Last month, Rovio’s Chief Executive raised thought balloons over the heads of electronic consumers and developers, saying: “Piracy may not be a bad thing: it can get us more business at the end of the day.”

Shared during the Midem Conference in Cannes, one would think that the creator of Angry Birds would take a more hostile tone towards piracy, given that the Angry Birds brand is one of the world’s most highly pirated entities, from Angry Birds games, Angry Birds merchandise and Angry Birds apparel.

“We have some issues with piracy, not only in apps, but also in consumer products.” shared Mikael Hed – Chief Executive, Rovio. “There are tons and tons of merchandise out there, especially in Asia, which are not officially licensed products. We could learn a lot from the music industry, and the rather terrible ways it has tried to combat piracy.” he added.

As a paradigm shift in the area of digital entertainment, production and distribution is undeniably ongoing, the fight against piracy is on top of producers’ and developers’ minds.

Rovio, however, believes that filing lawsuits against perpetrators isn’t the most efficient way of fighting against pirates, taking lessons from how the music industry has dealt with the situation. Instead of treating customers as users, more prospects and advantages can be found in treating them as fans and solidifying fanbases.

“If we lose that fanbase, our business is done, but if we can grow that fanbase, our business will grow.” Hed commented.

In the implementation of its “fanbase philiosophy”, Rovio is more inclined to treat its apps as channels, avenues where they can cross-promote and/or sell further content, reaching a broad audience.

With Angry Birds playing sessions reportedly competing against the time spent on watching TV shows (based on US-based statistics), the theoretic principle behind the “fanbase philosophy” does have some merit for further promotions and/or purchases. For games, it could mean in-game item promotions, or advertorials related to an offered service.

Endorsing a different view over established conventions, Rovio’s idea is: content itself has now become channels, as the old-school distribution channels are no longer the kingmakers of today.

What do you think? Has Rovio found the best answer against piracy? Or should it just sue every pirate out there?

Genius recently made waves with the launch of its latest professional gaming mouse – the DeathTaker.

Designed with professional gamers in mind, the DeathTaker is perfectly matched to work with and for MMORPG/RTS games and players, built around control and function-related needs and not around specifications and features.

Boasting a 1 millisecond response time advantage, the 9-buttoned gaming mouse is highly customizable in terms of software and hardware conventions, allowing for enhanced gaming performance and experiences.

Sporting an on-board memory chip, users can easily store gaming settings and macros into the DeathTaker, and with the device’s Scorpion UI, users can easily setup button assignments, manage saved macro data, and more.

With a built-in over-clocking SCGii engine, users can also easily set the DeathTaker’s DPI rate within a range between 100 to 5700 DPI. Its X and Y axis pitches can also be configured and adjusted to suit gaming demands, a nifty and intuitive customization feature that will surely come in handy in tight spots during intense gaming sessions.

In terms of form and body, the DeathTaker boasts a stellar hand-grip design, and comes with six detachable/attachable weights, with each weighing 4.6 grams, which allows users the option to rig it to weigh as much, or as less, as personal preferences would deem as ideal.

With a braided cable and gold-plated USB connector, the DeathTaker ensures solid and stable signal connection between the gaming mouse and PC, allowing gamers to focus on challenging conquests, and not to fuss with anything else.

With its price tagged at $80, the DeathTaker is part of Genius’ GX Gaming Mouse Series, a gaming mouse that simply delivers the best of gaming experiences any gamer would want.

From the latest touch screen media players to the newest touch screen mobile handhelds, the “touch revolution” has undeniably spilled into different electronic product lines, primarily in the arena of computer accessories and human input/interface devices (HID).

The Logitech Touch Mouse M600 is one of the latest.

Scheduled for release this February, the Logitech Touch Mouse M600 is made for users who’ve become accustomed with the interactive touch screen interface and operability of tablets, mobiles and/or handhelds.

Think of the device as a PC mouse – a Logitech mainstay product – which highlights interactive “touch” operation benefits for users, allowing users to do page flips and page scrolls with their fingers using a mouse.

Powered by a single AA battery, the M600 can run on battery power for three months, and users can optionally store an additional AA battery for extended use. Implementing its propriety Flow Scroll software, the Logitech Touch Mouse M600 works with Windows 7 computers, with previous Windows operating systems left unsupported.

Microsoft launched something similar in 2010 with the Explorer Touch Mouse and Arc Touch Mouse. This year, keying on Microsoft’s previous success with its Arc Touch Mouse and Explorer Touch Mouse, Logitech is following suit.

It’s difficult to see how Logitech’s Touch Mouse M600 would fare once its out in the market.

But given the versatile nature of personal computer systems and programs, it’s not difficult to see this “touch” angle as an on-the-rise standard which new adventures in computer operation and control can be built on.

Picture yourself playing a game with a gamepad in your hands. Now edit that image, this time, picture yourself playing a game using a “touch” mouse.

Is this the birth of a new gaming standard for PC systems? Will new wireless standards allow interaction between gaming consoles and a similar device?

It may sound far fetched, but you have to admit, there’s an appeal to it, don’t you think?

We’ve all seen the cries of loss and victory during last year’s intense DOTA2 invitational Grand Finals tournament.

Among the sixteen, it all came down to top eight contenders starting with Ukraine’s Na’vi. Having seen its contemporary White-Ra from StarCraft, I can say pretty much their nationality has a reputation for being fast in taking down their opponent.

Amazing game play, quit witted strategies, super fast executions along with good team work ended their game against China’s EHOME in just a short span of time, pushing the Chinese clan to second place. Not too bad, because they still received two hundred fifty thousand dollars. That’s already big enough.

They were followed by Scythe.SG from Singapore who collected a hundred fifty grand. MyM, a group formed from different nationalities (four from Denmark, one from USA and Korea) landed fourth place with eighty thousand dollars. Russia trailed the multi-national group with thirty five thousand.

Another chinese competitor, iG followed them in 6th place, collecting the same amount while another team of mixed nationalities, OK.Nirvana.Int, went to 7th and garnered twenty five racks.

The bottom two consisted of Thailand (MiTh-Trust) which garnered about the same amount as OK.Nirvana, and the Philippines’ Minesky who was only able to defeat iG.

Talks of another upcoming event this year has been confirmed by “The International” organizer “moose” Zimmerman, affirming that the new location will be held in Seattle, Washington, USA. However, the specific date is still yet to be set. The first international was held in August seventeen to twenty one in Cologne, Germany.

In the upcoming International 2, will Ukraine still be able to defend its place, or will we see losers rise for revenge and redemption?

Professional Gaming is a rival play of video games. It is also known as electronic or e-sports which roots to arcade games in the 1980s until it moved from the PC to the internet. The games usually played are first person shooters or FPS, real time strategy massively multiplayer online (MMOG) and racing

Annually, big tech companies like benq for example, give away million dollar price pool for the winner of major tournaments like the Major League Gaming, World Cyber Games, Global StarCraft League, Global StarCraft Team (GSTL) League and Dream Hack. Players from all over the world gather to compete in these major events, while arenas are filled with spectators cheering their favorite clan.

Major sports games include the Broodwar or StarCraft I and II, Counter Strike, The Street Fighter Series, Halo, Fifa and Quake 4. Gaming professionally is considered to be a legitimate career in countries like Korea. Professional gamers there are paid hefty salaries (often amounting to five hundred US dollars), as well as popularity by commercials. These gamers are seen as celebrities in their own country.

Most often these players compete together with their respective teams.

Despite its presence in over a decade, pro gaming still has not been fully recognized as a sport in other countries (except for Korea of course)

This is a goal that many gamers are aiming to happen. In a forum, many are planning to put their idols in the gaming scene (such a Incontrol, Artosis and Day9) on mainstream television in the hopes of shedding light to questions that the sport still carries, and prove that there is as much sponsorship, money and competition in the industry as much as with regular physical sports.

But if we remember Dan Stemkoski’s dream come true in successfully introducing StarCraft and esports to our part of the world, the west, then the dream may not be so far from coming true.

Product Highlights

• Virtual 7.1 surround sound
• On/off vibration feature
• Foldable unidirectional microphone
• On-ear volume control
• Rotational uni-directional microphone with mute option
• Blue LED power indicator
• Durable anti-corrosive gold-plated USB jack
• MSRP: US$79.90

Press Release archive and images:
http://www.globalpr.com.tw/press-room/genius/
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Genius Reveals New Virtual 7.1 Channel Vibrating Headset for the GX Gaming Series

Cavimanus Gaming Headset – Rumbling and Shaking to Every Step on the Battlefield

February 15, 2012, Taipei, Taiwan – Genius, a leading maker of computer peripheral, announces their newest addition to their GX Gaming Series today – HS-G700V Cavimanus Virtual 7.1 Channel Gaming Headset.

For gamers who want the full gaming experience, the Cavimanus Virtual 7.1 Channel Gaming Headset allows gamers to pinpoint every step on the battlefield. Letting you hear the enemy before they see you, the Cavimanus gives gamers detailed surround sound audio without disturbing the neighbors.

Adding another dimension, the GX Series Cavimanus complements the rich audio with its vibration function. If not wanted, the vibration function can be simply turned on and off in-game with a press of a button. Just as easily the master volume can be tweaked at anytime using the on-ear volume control.

The uni-directional microphone captures your voice while keeping out unwanted background noise. When no chatting is necessary, it can be automatically switched off by simply folding it into the upright position.

Smooth, stable connections are guaranteed with the GX Series Cavimanus headset. The anti-corrosive gold-plated USB jack ensures long-lasting, high quality connections. And with an adjustable headband, the Cavimanus provides a complete surround sound experience for any gamer.

Package Contents

• Cavimanus headset
• Driver disc
• Multi-language user’s manual

Technical Specifications:

Headset

• Driver unit dimensions: 40mm
• Frequency response: 20Hz~20KHz
• Impedance: 32ohm
• Sensitivity: 96dB
• Cable length: 2.5 meters

Microphone

• Sensitivity: -39+/-3 dB
• Uni-directional
• Frequency response: 100Hz~10KH

Product information and photos are available at:
http://www.geniusnet.com/wSite/ct?xItem=51781&ctNode=3608&mp=1
Complete GX Gaming Series available at:
http://www.geniusnet.com/wSite/np?ctNode=3603&mp=1
Check out the GX Gaming Series YouTube Video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtUph8XmPzY

About Genius

Good news for all you DOTA fanatics.

Erik Johnson, the project manager at Valve Corporation, has revealed to PC Gamer that DOTA 2 will have the much needed LAN support that every pro-gamer needs. For those that don’t know, LAN (or Local Area Networking, a way to connect PC’s to each other) is an integral part of multiplayer competitive gaming. A more recent trend for newer games is to utilize online connections to facilitate matches, which then depend on the quality of the connections to have those matches play flawlessly. When those connections are overloaded, matches have to stop just so the connection can stabilize. And while many newer and popular games have dropped LAN support (StarCraft II, for example), a majority of games still have it as an option (such as the Call Of Duty series).

Though, implementation of the LAN support and the systems that require it isn’t finished right now, “…mainly because we’ve been focused on matchmaking. We know how important this feature is for the community…” says Johnson.

It’s nice to know that Valve is truly supporting DOTA and the scene surrounding it.

In other news, Valve are also planning more tourneys in the size of The International, which was featured a while ago to showcase the game and their support of the DOTA pro-gaming scene. These future tournaments will be sponsored by Valve, and surprisingly, all travel costs/expenses for the teams who are invited will be completely furnished by Valve (which is also what happened to the teams invited for the first International Tourney). To gain an invite, Johnson says that  pro-gamers should “play in Dota tournaments and perform well. We’ve all been watching every tournament that we find internally, looking for what teams we think should be invited.”. With a prize pool that is estimated to be “$1.6 Million Dollars“, the next International Tournament is set to be hosted in Seattle, Washington, close to where Valve is headquartered.

Han Yi Ying, AKA “MisS”, a former Warcraft 3 pro-gamer and a popular gaming TV host in China, decides to follow her dream of living the life of a pro-gamer by signing with StarTale. She becomes the first female foreigner to be signed by a Korean professional gaming team and is StarTale’s second Starcraft 2 female pro-gamer along with StarTale Aphrodite.

In a TeamLiquid translation from ThisGame, it appears that StarTale.Rainbow’s “mission” when he went to the ZOWIE DIVINA female Starcraft 2 tournament last year wasn’t just to support his girlfriend Aphrodite (eventual winner of the said event). The former also had an “under the table” motive and that being to test the skills of a female e-sports TV host which back then, they only knew as “being a very popular TV host”.

