% Growth For The Gaming Industry (January 2008)

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The Entertainment Software Association released their annual report about the sales of games and consoles. According to their report the sales in the gaming industry increased with the astonishing 28,4% during 2007 compared to 2006.

An industry analyst at the NPD Group says that one of the reasons for the boost is due to the changes in consumer demographics data. NPD Group verifies that two consumer segments, being females and individuals over the ages of 35, grew a lot compared to the other segments. Michael D. Gallagher, CEO of ESA, said "On average, an astonishing 9 games were sold every second of every day of the year".

The other two major entertainment industries, music and movie, had slight different numbers than the gaming industry. The music industry saw another fall with an estimate of 10% in sales this year and the movie industry a growth with 1.8% - compared to the gaming industry's increase with 28.4%.

Sources: ArsTechnica | ESA

SK-Gaming's Video Service (January 2008)

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The past year the major phenomenon online has been video streaming services such as YouTube. Today the biggest eSports organisation, SK-Gaming, announced the release of their own video streaming service.

SK-Gaming's video service is supposed to be focused on the community's niche being eSports. Members of the website will be able to upload their videos from events, practices, in-game clips, blogs and so on. SK will also hand out different prizes to the most popular, original or very good videos on a monthly basis.

In addition to their video streaming service, SK also has a poker service besides their world class eSports players and teams.

KODE5 in Greece (January 2008)

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

KODE5 today announced yet another regional qualifier for the global finals held in Moscow. This qualifier will be held in Greece with a unique structure; six pre-qualifiers will be organised around Greece on the 23rd and 24th of February followed by another qualifier and then by the final qualifier for the two best teams.

The four best teams that advance from the pre-qualifiers held at Florina, Ptolemadia, Komotini and Kozani will advance to a qualifier held in Thessaloniki from which only the best team will advance to the final qualifier. The two best teams from the pre-qualifiers in Multilini and Kaloni will advance to a qualifier held in Athens from which the best will advance to the final qualifier. The two best teams, one from Thessaloniki and one from Athens, will then battle it out in Athens on the weekend of the 8th March to represent Greece at the Global Finals in April.

KODE5 has this season announced and will host a total of almost 20 regional qualifiers from which the best teams and players in Counter-Strike and Warcraft will qualify to the global finals held in Moscow in April this year; qualifiers have been held in different regions and cities in six continents.

4Kings shuts down its Warcraft III team (January 2008)

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The British organisation 4Kings has today announced it was shutting down its Warcraft III team. The organisation had problems for a while now, since the departure of Korean player Dae Hui “FoV” Cho from the team in November 2006. To replace FoV, 4Kings had recruited Creolophus, who became inactive a few months ago after a second place at the ESWC 2007 and a first place at the WCG2007. After Creolophus, it was yet another champion leaving the team in the name of Yoan "ToD" Merlo.

Today, the organisation announced it was going to shut its Warcraft III squad due to a lack of players as well as various other reasons. The now ex-4Kings players have therefore been released, including players such as Manuel "Grubby" Schenkhuizen and Daniel "LiiLD.C" Claesson.

Schenkhuizen gave the following statement: "It is with great regret that I must see the end of a team which I have come to love, depend on, get happiness from, get paid by, has nurtured me into the professional gaming scene. 4Kings will always be remembered by me as a time of friendship, living one's dreams, success and unity."

4K^Trimble, manager of the Warcraft III team, also commented on the shut down and the future of the players: "None of the players will stop playing, neither will I stop my dedication for eSports, and with my last words, I yet again want to thank all of you, and I hope that some of you will remember 4Kings-WarCraft as the great team it has been for such a long time."

According to 4Kings' director Toby, the company has decided to disband its Warcraft III team as they "need to put [their] focus back into the UK and have a lot of grass roots work that needs to be done and as such efforts and budget need to be redirected closer to home."

More information and complete statements from various member of the team are available here.