And a test MiSs got and to her ecstasy, she passed. And with that, this she said, “Lots of people told me that I am stupid for giving up my job as a tv hostess to become a computer player, but how often do you get a chance to follow your dream?” said Yiying ”miss” Han, “When I got informed of this test to become a member of StarTale I was really nervous, just to get the opportunity is a dream come true. When I was told I could become a part of StarTale, it was the happiest day of my life, I still can’t believe it! I will do my best every day, in every game. This is my dream come true.”

Will she be another solid contender in the fierce world of Starcraft 2 pro-gaming? Or will she be just another flower among the thorns like Linda “Pikachu” Liao? What do you think?

Flo competitively played Counter-Strike for two to three years before switching to StarCraft2 In 2010. She joined the SC2goesFemale#4 competition in December and won second place. She later took home the bacon in its next season, SC2goesFemale#5 in 2011. She also bagged the Iron Lady Bunny Cup #1 in July. Flo was part of three Major League Games and got major exposure when she got head to head with White-Ra, a Ukrainian Brood War Legend famous for beating his opponent in minutes.

Flo is famous for winning female tournaments. In the recent Zowie Divina, she was invited to play in China and managed a 4-1 record. She also became part of female teams like PMS but later left to join more competitive teams like Quantum Gaming.

In a recent interview by the clan, Flo shares her insight on how gender plays in an industry overshadowed by the males.

When asked about how she felt on female only teams, she shared the sad truth that most female teams are only marketing schemes. And because most of them play only low levels, they are taken lightly.

She said, “a female gamer cannot avoid the fact that marketability will most of the time be a factor to everything she does.” Female gamers will have to accept this harsh reality. If they will be taken seriously, then that’s where the challenge begins.

She also voiced her opinion on how these female tournaments do not help train those who dream to become a pro. She says that unless “they practice with skilled people, they won’t improve” and it will be “a waste of time if they want to take it seriously.”

Progression is her main reason into entering quantum gaming. She wants to able to get competitive practice partners that are not solely on the female division.

Her counterparts, Naniwa and Destiny who are also from quantum gaming, are already in training in South Korea. Flo invites more females to join the bandwagon of pros in the hopes of changing the paradigm on female gamers in the male-dominated industry.

The Philippine’s Gigabyte GEST representative, Mineski Powercolor, showcased their DOTA skills to bring home bragging rights and the first among twelve $1,500 pay checks on the ongoing league.

Mineski didn’t even break a sweat regardless if they have been overplaying in various tournaments over the weekend. They enjoyed their spot on the winner’s bracket all throughout this leg up until breezing through their 25 minute championship match against Vietnam’s ace, StarsBoba. Did you see Tiny’s rampage on the championship match?! You SHOULD!

Luckily, everyone tuned in to the event had their DOTA fix courtesy of the fight for 2nd and 3rd featuring StarsBoba, and Thailand’s Trust. StarsBoba showed why they were the ones who faced Mineski on the finals by winning against Trust on their series to take home $700 while the latter settled for $300.

Summary:
1st = Mineski with $1,500
2nd = StarsBoba with $700
3rd = Trust with $300

GEST GRAND FINAL Lanes:
Sentinel
Mski_wtz_PColor (Jungle)
Mski_Jay_PColor (Mid)
Mski_RR_PColor (Bot)
Mski_JuLzPColor (Top)
Mski_owa_PColor (Bot)
Scourge
SB_Archie (Jungle)
SB_Recca (Jungle)
SB_David21 (Bot)
SB_Yuna (Top)
SB_Batteu (Mid)

Also noteworthy are the participants of this league with names such as; Orange, MYM, and AEON.

E-gaming, or electronic gaming is widely popular among gamers and techie people. They’re the coolest job a gamer could ever land – hefty pay contracts, major commercial events, television exposure. A pro gamer would be paid up to five hundred US dollars every year. This is because the country has made e-gaming as a legitimate career.

StarCraft became a gaming pastime for Koreans when there was a major embargo of console games from Japan in the late nineties. It did not take long until it became the national sport next to soccer and baseball.

Prize money given to the successful competitor often amounts to hundreds of U.S. dollars. The annual event is supported by corporate giants, gaming and tech companies.

The nation became the host of the first StarCraft 1 World Cyber Games Battle in the last year of the 1990s and had attracted enthusiasts and hard core players alike from around the world. A French-Canadian named Guillaume Patry took home the bacon.

The success in e-gaming is what brought players from other countries like the United States to the gaming capital. Two of those people were Nick “Tasteless” Plott and Dan Stemkoski. The two were professional StarCraft gamers in their native country. In 2007, they made the decision to move to Korea. Quoting Dan, moving to Korea was every StarCraft player’s dream.

However, they did not choose to be part of the players in the country, but to serve as ambassadors to the sport instead. The game was not popular in other western countries, so they dreamed of introducing the esport to the west.

They had difficulties in gaining their goals at first. Obstacles like language barrier made it tough to promote the game to the western world. But through much persistent efforts, in five years time, their efforts had paid off. Now big tournaments are held not only in Europe, but in the U.S. and China also.

Warning: Writer is a Protoss user. J

Mules, mules, and more mules! That’s how Terrans can afford 1-1-1s or any other “take the whole scv village to the battlefield” strategies out there. The coming patch hits them first by making them harvest THE SAME AMOUNT OF MINERALS in high yield (yellow) mineral fields. That’s right, Terrans can no longer mass mule and exponentially push a Terran’s advantage in high yield minerals. Of course, this is only considered a nerf on maps that have them attractive yellow mineral fields. So if you’re a pro-gamer participating in the Global Starcraft League (GSL), you can disregard this part.

I for one think them mules should be changed altogether and that this nerf, although acceptable, can be easily disregarded especially in tournaments where the usual setting is a mandatory first map then loser picks the next. A Terran can simply avoid maps with high yield mineral fields. Or wait, Terrans don’t even need to do that. Seriously a rather useless nerf if you ask me.

Why you ask? Well, if you have played and studied Starcraft 2 at least on the Masters level and you play Protoss, you will easily realize that if you’re your 10 more probes just ain’t good enough to overtake a Terran’s income thanks to them mules. Blizzard should seriously think more on how much minerals them mules can give in a given time frame.

Ghosts Snipe Ability Nerf

Long story short, instead of dealing 45 damage per snipe, they now deal 25 HP damage + 25 psionic damage.

To the applause of Zerg users, Brood Lords will now take 10 snipes instead of 6 while Ultralists will have to take around 21 snipes to finally meet the overmind rather than 11 snipes. This after Blizzard’s balance team has noticed that at the pro level, the Zerg’s most powerful units seemed to be quite too easy to “snipe”.

Phoenix Range Upgrade

Protoss users now have the option to upgrade the range of Phoenixes at the Fleet Beacon. After the upgrade, the Phonenix will now enjoy a range of 6 from 4. This will give these ships 2x the range of Mutalisks, the reason why Blizzard came up with the upgrade since it has been too obvious that Blink Stalkers just aren’t as mobile or as powerful as mass mutas in any given map. Don’t even think Archons can do a better job against mass mutas. Unless of course if your still stuck in Brood War where they can own a dozen mutas.

The range upgrade should be interesting however, I personally think the cost and time need to build a Fleet Beacon and to upgrade the range is going to be the best option against them mutas. I bet the time you get the upgrade, it’ll be too little too late and if not, then a Protoss user will be left with too many Phoenixes against dozens of speedlings.

APM and EPM Change

APM will now work like the classic Actions Per Minute (APM) where all clicks (including spam) will be recorded. Effective Actions Per Minute (EPM) will also be an option and it works just like the APM we all know prior to Patch 1.4.3

Conclusion

I think this is still a good direction but for sure I wish there was more but I guess that’ll have to wait for the Heart of the Swarm (HOTS). Do you think the changes will be for the betterment of the game?

ESL TV with a LIVE broadcast of the Intel Extreme Masters Global Challenge Sao Paulo competition – Implement the stream on your website

Another live event of the Intel Extreme Masters, the global league of the video game champions, starts tomorrow at the Campus Party Brazil in Sao Paulo. As usual, ESL TV will broadcast the competition live from the venue. Now you have the opportunity to embed the stream also in your website. All you need to do is to implement the code into the source code of your site. To get the

code you need to:

- follow one of the links to the streams with commentary in 3 different languages: http://en.twitch.tv/esltvbrasil (Portuguese); http://en.twitch.tv/esltv_event (English) or www.twitch.tv/esltv_taketv (German)

- press the ‘share’ button (at the bottom right corner of the player)
- copy the code
We would very much appreciate it if you could send us the link to your website with the stream embedded.

Basic information regarding the event:

What: Intel Extreme Masters Global Challenge Sao Paulo
Where: Anhembi Parque in Sao Paulo, Brazil Live stream at www.esl.tv
When: Tuesday, February 7 until Saturday, February 11, 2012

Further information regarding Intel Extreme Masters available at www.intelextrememasters.com

Intel Extreme Masters

The Intel® Extreme Masters is the global league of video game champions since 2006. The league arranges the hardest and most popular competitions in Counter-Strike 1.6, StarCraft II and League of Legends. eSports champions from Europe, Asia and America struggle for 643,000 USD in prize money – the most lucrative prize purse globally. Live tournaments at the world’s largest IT and gaming conventions feature the top performers of the season – global stars in eSports. The 2011/12 season will have its exciting final in at CeBIT 2012 in Germany, finding the top teams and players in the Intel® Extreme Masters World Championship. ESL TV, ESL’s web-TV service, presents the best games of the season live and reports directly from the offline events. Further information available at: www.intelextrememasters.com

Watch live video from ESLTV Event Stream is live! on en.twitch.tv

The new 2012 Guiness World Records Gamer’s 5th Edition is finally out, packed with amazing feats and features. Readers will be hooked while flipping through the pages that presents today’s acclaimed role playing games like Battlefield, Sports games such as NBA Elite 11 and snowboarding game SSX and many other genres.

Guinness has given an entire section for classic fight games like Mortal Kombat, Dead or Alive and Marvel vs. Capcom. It has also featured 2011’s most downloaded mobile game, Angry Birds, which gained a whopping 250 million downloads and was recognized as the best selling application in Itunes. The gaming bible also acknowledged the increasing genre of fitness games like the Kinect titles (Dance Central, Kinect Sports) that promotes exercise in gaming.

There have been interesting achievements that made it to the records, like the Pokemon playing family of five, which was awarded the title, “The Largest Competitive Pokemon Video Game Family.”

Jennifer Hale has been honored the title “Most Prolific Voice Actor” for her many voice over works like Mass Effect, Grandia II, Star Wars, and many others. Meanwhile Elizabeth Bolinger bagged the “Most Prolific Dancing Game High Scorer” topping a total of 85 songs in dance games like Just dance, Just Dance2, and Dance Central.

When there are victories, there are also failures. These are highlighted in the “Top 50 Video Game Endings” as voted by over thirteen thousand Guiness readers like the Super Mario Galaxy, All of the franchise of Assassin’s Creed , Grand Theft Auto IV, Halo: Reach, Call of Duty: Black Ops and many more.

If you’re a game geek, you can take that knowledge to the test by answering the “Video Game Tagline Quiz” questions below each page. If I may quote Gaz Deaves, the book’s Editor, this edition will “immerse casual fans with an encyclopedia of interactive info” and will not fail to “impress the hardcore crowd with its detailed analysis.”

Most people know pokemon from its early 2000s anime series, but it actually is a video game that was created by Satoshi Tajiri around 1996. Since then, it has been merchandised into trading cards that are played professionally today.

The trading card game is popular amongst Pokemon players, both kids and adults alike, who have been exposed to the earlier Game Boy Pokemon in the late 1999s. The whole goal of the play is to collect legendary cards from the masters in order to become a card master.

For those who are beginners, they need to set up their bench Pokemon, and then put together “energy cards” so that they pocket monsters will grow and attack.

Since Pokemon was introduced to the Northern part of America, the video card game has gained a lot of players in the region. The first Video Game Championships were started in 2004. Its vast popularity in TCG events have led the Nintendo and the Pokemon Company to hold video game competitions alongside trading card games. Since then, tournaments have been held in the U.S. and Canada.

Mechanics in championships like Regional, National, and World have been held. This year’s regionals will be held pretty soon in the month of April. The Trading Card Game (TCG) tournaments will held on April 14, 2012, Saturday, while the Video Game match will be held the next day all throughout North America.

The format for this spring’s regionals will be modified and swiss pairings. Players will be paired with opponents having the same status. In addition there will be some restrictions on which cards to use in making decks.

If you are going to participate, be sure to bring a player ID. You can get them at https://www.pokemon.com/us/account/upgrade2/ if you do not have one.

Also, interested players must bring their own Nintendo DS systems including the Black or White version of Pokemon Game Cards. Don’t forget to bring chargers for there won’t be any available for rent.

Product Highlights of DeathTaker Laser Gaming Mouse

• Nine professional buttons designed for MMO, and RTS gamers.
• Adjust X and Y axis independently from 100 to 5700 dpi for different game demands
• Removable weight system with 6 metal weights – 4.5 grams each
• On-board memory to prevent game block and reprogramming no matter the computer
• Includes “Scorpion” UI to allow button assignment and macro management
• RGB system to select up to 16 million backlight colors
• 1.8 meter braided cable with gold-plated USB connection
• MSRP: US$79.90

Press Release archive and images:
http://www.globalpr.com.tw/press-room/genius/
Find GlobalPR announcements on Facebook:
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DeathTaker – Professional MMO & RTS Gaming Mouse by Genius is Available in North America

The First Development of the the Brand New GX Gaming Series

February 1, 2012, Taipei, Taiwan – Genius, a leading maker of computer peripherals, today announces DeathTaker, a professional laser gaming mouse designed for MMO and RTS gamers. The DeathTaker is the debut product of the GX Gaming Series which will be unveiling throughout the coming months.

With nine buttons DeathTaker gives gamers the ability to customize their gaming experience. Genius’ included “Scorpion” UI lets gamers manage macros for up to 55 keys in 5 profiles, as well as a selection of up to 16 million backlight colors. The on-board memory design prevents game block and stores preferred macro settings for ready-to-play action on any computer.

Continuing to show flexibility, the GX Gaming Series DeathTaker has a built-in over-clocking SCGii engine designed for MMO and RTS gamers. Gamers can independently adjust the X and Y axis from 100 to 5700 dpi, and use the removable weight system including 6 metal weights -each 4.5 grams- to get the right heft and balance for any game or hand speed.

DeathTaker is not only completely customizable, but also provides a smooth, stable connection with a comfortable ergonomic design. Incorporated in DeathTaker is the full speed CPU giving gamers 8x faster response time. The high-quality braided cable with a resilient gold-plated USB connector means gamers don’t have to worry about interrupted gameplay.

With a reliable 8 million clicks, DeathTaker gives MMO and RTS gamers the flexibility, stability, and comfort they desire for the MSRP of $79.90.

Package Contents:

• DeathTaker gaming mouse
• DeathTaker user interface driver
• Metal weight 4.5g x6
• Weight adjuster manual
• Multi-language quick installation pack

Product photos and detailed specs are available at:
http://www.geniusnet.com/wSite/ct?xItem=51772&ctNode=3605&mp=1
For complete Genius GX Gaming Series information:
http://www.geniusnet.com/wSite/np?ctNode=3603&mp=1

About Genius
Genius is a leading international brand in computer peripherals. Established by KYE Systems Corp. in 1983, Genius offers PC products including computer mice, keyboards, web and security cameras, speakers, gaming peripherals, remote controls, headphones, digital cameras, digital camcorders and digital photo frames. The Genius consumer electronics range includes mobile phone accessories, Bluetooth headsets and iPod speakers. For six consecutive years, beginning in 2005, Genius was recognized as one of Taiwan’s Top 20 Global Brands. For more information, you can visit the Genius website at www.geniusnet.com.

He is dubbed as the “Ultimate Weapon” because of his strategy, versatility and wise strategies and decision making that made him win a number of matches in the competitive Broodwar bout. She is a famous celebrity in a dying breed of female StarCraft gamers in the country.

Two very prolific players in the world of StarCraft Sport sit down to talk about their beginnings and answer some questions in this much anticipated interview.

Like most gamers, Lee Young Ho “Flash” and ToSs Girl a.k.a. Seo Ji-Soo started out somewhere. Lee joined the bandwagon of amateurs and competed in different matches. Seo Ji Soo practiced eleven hours a day, going against her sister on a rookie game until she developed her skills. She first learned StarCraft through her father and eventually decided to go pro.

Getting in never goes without difficulties. For Lee Young ho, having rip the skin between his middle and index finger during practices was what he had to bear. In addition to surgery on his right arm, he underwent rehabilitation. Meanwhile TosS Girl lost consecutively before she became good at the game.

Flash had a smaller hand, so he felt that he had to practice harder. Unlike his counterpart trained in stretching her fingers to the farthest key (during piano classes when she was younger), he, on the other hand, had to stretch often, in order to reach the higher numbers on the keyboard.

Nevertheless, both achieved their dreams of becoming pros and won competitions. TosSGirl planted the female flag by being the first girl to [NC]Yellow in the WCG preliminary round, and became notorious for retiring some of the best players on national TV. Flash became the youngest pro-gamer to win a Starleague title with a KeSPA rating of 4,292.5 points in 2010.

In the interview, both exchanged niceties to each other. “Queen of Terran” admitted that she admired flash for being a Terran player, and would want to learn from him. He admitted he was jealous of her fast reflexes because of her piano training.

The controversial topic of gender issues was brought up. TosSGirl confessed to never revealing her true gender while starting out because this would lead to feminine discrimination. In South Korea and in the gaming world, this means no one would want to practice with the opposite sex.

Flash explains that losing to a female pro-gamer would more likely make male gamers lose their self esteem. However rooted in this paradigm, Flash didn’t fail to boost TosSGirl, nor challenge her to a match in the hopes of regaining vengeance for losing to her during his amateur days.

Blizzard’s earlier announcement regarding the 2012 Battle.net World Championship was just the tip of the iceberg. In a phone call with TeamLiquid, Blizzard’s Ilja Rotelli – Global Director of Community & eSports – offered some details about Blizzard’s ambitious plans for StarCraft II in 2012.

The World Championship sits on top of a four-tier program, with tournaments at the continental, national, and sub-national level leading up to this final event. Blizzard hopes to cooperate with existing eSports organizations in order to implement this year long plan. Though fans are surely looking forward to the World Championships to be held in the Asia-Pacific region, the more interesting factor for the everyday StarCraft II player could be the lowest level of the tournament: the national qualifiers. By allowing everyone an equal chance at the national qualifier level, Blizzard hopes to make eSports a more participatory activity, and not just a pure spectator sport.

Source : http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=306396

Save the date! January 28-29, 2012, we’ll see the likes of Quantic Gaming’s Flo fight against some of the best foreign Starcraft 2 gamers from around the globe fight for supremacy and the prize pool of $3,000 at the One Nation of Gamers Invitational.

The full list of invited pro-gamers and their respective groupings in the upcoming scrimmage are as follows:

Group A	Group B	Group C	Group D
Stephano	Sheth	Kas	Sase
Rotterdam	LuckyFool	Destiny	Violet
Catz	InControl	Boyo	Pokebunny
Tyler	Flo	Illusion	Machine

Aside from the expected high level good games on the event, the organizers are aiming to push the popularity of the “BarCraft” phenomenon since ONOG is of course a BarCraft network in the USA.

Do you think Flo, the only female pro-gamer invited, will survive even her group on the online tournament?

Source : http://www.gosugamers.net/starcraft2/news/18367-3-000-up-for-grabs-at-the-one-nation-of-gamers-invitational

GOMTV has kicked off their 2012 competition with a brand spankin’ new format and the matches are blowing up. The GSL wrapped up last year with their Up & Down matches right before the holidays began, and they’re now up to the Code S Round of 16, so check out the VoDs below to get caught up.

GSL Code S Round of 32

Group A

NSH_jjakji vs. Gamania_Sen
SlayerS_BoxeR vs. SlayerS_GanZI

Group B

FXO_Leenock vs. oGs_Fin (this is a must-watch series)
oGs_SuperNova vs. SK_MC

Group C

IM_Mvp vs. FXO_Lucky
EG_IdrA vs. IM_NesTea

Group D

FXO_z vs. StarTale_Curious
StarTale_Bomber vs. oGs_InCa

Group E

SlayerS_MMA vs. FXO_GuMiho
SlayerS_YugiOh vs. Liquid_Zenio

Group F

MVP_sC vs. EG_JYP
MVP_DongRaeGu vs. MVP_Genius

Group G

aLive vs. SlayerS_Brown
IM_Happy vs. MarineKing_Prime

Group H

SlayerS_Puzzle vs. StarTale_Parting
MVP_Keen vs. oGs_NaDa

The GSTL will also be kicking off this Friday, January 27 at 18:10 KST (10:10 a.m. CET) with their Season 1 Preliminary matches.

Friday, January 27 – 18:10 KST (10:10 a.m. CET)

FXOpen e-Sports vs. SlayerS

Saturday, January 28 – 14:10 KST (6:10 a.m. CET)

ZeNEX vs. Old Generations

GOMTV is offering a plethora of different ticket options for 2012 (currently, the GSTL ticket is on sale for 17% off the regular price through January 26 KST) to deliver the GSL to you in high-quality video, both live and in VOD form. To find out more about their premium services, head over to the GOMTV Ticket Store.

Source : http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/3599262/2012_Global_StarCraft_II_League_-_Season_1_-25_01_2012#blog

Intel Extreme Masters Global Challenge Kiev

IEM Global Challenge Kiev concludes with flying colors breaking the esports record previously set by Major League Gaming (MLG) last year with 247,000 unique viewers at the same time!
The Electronic Sports League (ESL) organized event haven’t last January 19-22 at the capital city of Ukraine, Kieve. It featured the world’s best invited pro-gamers playing top caliber Starcraft 2, Counter-Strike 1.6, and League of Legends (LoL). Besides bragging rights, $93,000 of prize money was given.

Here’s the summary of results:

Counter-Strike 1.6 ($40,000)
1st. Natus Vincere = $16,000 and a slot in the World Championship
2nd. SK Gaming = $8,000 and a slot in the World Championship
3rd. Moscow Five = $4,500

League of Legends ($32,000)
1st. Moscow Five = $12,000 and a slot in the World Championship
2nd. Team SoloMid = $6,000 and a slot in the World Championship
3rd. Team Dignitas = $3,400

StarCraft 2 ($21,000)
1st. Moon ‘MMA’ Sung Won = $6,500 and a slot in the World Championship
2nd. Dmytro ‘DIMAGA’ Filipchuk = $3,300 and a slot in the World Championship
3rd. Mihaylo ‘Kas’ Hayda = $1,750

Next stop for Intel Extreme Masters will be at the Sao Paolo, Brazil tournament before heading on to the World Champshionship at CeBIT 2012 to be held in Hanover, Germany.

Do you think doing the same will work for your hands as well?

According the Old Generations official website, http://www.ogs.kr/bbs/board.php?bo_table=notice&wr_id=105, RAM manufacturer CORSAIR together with AeroCool are sponsoring the pro-gaming team’s efforts.
oGsMarie is featured above holding an AeroCool Strike-X chassis for everyone to see.

Wednesday 25th January – Fast-Track Qualifier play starts at 7pm (GMT+2)
Saturday 28th January – Swiss Round play starts at 2pm (GMT+2)
Sunday 29th January – Single Elimination play starts at 2pm (GMT+2)
The tournament will run via the European Battle.net server.

Prizes: R 7 000.00 (~$866)

Winner: R 2 400.00
2nd: R 1 600.00
3rd: R 1 000.00
4th: R 600.00
5th-8th: R 350.00

Source : http://polarfluke.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=309

With 2012 rapidly approaching, we thought it was time to let you in for the date and location for Evo’s World Finals for next year. We are proud to announce that the event everyone has been raving about is back in action! The Evolution 2012 Main Event will be held on July 6-8, 2012 at the fabulous Caesar’s Palace Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The Evolution Championship Series represents the largest and longest-running fighting game tournaments in the world. Evo events bring together the best of the best from around the world in a dazzling exhibition of skill and fun, as players and fans gather to honor the competitive spirit in an open format and determine a champion.

Caesars Palace is one of the world’s best known resort casinos, celebrating the glory that was the Greece, and the grandeur that was Rome, in an 85-acre destination location that sets the standard for excitement and luxury. Reigning at the heart of the Las Vegas Strip, Caesars Palace ranks among the world’s top luxury resorts known for the originality and beauty.

Don’t delay!  Mark it on the calendar, and inform everyone you know, Evolution 2012 is back and badder than ever!