Extreme Masters finals at CeBIT (January 2008)

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Today ESL, the hosts of the top European league Extreme Masters confirmed that the finals of the Extreme Masters Global Challenge and the league will be held at one of the largest gaming trade fairs - CeBIT 2008.

The finals will be held from March 8th to 9th in Hannover, Germany. Extreme Masters has for this year also given non-European teams the chance to attend the finals through a new concept called Global Challenge. One Counter-Strike team from Brazil along with a CS team from Korea and two Warcraft players has qualified to attend the Extreme Masters finals in Germany. Along with top players and teams from Europe these players will battle it out for thousands of dollars in cash prizes.

CeBIT is one of the largest trade fairs in the world focused on IT and gaming, this year they are hosting CeBIT Global Conferences, where you can experience some of the industry's leading minds.

ESL ban Ideal Gaming's Nexiz (January 2008)

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The ESL has announced it banned Danish player Marc "nexiz" Woolrych from ideal gaming for a period of 2 years. The ban appears to be related to an Aequitas hack that the player loaded for testing purposes. Aequitas is an anti-cheat program used by the ESL to prevent the usage of cheats and hacks during matches. Wollrych reported he used a cheat developed to avoid Aequitas on a LAN server against bots. But Aequitas detected the cheat and immediately reported it to the German ESL staff.

The ESL acted according to its rule book, "using third party programs which give the user an advantage over other participants is considered cheating and punished accordingly with a 2 year ban," and issued a 2 year ban to Wollrych.

Ideal Gaming's management gave a long statement on their website. In this statement, the organisation mentions it has suspended the player for an undetermined period. It also states that they believe the punishment is "unreasonable" because of the duration of the ban and the lack of proof showing that the player used the hack in a match.

No comment from the ESL organisation has been given as of yet.

The NASA interested in an MMO (January 2008)

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The US space agency has announced that is exploring the possibility of developing a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game. The agency has recently published a "request for information" (RFI) from developers interested in creating the necessary platform. The NASA needs a game engine that supports "powerful physics capabilities" in order "support accurate in-game experimentation and research".

The NASA is already involved in virtual spaces through Second Life, where it owns an island where individuals can meet, talk and experiment. "We at Nasa are working hard to create opportunities for what I might call participatory exploration, we are looking at how this island can be a portal for all to fly along on space mission. When the next people step onto the surface of the Moon in a little over a decade, your avatar could be with them" the director of the project, Simon Worden, said at the National Space Society's (NSS) conference last year.

However the NASA would like to have its own platform in order to have a realistic training environment that allows people interested in space exploration to discover more about the career opportunities available at NASA. According to the agency, games are becoming increasingly important in education and could teach a range of skills. "Virtual worlds with scientifically accurate simulations could permit learners to tinker with chemical reactions in living cells, practice operating and repairing expensive equipment, and experience microgravity," the document says.

Interested organisations for this project should respond to the NASA's request by the 15th of February.

China to issue new rules on online gaming (January 2008)

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

China has recently announced it would issue new rules in order to fight "undesirable" elements of online gaming. China has already banned children from internet cafés and ordered their owners to enforce time restrictions because of the increasing number of deaths reported after gaming marathons. From October to December 2004, 12,575 net cafés were shut down after China had announced the implementation of new rules to protect its youth.

But the decision is very different now as online gaming in China rose 23 percent last year, with 40.17 million players. This rise in players also propelled the online games sales to $1.46 billion in 2007, representing a rise of 61.5 percent.

"Although China's online gaming industry had been hot in recent years, online games are regarded by many as a sort of spiritual opium and the whole industry is marginalized by mainstream society. If we don't make adjustments, the industry will suffer sooner or later" said Kou Xiaowei, a senior official with the General Administration of Press and Publication.

The police recently uncovered 563 illegal Internet Cafés in the southern border city of Shenzhen. During this operation, the police seized 1,407 computers and arrested 7 people related to illegal net café activity.