Source : http://evo2k.com/2011/10/16/evo-2012-announced/

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DECEMBER 12, 2011
CONTACTS:
Dan Hewitt
202-223-2400
dhewitt@theESA.com

Oonagh Morgan Hurst
Double Forte for the ESA
415-848-8106
media@e3expo.com

E3 2012: Online Registration Opens for Attendees
Industry Leaders Confirm Attendance; Floor Space Continues to Sell Quickly

Washington, DC – December 12, 2011 – The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) today announced that attendee registration is now open at www.E3Expo.com for the 2012 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). Taking place June 5-7, 2012 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, E3 is the premiere global computer and video game event. E3 welcomes all qualified computer and video game industry audiences, including worldwide analysts, retailers, developers, media and business partners to preview the latest in interactive entertainment.

“E3 is the worldwide leader in computer and video game news and excitement. It is the launch pad of video game news for the coming year, providing an unequaled opportunity for attendees to experience the latest in consumer entertainment,” said Michael D. Gallagher, president and CEO of the ESA, the trade association that represents U.S. computer and video game publishers. “As the industry’s largest forum and a global destination, E3 showcases companies involved in console, PC, online and mobile game publishing and development.”

This year’s growing list of E3 exhibitors includes**:

Activision
Bethesda Softworks LLC
Capcom Entertainment, Inc.
Disney Interactive Studios, Inc.
Electronic Arts, Inc.
Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc.
Microsoft Corporation
NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc.
Natsume, Inc.
Nintendo of America, Inc.
NVIDIA Corporation
OnLive, Inc.
Perfect World Entertainment
Proximo Games
Sega of America, Inc.
Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc.
Sony Online Entertainment LLC
Square Enix, Inc.
Take-Two Interactive, Inc.
THQ Inc.
Trion Worlds, Inc.
Ubisoft Entertainment
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment Inc.

For More Details : http://www.e3expo.com/press-release/post/381/e3-2012-online-registration-opens-for-attendees/

Gigabyte is bringing the best DOTA pro-gamers around the world in an all-year round online tournament with a total of prize pool of $30,000 distributed in 12 monthly tournaments that’s set to kick-off come February 2012 till January 2013.

At the moment, very little is known about the event besides 15 teams representing 7 countries are set to be invited. Six of the teams include:

Mith.Thrust = Thailand
Neolution = Thailand
N9 = Australia
Mski.PColor = Philippines
Aeon = Singapore
StarsBoba = Vietnam

More details to come from: http://www.playcybergames.com

For instance, PuMa famously rose to stardom by winning the first NASL Open tournament and advancing to the finals, where he took down MC in arguably the most exciting and dramatic series of games ever in Starcraft 2. Likewise, MoMaN gained notoriety and adoration through his application video and winner interviews, and made himself known as a competent player – competing in both season 1 and 2.

Thus, regardless of the end result, competing in the NASL is a worthwhile experience for any player aspiring toward eSports greatness.

Playing Against the Best
Players in NASL Season 3 will be pitted against some of the world’s best players on a weekly basis. In Season 3 of the NASL, there will be prize money on the line for every match, raising the stakes and making it so that each of the 45 players in the league has a chance to earn prize money.

A Grueling Process
However, the qualifying tournament won’t be easy – players will battle in a single elimination format with the top 8 advancing to the next season of the NASL. However, to reward the players who make it to the top of the qualifiers, a $1,000 prize pool has been added. The winner will walk away with $500, 2nd place will earn $250, and the two semi-finalists will each be awarded $125.

You’re Invited!
NASL has opened the floor for anyone who wants to participate and get their names on the world’s biggest stage to sign up!

Registration will open January 25th and run until February 8th at 10:00pm PST. After this, the bracket will be posted, and the tournament will begin February 9th! The entire tournament schedule and details can be found below:

Tournament Details:
Registration: January 25 – February 8 (sign ups close 10:00pm PST)
Sign up link: http://binarybeast.com/xSC21201234
Entry fee: $10 per player
Place: NA Battle.net server , Channel NASL (NASL2, NASL3, if full)
Start time: 11am PST (2:00pm EST | 20 CET | 4:00am KST)

Tournament Schedule:

February 9th – Ro256 [start map: TPW Damage Inc]
February 10th – Ro128 [start map: TPW Odyssey]
February 11th – Ro64 [start map: Bel Shir Winter]
February 16th – Ro32 [start map: NASL Antiga Shipyard]
February 17th – Ro16 1st half [start map: ESV Ohana RE]
February 18th – Ro16 2nd half [start map: TPW Artifice]
February 23rd – Ro8 [start map: TPW One Must Fall]
February 25th – Semi Final [start map: TPW Damage Inc]
March 3 – Finals [start map: NASL Antiga Shipyard]

Note:
If there are 128 or less players, the qualifiers will start on February 10th. If there are 64 or less players, the event will start on February 11th.

Map Pool:
TPW Artifice
TPW One Must Fall
ESV Ohana RE
TPW Damage Inc
TPW Odyssey
Bel Shir Winter
NASL Antiga Shipyard

Casting:
Casting is welcome for all rounds up to the Ro32. For the Ro32 and Ro16, NASL may invite personalities to cast select matches. All games casted by the NASL cannot be casted by any 3rd party, and all games past the Ro16 cannot be casted by any 3rd party.

Source : http://www.nasl.tv/News/Article/20120125nasl-season-3-qualifiers

Hello everyone!

Today we are announcing the qualifiers for our next live event, IGN Pro League 4!

The top two players from each qualifier will earn free travel and hotel stay for the live event. They will also earn a spot in an elimination-style group at the event where even last place earns guaranteed prize money. Please note again that there are only TWO chances for a total of FOUR players to get into the group stages from online qualifiers, and all other players will have to fight their way through an open, on-site bracket. You will want to play your absolute best to secure this amazing prize!

Unfortunately, we are not yet able to announce the date or location of our live event. All we can tell you is that it is coming up soon and these qualifiers were scheduled in a way that ensures that we have time for travel preparations to be made. If for any reason, a player who qualifies in these online qualifiers cannot make the trip to our live event, their registration fee will be refunded and we will use the qualifier results to determine who will fill their spot and receive the prize and tournament qualification instead.

Qualifier 1: Saturday, Feb 11 1:00pm EST (GMT-05:00) (That is Saturday morning for North America, Saturday evening for Europe, and early Sunday morning for SEA/South Korea) You can register any time before the event begins, but you must check in some time in the 30 minutes leading up to the event or you will not be placed into the bracket. We will be using Playhem to run the tournament and there is an entry fee of $10 (USD).

The link for Qualifier 1 on February 11 is: http://playhem.com/tourney/15322 Please only register with your North American account.

Qualifier 2: Saturday, Feb 18 1:00pm EST (GMT-05:00) (That is Saturday morning for North America, Saturday evening for Europe, and early Sunday morning for SEA/South Korea) You can register any time before the event begins, but you must check in some time in the 30 minutes leading up to the event or you will not be placed into the bracket. We will be using Playhem to run the tournament and there is an entry fee of $10 (USD).

The link for Qualifier 2 on February 18 is: http://playhem.com/tourney/15323 Please only register with your North American account.

Source : http://www.ign.com/ipl/all/news/ipl4-online-qualifiers/

MLG have announced that their 2012 season will be split between four seasonal Championships. Full details about the Winter Championship are now also known.

After a highly successful 2011, MLG have opted for a little shake up. This could be viewed as a smart move for the organisation who came under fire a little last season following the format that granted Korean players a privileged position. The most significant change is the division of the year into four seasonal competitions; Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall. Each of these will culminate in a Championship event.

Championship Dates

Winter Championship: March 23-25
Spring Championship: June 8-10
Summer Championship: August 24-26
Fall Championship: November 2-4

Winter Season Schedule

Regional Online Qualfiers: First two weeks of February
Winter Arena: Feb 24-26, New York, NY
Winter Championship: March 23-25, Columbus, OH

The Prize Pool

1st Place: $25,000
2nd Place: $15,000
3rd Place: $9,000
4th Place: $5,500
5th/6th Place: $3,500 each
7th/8th Place: $2,250 each
9th- 12th Place: $1,500 each
13th-16th Place: $1,000 each

Source: http://www.cadred.org/News/Article/166696/

ESL’s Global Challenge Kieve kicks off today, 19th of January, 2012 and you can tune in on the action through our very own stream!

Pro-gamers from across the globe are now in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine to fight for gold and glory in 3 game categories; Counter-Strike 1.6, Starcraft 2, and League of Legends.

Our Kiev warriors are as follows:

CS 1.6:
Sk Gaming, DTS,chatrix, Lions eSportKlubb, Natus Vincere, Moscow Five, fnaticMSI, mouseesports, and Team WinFakt

SC 2:
Strelok, TITAN, NaNiwa, White-Ra, Kas, Grubby, NightEnD, Zenio, HasuObs, Rox.Pomi, MMA, Targa, dimaga, Feast, HerO, qxc

LoL:
White Lotus, Team SoloMid, SK Gaming, Team Curse, against All authority, Moscow Five, Team Sypher, Team Dignitas

And of course, what they are battling for besides glory, cold cash distributed as follows:

Counter-Strike 1.6 ($40,000)
1st – $16.000
2nd – $8,000
3rd – $4,500
4th – $3,100
5th-6th – $2,200
5th-6th – $2,200
7th-8th – $2,000
7th-8th – $2,000

StarCraft II ($21,000)
1st – $6,500
2nd – $3,300
3rd – $1,750
4th – $1,250
5th-8th – $800
5th-8th – $800
5th-8th – $800
5th-8th – $800
9th-12th – $650
9th-12th – $650
9th-12th – $650
9th-12th – $650
13th-16th – $600
13th-16th – $600
13th-16th – $600
13th-16th – $600

League of Legends ($32,000)
1st – $12.000
2nd – $6,000
3rd – $3,400
4th – $2,400
5th-6th – $2,100
5th-6th – $2,100
7th-8th – $2,000
7th-8th – $2,000

The schedule of the event is as follows:

 Schedule – All dates Eastern European Time (UTC: + 2)

 

Thursday, January 19th			ESL TV	ESL TV	ESL TV	Apollo
	13:00	Strelok – Naniwa
	13:00	SK – Lions
	13:00	DTS – Na’Vi
	13:00	TSM – Curse
	14:00	TiTan – KiLLeR
	14:30	SK – Na’Vi
	14:30	DTS – Lions
	14:40	White Lotus – SK
	15:00	Strelok – KiLLeR
	16:00	TiTan – Naniwa
	16:00	SK – DTS
	16:00	Lions – Na’Vi
	16:20	White Lotus – Curse
	17:00	Strelok – TiTan
	17:00	Naniwa – KiLLeR
	18:00	Kas – NightEnD
	18:00	TSM – SK
	19:00	Grubby – Zenio
	20:00	Kas – Zenio
	20:00	Grubby – NightEnD
	20:10	Lotus – TSM
	20:10	SK – Curse
	21:00	Kas – Grubby
	21:00	NightEnD – Zenio

Friday, January 20th			ESL TV	ESL TV	ESL TV	Apollo
	13:00	HasuObs – MMA
	13:00	M5 – mouz
	13:00	fnatic – WinFakt
	13:00	aAa – Sypher
	14:00	Pomi – TargA
	14:30	M5 – WinFakt
	14:30	fnatic – mouz
	14:40	M5 – Dignitas
	15:00	HasuObs – TargA
	16:00	Pomi – MMA
	16:00	M5 – fnatic
	16:00	mouz – WinFakt
	16:20	M5 – Sypher
	17:00	HasuObs – Pomi
	17:00	MMA – TargA
	18:00	DIMAGA – HerO
	18:00	aAa – Dignitas
	19:00	Feast – qxc
	20:00	DIMAGA – qxc
	20:00	Feast – HerO
	20:10	aAa – M5
	20:10	Sypher – Dignitas
	21:00	DIMAGA – Feast
	21:00	HerO – qxc

Saturday, January 21st			ESL TV	ESL TV	ESL TV
	12:00	Semi Final #1
	14:40	Semi Final #2
	16:00	Semi Final #1
	17:30	Quarter Final #1
	18:00	3rd Place Match
	19:00	Quarter Final #2
	19:10	Semi Final #1
	20:30	Quarter Final #3
	22:00	Quarter Final #4

Sunday, January 22nd			ESL TV	ESL TV	ESL TV
	12:00	Grand Final
	12:00	3rd Place Match
	15:00	Semi Final #1
	15:30	Grand Final
	16:30	Semi Final #2
	18:00	3rd Place Match
	19:30	Grand Final

 

And as earlier stated, here’s the stream to the event as it unfolds:

SGL prides itself on catering for all types of people, whether you play Minecraft alone for fun, or in Australia’s top eSports team, your guaranteed to have a fun time. We usually have anywhere between 50 and over 100 competitions and challenges during the event, such as Battlefield 3 32v32, Minecraft design competition, League of Legends 5v5, Counter-Strike:Source Gungame, and the odds are, if you play it, we support it, and theres heaps of other gamers willing to play it with you or against you. On top of that, we give out $10 000′s of prizes and cash, to celebrate your skill and fun!