Multiplay announce i33 (January 2008)

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Multiplay, in association with Packard Bell and with additional support from EA Games, British Telecom and Intel announced its 33rd lan in the name of i33. The i-Series is the largest gaming festival in the UK, featuring a 1,500 players LAN Party and various exhibitions organised by manufacturers, retailers and publishers.

The i-Series 33 will be taking place at Newbury Racecourse in the county of Berkshire from March 21st to 24th and will feature 8 tournaments on Counter-Strike Source, Call of Duty 4, Unreal Tournament 3, Team Fortress 2, World In Conflict, Supreme Commander, Halo 3 and FIFA 08.

Source: i33

Brazil Bans the Distribution of Counter-Strike and Everquest. (January 2008)

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Both Counter-Strike and Everquest (both released in 1999) have been banned from distribution in Brazil, as, according to the brazilian government they were promoting "the subversion of public order, were an attack against the democratic state and the law and against public security".

The decision was taken by Judge Carlos Alberto Simões de Tomaz from the Judicial District of Minas Gerais in October 2007 and affects the entire country. Although this ban was not applied until now, the national consumer protection agency PROCON has recently started to enforce the ban.

The PROCON has started investigations on the distribution of both titles in stores but has not found a single copy on shelves so far because of the age of both games. The PROCON has however notified numerous online stores in order to have both those products removed. According to the PROCON, justice has only prohibited the distribution of these games, not their use.

Electronic Arts, the official publisher of Counter-Strike in Brazil gave the following statement: "EA has not been notified by Justice yet (...) EA is waiting for the judicial notification to take the appropriate measures."

Source: GotFrag / AFP / kotaku

KODE5 announce Ukrainian Qualifiers (January 2008)

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The KODE5 organisation has announced yet another qualifier, this time in Ukraine. The qualifier will be organised in association with ProPlay.ru and the Ukrainian Cyber Professional League (UCPL) on both Counter-Strike 1.6 and Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne.

KODE5 Ukraine will go directly to the Regional Finals on March 15th-16th and will be taking place at the C-Club, the largest cybercafé in Kiev.

“With our extensive experience in organizing e-sports events, and the reach of the ProPlay.ru, Russia’s biggest e-sports portal, we are confident that KODE5 Ukraine will help further promote e-sports in this region,” said Vadim Goronkov, ProPlay.ru's CTO.

Games-Services announce the ESWC Master (January 2008)

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Although the ESWC Finals will be taking place in California thanks to a deal with NVIDIA, Games-Service had mentioned a few times that a major event would still be taking place in France. More information has been given by the company today as they revealed the "Mondial du Gaming 2008" which will be taking place at the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy.

This gaming festival will be taking place from July 4 to 6 and, just like last year, will allow visitors to see and play the latest games through various exhibitions. Two eSports events will be taking place during this festival. The first one is the finals of the ESWC France, which will decide which team will be representing France at the ESWC finals in California.

Additionally, an all new ESWC Event dubbed the ESWC Master will be organised. Little information has been given about this event, but we can already say that it will consist of a few international tournaments using the ESWC 2008 games and that a few spots for the ESWC 2008 finals in California will be up for grabs.

The CGS with a new executive team (January 2008)

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The Championship Gaming Series has announced yesterday its new executive team drawing from top businessman from sports, entertainment, new media and gaming industries.

The team is made of 6 new executives who will join CEO and Commissioner Andy Reif who joined the CGS last year after 7 years at the service of the AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour. The executive team is as follow:

Geoff Stevens as Chief Operating Officer will oversee strategy, marketing finance, operations, international and digital media. Stevens served as the Vice President of product management at Infospace, overseeing the development and management of mobile media via direct or third party distribution with companies such as AT&T, T-Mobile and Alltell. Stevens was also General Manager of Local & Mobile for Yahoo! as well as an executive within The Walt Disney Company.

Michael Burks as Executive Producer. Burks is an 11-time Emmy-award winner and has produced more than 2,300 show worldwide, including 25 NFL seasons, 8 Super Bowls, 25 NBA seasons (including 10 NBA Finals), 10 All-Star Games and 17 March Madness Tournaments.

Kieve Huffman as Senior Vice President, Business Development and Sales. Huffman most recently served as the Vice President of Media for Infospace. Prior to that, he was the VP and GM for Sony BMG's Global Digital Business Group, the second largest record company where he managed the digital sales and licensing negociations for all new technology deals.

Michael J. Widman joins CGS as General Counsel following executive positions with The Walt Disney Company, where he served as Vice President of Business Development for Disney's Corporate Alliances Department. Mr Widman has negotiated transactions worth over $5 billion with companies such as FedEx, Kodak, GM, Nestle, AT&T and Coca-Cola. Widman was also partner of the Cabana Group where he represented companies such as MasterCard International.

Scott Valencia as Senior Vice President Global Operations. Prior to joining the CGs, Valencia was Executive Vice President of Games Media Properties where he helped develop the WSVG. Valencia was previously Vice President for the Cyberathlete Professional League.

Jason Katz as Vice President Global Marketing. Katz most recently served as Director of Gaming at the world's top interactive marketing agency, Tribal DDB on Madison Avenue where he was responsible for the creation and execution of gaming strategy for clients such as Mountain Dew and McDonald's.

Gaming enhancement drugs (January 2008)

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

A German company has announced the release of a drug made for gamers to enhance their performance. The drug is called FpsBrain and is supposed to enhance your reaction time, concentration, increase your perception ability and stop your hands from shaking while playing.

The drug takes affect an hour after you take it and is made of 16 different vitamins and salts such as Vitamin C, E, B and L-glutamine, L-tyrosine.

According to the manufacturer's website the pills are produced in an ISO 9001 certified environment and are permanently controlled in a climate-adjusted process.

KODE5 Qualifiers in Japan and South Africa (January 2008)

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

KODE5 - a global event organiser, has so far announced 15 regional qualifiers in five continents. Now they announce their 16th and 17th regional qualifiers held in Japan and, for the first time ever in KODE5's history, in South Africa.

This is the first time KODE5 is hosting qualifiers in six continents and the first time in Africa. The South Africa regional qualifier starts off with two qualifiers, one in Johannesburg and one in Kimberly, from which the best will advance to the final qualifier held March 1st - 2nd at Mayhem LAN.

The Japanese regional qualifier has a similar structure except the first stage is held online. From there the best will advance to LAN finals in Tokyo at the ADsquare Internet Complex the 10th February.

The Art of Counter-Strike (January 2008)

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Ronald "Rambo" Kim, Ognian "steel" Gueorguiev, and Duncan "Thorin" Shields have recently released a comprehensive Counter-Strike 1.6 guide aimed towards anyone that would like to improve their skills in the game.

Rambo and steel are two very renowned players while Thorin is a famous Counter-Strike journalist. Rambo is actually part of the Los Angeles compLexity CGS franchise and has won over $385.000 in his career with teams such as coL, Team 3D or X3 with which he won competitions such as the WCG and the CPL. Although steel's name might not be as famous as Rambo's because of a relatively short career, in less than 3 years, he has won over $115,000, a CPL Winter event and a 1st place at the first ever WCG event.

The experience behind those players has helped them build a comprehensive guide of over 200 pages and 50 videos covering various topics going from the game's weapons to the maps as well as less common subjects such as sleeping patterns, physical exercise, drugs and mental conditioning.

For more information on the guide and its authors; head over to The Art of CS website.