SGL is also more than just straight gaming though, thanks to our great technology partners, we get to demonstrate some of the latest IT and gaming gear, and even get you hands on before release! We also partner with several other gaming related events, such as IGDA’s GameJAM 2012 (in which 200 developers lock themselves up for 48 hours to produce a game), or BarCraft Sydney (enjoy watching eSports? enjoy drinking at a bar? well combine the two and thats BarCraft ) to provide a diverse series of entertainment.

So we look forward to seeing you at SGL, and know you will have a great time

Source : http://www.sgl.org.au/

Prize: 100 US Dollar + Ranking Points

Cup-Start: 28.01.2012, 15:00 PST
Check-in: 60 minutes before start

Source : http://sc2na.zotac-cup.com/en/cups/280-zotac-starcraft-ii-na-cup-36

Is professional gaming you’re next step? For 99% of competitive gamers out there, the short answer is HELL NO!
So, your owning everyone you play on public games in DOTA, Modern Warfare, Counter-Strike, and maybe even a Grand Master in Starcraft 2 now and you think you need to take your game to the next level and are thinking pro-gaming is that next step. After reading this, you might want to give that idea a second thought.
Steps to Going Pro in Video Gaming

There aren’t any ground and fast paths to pro-gaminghood as of yet. However, here are the most common ones per history:
1. Get noticed. The most common way of doing this is of course the most obvious, get your name out there where it counts. Leave the “pub games” and start playing where it matters – tournaments, leagues, money games (if you must). If you’re a good looking (or at least average looking) woman, this is of course easier to do. Check out how Linda “Pikachu” Liao get to represent Razer regardless if she’s only a Diamond rank SC2 player and no solid achievement to write home about unlike Startale_Aphrodite or even Flo.

This part will most likely open most competitive gamers eyes to the reality that getting signed to play their favorite video game is going to have to remain a dream.

2. Join a clan, guild, or team. It doesn’t have to be a sponsored one (but if your lucky to get a pro team right away, good for you). Just a team that’ll take you away from pub games into a more organize clan war and team practice matches that’ll surely be better than playing for ladder points where cheese games are a standard for many just so they get to a “higher” rank.

3. Practice. How much? Depending on your ability and in your game of choice. Just to give you a reference point, Starcraft 2 players from say Evil Geniuses (EG) have to play at least 8 hours a day. If you can’t take that? Then chase another dream or maybe try a FPS or tower defense game the likes of DOTA where practice requirement may not be as much.

4. WIN. Win when it matters – not just noob bashing on public games. That’ll get you nowhere fast. Qualify for tournaments and leagues in your respective game and WIN. If you do so and don’t get an offer yet, then WIN SOME MORE. Repeat until you get an offer.

5. Practice EVEN MORE. If you EVER get to pro-gamer status, then you will have to practice some more especially now that you’ll have to show results as your sponsors expect you to do so. Unless of course you’ve been signed for a different marketing reason – say your looks (even more unlikely).

If you had the patience to read this, then you have a miniscule chance of making it into pro-gaming. If you believe there are steps that I have missed, please don’t hesitate to express such on the comment section.

EVO Championship Series 2012

After a record breaking turnout in 2011 with 2 million unique viewers tuning in on the live event held at Rio Hotel in Las Vegas, the EVO Championship Series is back for 2012!

With 2 new fighting games to make a total of 6, and 17 qualifying tournaments in total and of course the culminating tournament which will be held at none other than the Caesar’s Palace Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada come July 6-8, 2011, this season is sure to be way BIGGER than the previous year’s EVO.

EVO 2012 Game (Pick your game to participate in!)

1. Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition (Version 2012)
2. Street Fighter X Tekken
3. Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3
4. Mortal Kombat 9
5. King of Fighters 13
6. Soul Calibur 5

To qualify, players should earn enough points to earn a seed/spot – this rule goes out to all the games. To earn points, pro-gamers can join in any of the 17 qualifying tournaments. The point system goes as follows:

1^st Place = 50 points

2^nd Place = 25 points

3^rd Place = 10 points

4^th-16^th = 1 point

The qualifying tournaments are as follows:

1. Jan 6-9 > The Apex Tournament Series at New Brunswick, New Jersey (done at the time of writing)
2. Feb 17-19 > OzHadou Nationals X at Sydney, Australia
3. Feb 18-19 > Winter Brawl at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
4. Mar 2-4 > Final Round at Atlanta, Georgia
5. Mar 17-18 > South East Asia Major at Bugis Arcade, Singapore
6. Mar 24-25 > NorCal Regionals 10
7. Apr 6-8 > Texas Showdown at Houston, Texas
8. Apr 13-15 > PowerUp 2012 at Cincinnati, Ohio
9. Apr 13-15 > Team Mad Catz Championships at San Diego, California
10. May 4-6 > Toryuken at Toronto, Ontario, Canada
11. May 5 > Season’s Beatings: Summer Slam at Columbus, Ohio
12. May 25-27 > Ultimate Fighting Game Tournament 8 at Chicago, Illinoise
13.  May 26 > Northwest Majors at Seattle, Washington
14. Jun 3-4 > Montreal Annual Tournament, Montreal, Canada
15. Jun 9-10 > East Coast Throwdown at Morristown, New Jersey
16. Jun 15-17 > CEO 2012 at Orlando Florida
17. Jun 22-24 > Midwest Championships 2012 at Nashville, Tennessee

Will we see the famed Daigo get his revenged after having been eliminated in last year’s EVO?

HomeStory Cup 4

After 4 days of Starcraft 2 action at the 4^th installment of the HomeStory Cup held in Krefeld, Germany, oGs-SK’s Min-Chul “MC” Jang managed to grab the championship burning with an unscathed 4-0 victory over StarTale’s Sang Hwan “Sound” Bae in a high caliber PvT.

The rest of the top 4 were as follows:

2^nd StarTale’s Sang Hwan “Sound” Bae = $3,500.00

3^rd Evil Geniuses’ Jin Young “JYP” Park = $2,000.00

4^th Dong Hwan “ViOlet” Kim = $1,000.00

About HomeStory Cup

The HomeStory Cup is a social event as well as a Starcraft 2 tournament hosted and casted by Dennis “TaKe” Gehlen in his studio apartment in Krefeld, Germany. This started in September 2010 and is now at its 4^th year.

The 4^th leg was sponsored by XMG, Roccat, PokerStrategy.com, NEEDforSEAT, and SmartChcker. The total prize pool was $20,000 and it was attended by 32 invited players from around the globe.

MBC Game Bye-Bye

MBC Game, one of 2 cable TV channels in South Korea that airs pro-gaming related media 24/7 is on its final shows. The pro-gaming network will switch to a purely music TV format come the 1st of February, 2012 after having been showing some of the best Starcraft Brood War games the world can afford for since 2001.

No doubt sad news for the whole community, e-sports fans in Korea can take solace in Ongamenet’s coverage – although everyone knows a little competition is always better in any industry. For those that want to see Starcraft 2’s Global Starcraft League (GSL) on their TVs, there’s also ANIBOX – although not a dedicated SC2 channel.

Farewell MBC Game and MBC Star League! May you rest in peace in e-sports heaven soon!

Follow the life of Phil as he losses his full time job and turns to professional video gaming to save what’s left of him and his son.

Enjoy everyone!

PS: Happy New Year!

What a way to end the year for Florence “Flo” Yao, the runner up to this year’s ZOWIE Divina Invitational all female tournament, by having been signed to one of the fastest growing e-sports team in North America, Quantic Gaming.

The partnership was officially announced a couple of days ago through Quantic Gaming’s official site. It also comes with an embedded Youtube video interview of her that lasts more than 12 minutes and is full of juicy and spicy details including Flo’s very own tips on how you can get yourself a “gamer girl” to heat things up.

“Don’t be awkward. Just approach them as you would any other girl… Don’t ALL IN” is what Flo has to say when you want to hook up with a gamer girl.

Flo Joins Quantic Interview

source: http://youtube.com

She also admits there’s nothing wrong with using your gender in progressing your e-sports career BUT you will have to back it up. And so far, given the recent female sign-ups in the SC2 scene this year, Flo doesn’t really come shorthanded. In fact, she might even be considered 2^nd to Startale’s Aphrodite in terms of overall historical performance.

Flo also cites her main reason to leave her former team to join Quantic Gaming being progression. She wants to be able to join a team where she will have practice partners of good caliber at her disposal so she can get to where she wants to be, and that’s on a “competitive level in the whole SC2 scene” and not just on the female division.

With the likes of Quantic Gaming’s Naniwa and Destiny (now training in South Korea), Flo’s career is going nowhere but up.

Surprisingly (everyone thought he was superman especially to his own people… the same people that are explicitly crying their hearts publicly upon hearing the news), the MMO gold farming leader of the world’s only remaining hardcore communist country has finally meet his maker at the age of 69 after having been “overworked” (no, not whipping his gold farmers but is said to be going to his usual field inspection) and had a heart attack.

Back in August, reports have been made public of Kim Jong-Il’s black market operation that’s said to have hackers and farmers of gold for MMO games like Lineage and Dungeon and Fighter raise real life money from in-game currency/gold. The proceeds of which have reached $6,000,000 already at the time of the report publishing.

Although the North’s official news agency did deny such allegations, knowing Kim Jong-Il, many believe it to be true. And now that his dead, who’ll take over the pro-gamers (exploited pro-gamers to be exact) that’s been helping fund the North? Apparently, his 3^rd son Kim Jung-un.

Maybe Jung-un likes pro-gaming and decides to just open his country again and compete in virtual wars through Starcraft Brood War or Starcraft 2? I’m sure they have the same genetics that’s making the South Korean pro-gamers so dominant. Wouldn’t you agree?

As the year ends, we look back to 2011 and it’s easy to conclude, pro-gaming is now mainstream. E-sports is finally here for everybody on the planet not just in South Korea. I know it. You know it. With at least 71% of the US population alone playing a video game on various platforms, the chances that somebody you meet (from as young as 5 years old to the not so young 40 year olds regardless of sex) doesn’t know about pro-gaming is dwindling exponentially.

A Little History

When I first participated in the World Cyber Games back in 2001 (holy! That’s been a decade ago! Please don’t try to figure out my age…), I knew right then and there that e-sports had a chance to flourish outside of Korea. However, after more than 7 years of competing, I started thinking, “Maybe the only people who had the same thing I had in mind are the Samsung guys”… The scene didn’t grow the way I was hoping it to be, that’s to say the least.

Then came Blizzard’s LOOOOONG awaited sequel to the Godfather of real time strategy (RTS) games, Starcraft 2.

Although received mostly with praise, it was no question that the game divided a significant number of competitive gamers around the globe. Some didn’t make the switch to it thinking the game was still at its infancy and they were better off honing their skills on established games (Starcraft Brood War, Warcraft 3, Counterstrike, you name it…).

As time passed and a lot of game balances coming in, not to mention publicity (thanks to Blizzard’s own efforts through BlizzCon and Blizzard Worldwide Invitational as well as other e-sport events organizations continually pushing the game including Major League Gaming [MLG], Dreamhack, IEM, NASL, and of course the GSL), more and more gamers switched to the game (think WC3’s legends including Jang “Moon” Jae Ho and Manuel “Grubby” Schenkhuizen himself).

Maybe they’re thinking SC2 is something they can have a better chance at winning against the Koreans compared to Brood War where many have tried (think Greg “Idra” Fields of the US and Krzysztof ‘Draco’ Nalepka of Poland to name a few). Although still not at the same level as the Korean pro-gamers even in a relatively newer game, at least non-Koreans now have a chance at actually winning against the Kors as has been seen in various results as well as in terms of prize money earnings. Switching to SC2 pays off.

Leagues, Tournaments, Events and their Statistics

This year, e-sports events have grown far beyond anybody would have expected. Almost everybody wants to join the fun. Some of the household names that have jumped in to support e-sports include:

• Coca-Cola
• Intel
• Samsung
• Sony
• Doritos
• Cisco
• Alienware
• AMD
• Radeon
• Saphire
• Nvidia
• Nos
• Dr Pepper
• The list goes on! And on!

These are just some of the household brand names that are now getting impressions from the competitive gaming community in events like;

• World Cyber Games (WCG)
• Dreamhack
• Major League Gaming (MLG) Season
• Electronic Sports World Cup (ESWC)
• Electronic Sports League (ESL)
• Intel Extreme Masters (IEM)
• E-Sports League (ESL)
• Global Starcraft League (GSL)
• Quakecon
• The International
• North American Star League (NASL)
• BlizzCon
• Blizzard Worldwide Invitation
• Yet again, the list goes on…

The winter version of Dreamhack alone got 1.7 million unique viewers coming in from the internet courtesy of Twitch.tv and the Swedish national TV paired with 20,948 live spectators. The finals for League of Legends’ (LoL) first season this year is said to have fetched 1.6 million online viewers as well. Lastly, the final stop of this year’s MLG season on the other hand recorded 241,000 viewers of their streamed games at one point as well as an attendance of 16,000 in Providence.

Putting these numbers in perspective, MLG’s figures alone beats traditional the likes of MTV, TBS, Commedy Central, and FX in terms of views. At least among 18-24 year olds.

Naturally, the prizes of these year’s e-sports events saw their highest in years. Here’s a small list of price pool money per event (outside of Korea):

If we take into account the Korean events, GSL tournaments always come on top with $87,500.00 each for season champions the likes of NesTea, Mvp, MC, FrutDealer, Polt, MMA, and Jjakji.

Pro-Gamers, Earnings, and Comparisons

Right now, if you head over to http://sc2earnings.com/, you’ll instantly realize that someone has already broken the $250,000 record earnings in e-sports courtesy of the most dominant name in SC2 for 2011, Jeong “Mvp” Jong Hyeon. His total recorded prize money earnings (excluding endorsements and other sources of earnings) for the year is sitting pretty at $255,790.

Although Na’Vi won the biggest prize pool in a single event with $1,000,000.00 at the DOTA 2 tournament dubbed “The International”, since there are 6 gamers in their team, each get around $166,666.66 a piece of that’s divided equally. Still a little low compared to the top earning SC2 players of 2011.

Comparing these numbers to traditional sports earnings of last year according to ESPN, it’s easy to see that pro-gamers aren’t earning nearly as high as boxing stars like Manny Pacquiao or baseball legend Alex Rodriguez (both getting an estimated $32,000,000 purse for 2010). However, the pro-gamers earnings bested a number of other traditional sports including billiards (men and women), bowling (men and women), beach volleyball (women), surfing (women), eating, Sled dog, and triathlon for men and women. These traditional sports’ top earnings are all below $250,000 for 2010.

This year also saw a massive influx of women pro-gamers the likes of Linda Liao (Starcraft 2), Kim “Eve” Shee-Yoon (Starcraft 2), and Kat “III Mystic III” Gunn (Halo)—who won the 2010 WCG Ultimate Gamer reality show. Bring on the girls!

E-Sports Media Coverage for 2011

Needless to say, the internet has been the most reliable medium in brining pro-gaming to where it is now courtesy of GomTV.net of the GSL, Twitch.TV, and of course Own3d.TV. However, that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been coverage from traditional media like television and printed media.

The likes of ESPN.com and Forbes.com have been covering the scene in 2011 more so than in previous years. There are a number of documentaries that came out this year as well including that of Lim Yo-Hwan featured in Boxer’s Wing Ep 1, and Episode 2, the 3 part documentary about a group of Street Fighter gamers titled “Run It Back: The Road To SoCal Regionals”, another one about Street Fighter titled I Got Next, and there’s even one for competitive Tetris titled “Ecstasy of Order: The Tetris Masters”.

This year also gave us “Barcraft”—a pub or bar where patrons can watch e-sports streams much like the pubs where patrons can watch traditional sports on TV while enjoying their favorite beer. There are around 24 of these to date and they are located across the globe.

What’s to Come for Pro-Gaming in 2012

Although the viewmanship alone isn’t nowhere compared to the likes of the Superbowl, its popularity is still undeniably even surpassing other traditional professional sports like volleyball, bowling, billiards, and many more. That said, 2012 will naturally bring BIGGER EVERYTHING for the industry. Just check out some of these lined up for next year;

• $5M for LoL Season 2
• Battlefield 3 $1.6M
• EA sports $3M tourney in 2012

Hopefully, the trend will start spreading to South East Asia as well. Although they have a healthy e-sports scene, they are just not as big as scene in North America or Europe has become to date. For sure with tycoons like Stanly Ho around, if given the attention and investment it needs, things will be a lot more exciting on that part of the globe.

Nope, it’s not that many nerds.

What used to be an event for nerds has grown an online audience of over hundreds of thousands# as of its 8th season. And that is streaming audience—it’s considered more accurate than a potentially faulty Nielsen “representative sampling” of 5000.

Founded by Sundance DiGiovanni and Mike Sepso in 2002 as a gathering for first-person shooter games, MLG has grown to be the biggest North American professional e-sports gaming league. MLG has also branched into game development—aside from its events being regularly broadcasted on broadband sites like ESPN.com.

“Elevating” eSports

DiGiovanni, in a TechCrunch interview, said they took a cue from other popular sports shown on TV—Nascar, poker, or extreme sports—and applied it to videogames. They basically presented videogames as an authentic sports to an appreciative audience through television and other broadcast media (including broadband) and it took off. It’s just bringing together people who love games so much (young males 12-24 mostly)—and DiGiovanni says they got there because they “think better than anybody else”.

This was how StarCraft II, League of Legends, Call of Duty and Halo were presented in the best possible way to players and spectators since 2004—tournaments were toured around the US in huge rented auditoriums and convention centers, and streaming coverage was available on the web.

Reaping The Rewards

MLG now rakes in millions from endorsements and the prize money pool is now in the millions. Professional players—mostly teenage and early adult males now earn six figures from endorsement deals alone.

The current numbers speak for themselves. In November, the MLG 8th Season championship brought in over 16,000 people in attendance—even if the weather in Providence wasn’t the best that time.

Online, they had 241,000 people watching the live streaming coverages at one time. According to DiGiovanni, each MLG online viewer averaged over 3 hours. By DiGiovanni’s calculation, this amounts to a cumulative 3.6 million hours per event.

MLG gets their revenue from advertising, web properties, sponsorhip (they have partnerships with different companies and products, like Dr. Pepper), direct-to-consumer sales, licensing (think electronic NFL), and merchandising. MLG aims to turn itself into a globally recognized brand for competitive sports.

They don’t focus on TV nowadays (they did it before “to prove the concept”) but now they’re concentrating on delivering the signal to where the [mostly young] audiences want it right now. Online. Who knows, as the MLG audiences grow older, there might be full-time TV coverages. But that’s for the future.

MLG is not yet as big as the South Korea’s e-sports scene but, if there’s room enough for Greek sports, there’s room enough for geek sports.

“WCG is a comprehensive Digital Culture Festival, where language and cultural Festival barriers are stripped away, and international exchange and harmony are Promoted through extensive events including tournaments, conferences, exhibitions.”

True to their concept above, the World Cyber Games gave Cwi Nqani a lot more than a chance to compete against the best gamers in the world in this year’s WCG grand finals which was recently held in Busan, Korea just a week ago. If you know a thing or two about competitive gaming, it’s easy to say what happened to Cwi is just normal, but it isn’t. In fact, what happened to him was extraordinary to say the least and borderline fairy tale.

To start with, Cwi is from Namibia. He’s comes from a tribe of nomads. He wears traditional “thong” clothing and a necklace that’s said to be made of ostrich eggs per John D. Sutter of CNN. Needless to say, he doesn’t own any form of electronic device let alone a gaming platform. And even if he did, he wouldn’t be able to charge it unless of course he walks to the capital. Yet, he was able to represent his country in the largest competitive gaming festival in the world. And he did so by qualifying – and not by being a subject of free publicity as noted by Evan Narcisse of Kotaku.

He was lucky, that’s for sure. First, he happened to be in Namibia’s capital selling his tribe’s handcrafts that included bracelets and whatnot when he noticed a big tent which happened to be the venue for Namibia’s WCG qualifying. Curious as he is, he checked it out and was simply blown away by the mere existence of the video games that was at his disposal to the point that he registered to compete in “Asphalt 6” – a car racing game for the Android and iOS. To make his unusual day even better, nobody else registered to compete in the game therefore making him officially the winner.

And if you haven’t been able to compete in any WCG event before, just so you know, WCG does this and they have been doing so and I’ve seen it over and over again given my experience in competing. This usually happens to the “newer” games that the WCG introduces each year. I even saw a father and son duo automatically qualify for being the only registered competitors in Guitar Hero before.

So off our hero goes to Korea, the most wired country on the planet. Naturally, for someone that doesn’t even know games exist, he didn’t win a single game. Is this a bad thing? “I will take the experience and maybe next time I will be the winner,” he said, “because I will learn from others.” You decide.

One thing is certain, Cwi had the time of his life thanks to the WCG being true to its mission. Even his entire tribe got to get a blast since he was given not just a phone to practice Asphalt 6 with, but a Samsung Galaxy S2 at that. I’m happy for him. And this story gave me the smile that I’m still wearing while sharing this. I hope it does the same for you.

Yes, I’m still waiting for when Valve invites me to the Beta (which will probably be never, since tons of other people are playing right now), but there is something that can tide pro-gamers (like me) whilst waiting for Valve to finally finish Defense Of The Ancients 2.

Coming from artist Stanley “Artgerm” Lau (his DeviantArt page), he decided to draw several of the heroines from the upcoming game. And by draw, I mean made them even more hotter. Picking “1 cold, 1 hot, 1 dark and 1 bright DOTA2 babes”, he’s done drawn up characters Lina Inverse (or Lina in DOTA 2, to avoid copyright infringement with the anime “Slayers“), Crystal Maiden, Windrunner, and Drow Ranger looking thier best.

Now, I understand some of you might think over-sexualization of these characters is wrong (as Valve usually designs characters to be more sensible, yet attractive at the same time), but some of you are playing DOTA 2 right now, and that makes me angry, so I don’t care (kidding, I do care)! These images will help ease the pain and make the long wait for DOTA 2 more bearable.

Full size image of the above is [HERE].

JongMi, or maRie, the most famous Korean Starcraft Brood War pro-gamer next to ToSsGirL has now made her official switch to Starcraft 2 by signing with team oGs.

The former Samsung Khan pro-gamer joins the likes of oGsMC and Nada and aims to get to Code A next season – a feat that will be easier said than done even for a high masters level player in the Korean ladder like JongMi.

Although JongMi has not won a major women-only tournament to date (unlike StarTale’s Aphrodite), she is no doubt a much decorated player compared to Slayers_Eve. Many think she has the looks to much as well even at the age of 31.

Do you think JongMi has the capacity to get to Code A next season? Or will Eve or Aphrodite get there first?

Tossgirl Vs. Qoo(Jongmi (AKA MaRie) [PART 1] Jaunuary 26, 2009 @ Proleague Battle! OGN Vs STX Soul

Tossgirl Vs. Qoo(Jongmi (AKA MaRie) [PART 2] Jaunuary 26, 2009 @ Proleague Battle! OGN Vs STX Soul

Daigo’s winning fight against Alex Valle in the 1998 Street Fighter Alpha 3 International finals held in San Francisco is at the top 6 of Kotaku’s 10 most memorable moments in pro-gaming history.

Daigo, nicknamed ‘Ume’ in Japan, is also the first player to win both the Super Battle Opera (SBO) and the Evolution Championship Series (EVO) in the same year (2003). SBO and EVO are thought to be the two most prestigious fighting eSport tournaments in the world.

most memorable match was against Justin Wong in the 2004 EVO’s Street Fighter III—see 2:04 of the video. Umehara’s Ken was on his last life versus Wong’s Chun Li and any special attacks by Wong, even when blocked, would have ended the match.

When Wong’s Chun Li unleashed her ‘Phoenix-Wing Fan’ special attack, Umehara, instead of avoiding it, moved Ken closer and masterly parried all 15 hits, enabling him to deliver a counter combo that knocked Chunli out—to the thunderous applause of the crowd. “Unbelievable!” was all the commentator could say. A video of this event quickly went viral on YouTube, turning Daigo Umehara into a world legend.