ESPN And MLG Team Up (January 2008)

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

ESPN has announced a cooperation deal that could make a huge impact on eSports. Major League Gaming (MLG), a leading console gaming league and ESPN have signed a content agreement resulting in a competitive gaming video section on an ESPN website. ESPN will be a primary outlet for news about MLG, providing extensive digital coverage of MLG’s 2008 Pro Circuit Competitions, including exclusive streamed matches, pro player interviews, and scores and stats.

“ESPN is committed to serving our fans, and we recognize the growing popularity of pro video gaming,” said John Kosner, senior vice president and general manager, ESPN digital media. “Adding MLG content to our already comprehensive offering will help us continue to deliver the best news, information and entertainment to our growing gaming audience.”

The MLG is the biggest console gaming league in North America and in that role hosts several big gaming events per year. It also has a community website and online tournaments for millions of gamers. ESPN is a leading international multisport network that serves millions of households worldwide.

NGL ONE cuts Counter-Strike loose (January 2008)

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The NGL ONE have announced today that their current Counter-Strike 1.6 league will be the last one, and no game will take it's place at this time. Although, other games will be added in the future as they announced to focus more onstrategy and sports games in the future. Currently this leaves Warcraft III to be the only game that the NGL ONE supports and confirms for the following season, but no prize money changes will be done with the loss of Counter-Strike 1.6.

The NGL ONE have released the following statement:

"We are sad to announce that the NGL ONE Counter-Strike League will be discontinued after the running season 2007/2008. More information upon the final event will be announced soon.

There will be no changes regarding the NGL ONE WarCraft III League as well as the NGL TWO which will be continued with the same amount of prize money. Counter-Strike will not be replaced by a different game at this time but other games will be added at a later point. The NGL ONE Administration decided to focus a lot more on strategy and sports games in the future. At this point we want to thank all participating Counter-Strike teams of the last four seasons for an awesome competition as well as our partners GotFrag.com, HLTV.org, NiceZ.com, clanserver4u.de and Game-Hosting.com for their great coverage and support."

NGL ONE

Team NoA and mTw Merge (December 2007)

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Team NoA, the first team ever to have players from two continents in one team, has merged with the German organization mTw (Mortal Team Work). Team NoA is currently number four in the ZoneRank Counter-Strike 1.6 ranking. From now on this Danish team will function as the international CS team of the organization and the German Counter-Strike team will keep playing in the German NGL league.

The current owner of NoA, Lars Eiben, will take over the role of CEO running mTw. Mirko Scharping the person currently running mTw will step down to focus on other jobs and responsibilities.

According to GotFrag mTw will make some changes to their line-ups which will be announced soon.

ESWC Announce Second Game Pool (December 2007)

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000

The Electronic Sports World Cup has announced a second pool of official game titles. Counter-Strike 1.6, Warcraft III and Trackmania Nations were already announced as official games of the 2008 season and today DotA, a WarCraft 3 modification, and Quake 3 were added to that list.

Both tournaments will be open for male and female gamers who will represent their country at the overall ESWC finals in California. Gamers will have to qualify for the global finals at their local qualifier. DotA will be played 5 players versus 5 while Quake3 will be a 1 versus 1 first person shooter game.

The 2008 season of the ESWC will be the first season without the traditional World Finals in Paris. The ESWC and the hardware manufacturer NVIDIA will work together to set up a final event in California, United States.

G7 Teams Release Player Contract (December 2007)

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000

The eSports team governing body, the G7 Teams, have released their standardized player contract and appendix. Every team and organization operating in the eSports market will be freely allowed to use the contract and appendix.

The G7 teams have designed the contract in order to standardize the legal aspects of the eSports world. In the past multiple teams and players have had troubles claiming what they thought was theirs. The G7 will help out if problems with the contract arise as they say “any player or team using the Contract or Appendix can count on the G7 Teams to support their efforts in honouring their contracts internally and externally.”

This contract is very important to give smaller organizations, that do not have the funds to hire professional legal advice, the chance to use professional contracts to sign their players.