Early in the video, when asked how often he practices Street Fighter, Daigo answered “mainichi”—daily. It’s not actually correct: he does not practice on December 31st and January 1st.

Also known as ‘The Beast’ in the west, Daigo is honored by a baseball-team style ‘The Beast’ shirt by US game shirt manufacturer Meat Bun. The shirt features a Japanese mythical genius beast ‘Hakutaku’, a fitting tribute to the genius ‘beast’ of Street Fighter.

The Koreans are at it again getting securing a medal in 7 out of 12 games they joined in the recently concluding WCG Grand Finals at Busan, Korea. That includes 7 GOLD medals, 2 silvers, and 2 bronzes. They were just everywhere except for Carom 3D where they didn’t have a representative of course.

Korea managed to hold their ground in Starcraft after IM_Mvp successfully fended China’s iG.XiGua who managed to breeze through all his opponents unscathed only to lose twice in a row in his battle for supremacy against the most decorated Starcraft 2 pro-gamer of 2011.

However, could it be that Korea’s hold on Starcraft is slipping? I mean, for sure they have held the gold since WCG started 11 years ago but it should also be noted that they usually have at least 2 representatives in the podium, except for those times when 2 of their reps had to eliminate each other of course. This year on the other hand, with SC2 replacing Brood War, we only see 1 representative of theirs (although IM_Mvp is on top of the pile) with China and Ukraine’s Empire.Kaz taking Silver and Bronze respectively.

Also, it must have been a good move overall for the pro-gaming community for the WCG organizers to replace Brood War with SC2 since the game is getting pretty old only because the Koreans have such a dominant presence on it? What do you think?

Anyhow, as promised on the title, here are the results in ONE PAGE!

Starcraft 2
1st: IM_Mvp = Jong Hyun Jung (Korea)

2nd: iG.XiGua = Lei Wang (China)

3rd: Empire.Kas = Gaida Mykhailo (Ukraine)

Warcraft 3
1st: Panda.Lyn = June Park (Korea)

2nd: WE.GIGABYTE.Sky = Xiaofeng Li (China)

3rd: EG.FLY100 = Weiliang Lu (China) 

Counter-Strike
1st: Again = Wiktor Wojtas
Filip Kubski
Mariusz Cybulski
Jakub Guczynski
Jarosław Jarz?bkowski (Poland)

2nd: SK-Gaming = Marcus Larsson
Patrik Lindberg
Johan Klasson
Christopher Alesund
Robert Dahlstrom (Sweden)

3rd: Moscow_5 = Mikhail Stolyarov
Alexander Zobkov
Eduard Ivanov
Roman Makarov
Sergey Stolyarov (Rsusia)

League of Legends (LoL)

1st: CDE (USA) = Alex Chu
Andy Dinh
Brandon Dimarco
Marcus Hill
Steve Chau

2nd: Gameburg (Poland) = Konrad Kukier
Krystian Przybylski
Marcin Marczak
Marek Kukier
Mateusz Szkudlarek

3rd: Counter-Logic (Canada) = Shan Huang
Michael Tang
George Georgallidis
Cody Sigfusson
Brian Wyllie

Cross Fire
1st: Liaoning_Dongjia (China) = Pengfei Zheng
Hongyu Xu
Yang Li
Shuai Lang
Yongquiang Feng

2nd: HAMMERTIME (USA) = Andrew Miloslavsky
Brandon Parker
Garrett Young
Hunter Young
Tyler Newmister

3rd: ruLegends (Russia) = Alexandr Serikov
Maxim Shishak
Sergei Novikov
Alexey Litvinov
Vladislav Chernoivanov

Special Force
1st: Annul (Korea) = Chang Sun Kim
Seung Gyu Na
Seung Eun Kim
Seong Woo Hong
Hong Woo Nam

2nd: AMOTEL (Thailand) = chiravut meethong
vuttinan meethong
weerachai supavachara
wannasak penpipatkul
preeda kumraksa

3rd: WAYISPIDER (Chinese Taipei) = CHUN-CHIEN LIU
HSUN YING
JIA-HAO LI
GUAN-HENG LIN
SIAN-CHIH WANG

World of Warcraft (WoW) 3v3
1st: OMG (Korea) = Ji Hwan Jeong
Ji Yong Jeong
Jeong Min Oh

2nd: Kimchi_Man (Korea) = Jong Mun Shin
Chang Gyu Park
Seung Taek Yoon

3rd: Anarchy-DKP (Chinese Taipei) = CHANG-JU SUNG
HAO-WEI LI
CHING-YANG TAO

FIFA Soccer 2011
1st: deto (Germany) = Kai Wollin

2nd: hom3r (Poland) = Bartosz Pi?tka

3rd: Lonewolf92 (Italy) = Mattia Guarracino

Tekken 6
1st: NOBI (Japan) = Nakayama Daichi

2nd: dejavu (Korea) = Sung Guk An

3rd: JDCR (Korea) = Hyun Jin Kim

Asphalt 6 (Android and iOS)
1st: IPE-Dark (Chinese Taipei) = YUNG-CHI CHANG
2nd: SOFt (Brazil) = Sergio Faria
3rd: PLANET (Poland) = Kamil Zalewski

Lost Saga
1st: Team_Korea (Korea) = Joon Yong Sun
Sun Woo Kim
Jin Seok Lee

2nd: The_Foot_Clan (USA) = Eric Moore
Joshua Thomas
Scott Pierre

3rd: Fire_Cyber (Indonesia) = ASHIP na
MUHAMMAD LATHIF
MUHAMAD RIZAL FIRMANSYAH

Dungeon & Fighter (1v1)
1st: Jeongsangcheon (Korea) = Sang Cheon Jeong

2nd: YEMENQIU (China) = Dongsheng Qiu

3rd: cjh1025 (Korea) = Jae Hyung Choi

Dungeon & Fighter (3v3)
1st: Dream Team (Korea) = Jin Seong Lee
Seung Jun Kim
Jae won Jang

2nd: Bixu Heima (China) = Zhixun Zhang
Zhiyu Yan
Diangtao Huang

Carom 3D
1st: InmORtall (Bulgaria) = Iliyan Ivanov Kiryakov

2nd: Diieego (Brazil) = Diego Adelino da Paz

3rd: HI-ISTLER (India) = Prince Johal

That's the complete list now. If you see something that needs editing, please do not hesitate to let me know through the comments.

In line with the ongoing World Cyber Games 2011, I’d like to share a couple of WCG videos that I’m sure many of you haven’t seen yet. Be prepared to be blown away because these WCG Girls Video is smokin!

Enjoy!

This year’s WCG features 14 official games including household names in pro-gaming the likes of Counter-Strike, Starcraft 2, Warcraft 3, League of Legends (LoL), FIFA Soccer 11, Tekken 6, World of Warcraft and Carom 3D (3d billiards game that’s worth trying).

Other games include Special Force, CrossFire, Asphalt 6, Dungeon & Fighter in 3v3 and 1v1 format, and Lost Saga.

Starcraft Brood War has given way for SC2 this year making this the first WCG without the game that’s considered the national sport in Korea for the longest time. $27,000 has been allotted for the latter this year.

The biggest price pool in this year’s WCG is a shocker to most in the pro-gaming community. A total of $55,000 will be given out to the best Asphalt 6 players the world has to offer. Asphalt 6 is a mobile car racing game built for the iOS and the Android platform by Gameloft. The relatively huge prize pool has made many think that the game’s developers are pushing the game to the pro-gaming scene itself and not because of the game’s popularity. Not to mention Samsung has always been the events major sponsor and they have a number of Android based smart phones like Galaxy S2.

Although the WCG’s prize pool is nothing compared to the millions other events have provided this year (think DOTA 2 for one), it still is the Olympics of e-sports and whomever wants glory and a shot at history in whatever game genre they excel will naturally want to win in the World Cyber Games.

An estimated 400 Counter-Strike Global Offensive Beta keys were given away last weekend to wrap-up the which was held at Cologne, Germany. 300 of such CS-GO keys were given in ways like a raffle to those who attended the event itself while another 100 were given through the German ESL Pro Series Facebook Page.

BenQ Finals Tournament Results

The tournament’s prize pool was around €50,000 and it featured 7 games including pro-gaming staples like Starcraft 2, Counter-Strike 1.6, Counter-Strike:Source, FIFA 2011 as well as League of Legends. A couple of new games in the pro-gaming scene were also featured in the name of Trackmania Nations, and the Guinness World Record holder for Most Players Online Simultaneously on One Massively Multiplayer Online game World of Tanks.

Without further delay, here are the results:

Counter-Strike 1.6

1^st Mouseesports = €6,000

2^nd ESC Gaming = €3,000

3^rd ALTERNATE = €1,800

Counter-Strike: Source

1^st Mouseesports = €8,500

2^nd ALTERNATE = €4,300

3^rd mTw = €2,700

Starcraft 2

1^st Socke = €3,500

2^nd GoOdy = €1,800

3^rd AkkiS = €1,100

League of Legends (LoL)

1^st ALTERNATE = €3,500

2^nd Team Acer = €1,800

3^rd – = €1,100

FIFA 2011

1^st MeetYourMakers = €3,000

2^nd KILLERFISH = €1,500

3^rd EnRo GRIFFINS = €450

World of Tanks (WoT)

1^st DRUCKWELLE = €3,500

2^nd Xel Naga Core = €1,750

3^rd Give It All = €900

Trackmania Nations

1^st gaLLo = €1,000

2^nd Scream = €500

3^rd v4L1um = €200

Two things worth noting, mousesports ruled the FPS genre on this tournament taking home the gold for both versions of Counter-Strikes having defeated ALTERNATE for the top position.

ALTERNATE on the other hand has made its presence felt throughout the tournament as it has won pole position in 4 games including the championship for Starcraft 2 and League of Legends (LoL).

In Starcraft 2, it’s also worth mentioning that the top 2 finishers both have Brood War backgrounds.

Linda Liao (Liao Pei Ling, 廖珮伶) is currently one of the most exciting female StarCraft 2 pro-gamers to watch. She currently lives in Taipei City, Taiwan. After besting 31 other female pro players in the Electronic Sports League (ESL) Starcraft II® female championship in late 2010, Linda Liao’s entry into Razer’s stable of sponsored pro superstars was announced by Razer early this year. Linda is one of the most famous female #1-ranking Diamond Stacraft 2 pro-gamers in Asia today.

Linda’s rise to the top of the Starcraft II®  female pro-gaming scene is nothing but meteoric—she just started playing StarCraft II® early 2010 yet she already logged over 800 ladder matches and a steadily increasing APM (averaging 220 at this writing) while displaying an extraordinary mastery of the Protoss race and an unusually deep understanding of the game. She bagged the ESL StarCraft® II female pro-gamer championship before the year was out.

Admittedly, Liao has been passionately playing first person shooter and real time strategy games since her childhood—Doom 2, Warcraft 2, StarCraft Brood War—a passion that brought her the StarCraft® II championship. “I love gaming and I want to be good at it. I realized that gaming was not just a part of my life, it was a part of what I really wanted to achieve in,” she said.

Linda Liao, aka “Pikachu”  will be joining the likes of the “Terran Emperor”, South Korean Lim Yo-Hwan aka “SlayerS_Boxer”—the most famous Starcraft player of all time—who has also joined Team Razer this year.

Team Razer is actually a lineup of individuals and pro-gaming teams Razer sponsors to showcase the capabilities of Razer’s specially designed lines of gaming mice, keyboards and headsets. In this case, Liao will promote StarCraft II® mice, keyboards and headsets.

Liao’s fame as an established celebrity model, actress and singer in her own right, brings a distinct prestige to Razer’s StarCraft II® product line. Expect to see more of her featuring the StarCraft II® ‘Spectre™’ gaming mouse, ‘Marauder™’ keyboard, and ‘Banshee™’ headset in the future.

Currently, Linda aims to take advantage or her new partnership with Razer to improve her rank and her game—further honing her diamond edge through more battles, victories and championships under the Razer aegis. ‘Lei Ping’—Linda’s name in Chinese—means ‘clever girdle ornament’ but she has proved that she is not just an ornament but a razor-sharp pro-gaming weapon. With her passion and dedication to her craft, she could yet achieve a lasting legacy for female pro-gamers around the world on her way to becoming a StarCraft legend.

For the meantime, enjoy these hot images of Linda “Pikachu” Liao!

“Good Game: A Film About  Evil Geniuses” will be featuring pro-gaming in the hopes of bringing the growing industry to a wider audience. In particular, the documentary is set to feature the Starcraft 2 pro-gamers of EG – including the likes of PuMa, Huk, and IdrA.

The documentary is headed by Mary Ratliff, an MFA of Film and Electronic Media holder from American University. Mary first made her first documentary about “cosplayers” back in 2002 and has since been involved in various other film endeavors as a cinematographer or director. One of her documentary titled “Up Hill” even received a nomination for the prestigious Vissions Awards back in 2009. She naturally is a gamer to say the least and she has been playing Starcraft for over a decade now as well.

When asked by Forbes’ John Gaudiosi on what she hopes to achieved with this documentary, she aptly replied, “I think that gets back to just putting eSports in front of people so they can physically see what it is about.  In most of my work, I like to challenge stereotypes and preconceived notions.   I want audiences just to learn what eSports is, how it works, and see first hand that these players are skilled, talented, and dedicated.  I also am exploring the ways that it intersects with traditional sports, because I think that sports fans really should be embracing eSports.”

The film will naturally feature North America’s first ever “team house” – a term use to call the house/building where Korean pro-gaming teams stay to practice, and live – as well as various footages from pro-gaming events the likes of MLG as well as the ones done in Korea.

The project itself has received quite a great deal of support especially in terms of funding as their KickStarter.com page has reached their $10,000 goal in just a week – it’s now at $13,327 (time of writing).

The documentary is scheduled to be released in 2012.

Will you watch it? What would you like to see on it? Share your thoughts as Mary and her team are constantly listening to what the community has to say about the project.

After having delayed the public BETA for their much awaited follow-up to the highly popular Counter-Strike series, Valve has released a 1 hour video featuring the Counter-Strike Global Offensive BETA.

The hour long video was taken from the Intel Extreme Masters Global Challenge in New York last November 15^th and it features the best from the US pegged against the best CS pro-gamers from Europe in an epic showmatch that ended with the European team going home with an Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition processor while the Americans settling for a BenQ gaming monitor.

The match ended 16-13 for the Europeans which consisted of cArn, GeT_RiGhT, trace, zonic, and lurppis. The US team was well represented as well with the likes of Ksharp, volcano, n0thing, fRoD, and Storm.

The footage is no doubt part of Valve’s strategy to get as much feedback as they can from the huge following of Counter-Strike to refine the much anticipated follow-up before its release.

The footage naturally went viral with a heap of comments from everyone, naturally mixed in polarity with notable negatives including something along the lines of CS-GO being a little short in terms of quality relative to what the FPS industry has become.

On the brighter side, the game is no doubt an improvement in terms of graphics and game play compared to its predecessors but will it be enough to put Counter-Strike near what they were back in the days when they pioneered FPS?

Keep your head up high knowing there is a way to beat the infamous 6 pool!

Enjoy the video everyone!

Team Liquid’s Protoss genius Song “HerO” Hyeon Deok manages to take down Lee “PuMa” Ho Joon (the strongest Terran and probably the most decorated SC 2 player when it comes to international events)  in a grueling 7 game series that ended 4-3 in the former’s favor much to the standing ovation from the packed crowd in Sweden.

No doubt an underdog in terms of achievements, HerO somehow found the courage to neglect the fact that PuMa probably only lost ONCE to a Protoss in a major event finals courtesy of oGs_MC – PuMa won against HasuObs, Puzzle, and oGs_MC (twice).

Although HerO didn’t start the 7 game series as nicely as he wanted, losing to PuMa’s trap which took down his early colossus. HerO then manage to brush off such a mistake only to take the next 3 games and taking the series 3 to 1.

This amazing winning streak came to be after an amazing “read” or it could have been a “professional guess” of PuMa’s Banshee build (going to the infamous 1-1-1) countering it perfectly with a fast Stargate to Phoenixes and of course an observer to boot WHILE slowly knocking down on PuMa’s front wall. Just absolutely amazing and totally out of the reach of amateur SC2 players.

The 4^th game, HerO showed his overwhelming confidence by simply deciding to end the game the soonest totally neglecting PuMa’s fast expo with bunker by starting out with 2 Stalkers and a Zealot to go pass the bunker and give vision to the Pylon sitting strategically below the Terran’s natural expansion in Tal’darim.

PuMa being the best SC2 Terran at the moment then showed his championship form by taking on the next 2 games taking the game to one of the most climatic of all finals SC2 has ever seen.

The game 7 of the series can only be highlighted by HerO getting fast 3-3-3 upgrades while patiently macroeing, getting expos, and holding PuMa at bay. The game then turned into an all out war complete with storms, colossi, blink stalkers, speedlots, sentries, and archons against what you would expect from a Terran of PuMa’s caliber; ghosts, marines, marauders, medivacs, and of course Vikings.

To make the final game of the series even more interesting, there was even a point where it seemed like PuMa was going to turn the tide by nearly winning a crucial battle near HerO’s third expo complete with sniping and high templar ability exchanges. However, after a few back and forth by HerO, it became clear that PuMa only had an advantage for a few seconds and that has passed by giving the 2 Colossi of HerO the opportunity to harvest the remaining bio ball of PuMa with blink Stalkers happily doing the same with the remaining medivacs. All of which happened while HerO was securing his 5^th expo at 11 further sealing PuMa’s fate.

BUT, the true warrior PuMa is, he wouldn’t give the well deserve “gg” just yet so HerO took the liberty to shove it on his face by trying to block his path with 3 Nexuses and that worked! GG to HerO! Finally stopping PuMa’s TvP international dominance and winning his first ever major tournament!

Of course words alone can’t describe the series so after hours on end looking for the replays, Day9 came to the rescue with the videos below. Enjoy and please do share your thoughts!

Pushing the envelope further, the 2^nd season of League of Legends is giving away $5,000,000 in total cash for the few deserving pro gamers. $2,000,000 of which will go to the winning LoL team who will emerge victorious over their peers who will be representing various regions of the globe including North America, Europe, Southeast Asia, China, and Korea.

[Online universities offer video game design classes that many people enjoy.]

The road to millions will start with point system tournaments to be hold in various locations across the globe. The breakdown of points are as follows:

• 1st place – 400 points
• 2nd place – 200 points
• 3rd place – 125 points
• 4th place – 75 points
• 5th – 8th place – 50 points

The top 2 teams that will emerge with the highest ladder points in each region will battle it out for the Regional Finals. At this stage, $1,000,000 will already be at take – although this sum is to be distributed in all regions, this STILL a huge sum for anybody. The Regional champions will then battle it out for the $2,000,000 championship prize.

Another cool $1,000,000 is allotted for smaller local tournaments and yet another $1,000,000 to community prizes.

For the current standings and updates, head on to LoL’s brand new competitive gaming section here.

Do you think you have what it takes to get a piece of this huge prize pool? I’m sure you do! After all, keep in mind that there’s $1,000,000 for community prizes!

Sadly, Florence “Flo” Yao, the Zowie Divina finalist had decided to cancel her trip to one of Europe’s most popular e-sports events, DreamHack Winter 2011.

[Some people look into video game design classes from accredited online colleges when they want to be the ones to design the games the pros play.]

She posted on her Facebook page, “something came up, cancelled flight to dreamhack. i would get destroyed there anyway =)”.

She was supposed to fill in the spot of Tomasz “Tarson” Boroń.

In her absence, StjarNaN have filled her spot.

Her sudden decision to cancel was met by mixed emotions by a ton of people. Those who were excited to see a shining beacon for female pro-gaming in the highly competitive Starcraft 2 scene were naturally dismayed. On the other hand, there were also many who have thought her spot wasn’t well deserved and that she was only given the chance to participate in the huge event because of her gender not by skill level.

I personally think it would have been great to see her try her skills against the world’s best. What do you think?

Remember the hype about Call Of Duty: Elite, Activision and Infinity Ward‘s oft promoted social site for all things Call Of Duty? It turns out the hype was too much for it, as the service is still reported to be having problems, and pro gamers are angry.

[Wonder if the designers of this game found video game design classes from Guide to Online Schools.]

Take note, Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was released on November 8, 2011, and it’s now been two weeks since the game and service was released; a majority of users still cannot access thier accounts. Which is a damn shame, considering that it’s a wanted feature to many, integrating social networking, daily competitions with virtual and real life prizes, the ability to level up your clan, pro analysis and strategies, Elite TV, and more. It’s akin to more popular services like Bungie.net (Microsoft and Bungie‘s Halo series of games) and Battle.net (Blizzard‘s Starcraft and Warcraft series of games). Though, the true difference is that some features require a paid subscription to the service, for those who are totally dedicated to anything Call Of Duty.

Yet, the service is still down for a majority of people. According to Infinity Ward, the game’s developer, over 1 million people have confirmed memberships for Elite, many more still trying to get in. And with that amount of people rushing to use the new service, the developers are having a tough time getting anything to work. So far, only certain members have gotten to access the site, and Activision is saying that the service will be up and running for everyone by December 1st.

Too bad, especially for some of those those who paid premium subscriptions and can’t access the site.

After besting 32 Starcraft 2 professional gamers, FXO’s Lee “Leenock” Dong is going home with $50,000.00 in prize money, the MLG Providence trophy, and a number of other titles including the youngest ever Starcraft 2 MLG champion and the first to debut and win all at the same time.

16 year old Leenock no doubt deserved everything he has won from the best MLG event to date after picking himself up after losing to DongRaegu in the winner’s bracket to run over some Starcraft 2 household names the likes of MMA, MVP, Huk, Idra, and even the legendary Boxer himself before taking his sweet revenge at DRG in the loser’s bracket finals to finally face Johan “Naniwa” Lucchesi – the Protoss king of Sweden.

The protoss versus zerg finals started out with Leenock losing the first match after an impressive ramp defense by Naniwa when the former decided to cancel his fast expo and go for a roach harass. The next 3 games however, Leenock’s aggressiveness proved to be too much even for Naniwa’s defense skills ultimately bowing down to the MLG first timer.

As some of you might know, Valve is currently handing out (more like giving away) beta keys for DOTA 2. But for those not into the whole Multiplayer Online Battle Arena type of games, there is sad news for Valve’s other upcoming game, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

Talk has surfaced that Valve has delayed the release of the CS:GO beta, citing continuing input from the various professional gamers Valve asked to preview the most recent build of the game. A recent interview with Chet Faliszek, one of the members of Valve, stated that:

“There’s going to be things we’re going to release it with knowing we need to add more, to do more. But just knowing there’s some feel and some just operating the game issues that need to be resolved first. We want to get those done first.”

Faliszek, talking to pro-gamers Kyle “Ksharp” Miller and Ronald “Rambo” Kim, told the two that there will be an initial planned “closed” beta upon which 10,000 gamers will get invited to. Those 10,000 will test for crashes, bugs, glitches, errors, and provide critical feedback important to the early stages of the beta. Afterwards, Faliszek states that the beta will be “…open and everyone will be playing it; there will be no barrier to entry. We just need to keep building it slowly.”

If you want more info, check out the full 3 part interview from Miller & Kim [PART 1] [PART 2] [PART 3]

While I’m not there personally (tickets are $175 this year!), the high ticket prices cannot hold back all the information flooding from the event. Such as two trailers for some highly anticipated games coming out in the future. First up is a trailer for all the pro-gamers out there, the new StarCraft II expansion titled “Heart Of The Swarm“, which is supposed to expand the Zerg storyline for the StarCraft Universe. Along with new missions, there are new units and multiplayer changes that are yet to be revealed.

(Click To See The Trailer)

Next is a surprising candidate for surprise game trailer of the year. We all know about DOTA 2, which is being made by Valve. But not everyone expected Blizzard to try and finish thier version of DOTA, which was revealed to be “Blizzard DOTA“. And the trailer they released today showcases the characters (Heroes) and classes to be used in thier version of DOTA. It looks to be fan service of the highest level, and uses heroes from a number of different Blizzard games (such as StarCraft and WarCraft, and maybe a few hidden gems from Blizzards storied gaming history). Watch the trailer, and judge for yourself!

(Click To See The Trailer)

Exciting! And it’s only Day One of BlizzCon…

New York Comic Con, it’s happening at New York right now! The premier convention for all things comic related in recent years has focused more on the gaming side of geekery. And what better place to reveal new games to an audience that knows about this stuff.

Yes, this here is new footage of the newest iteration of Counter Strike developed by Valve Software, titled Counter Strike: Global Offensive. The video might be a bit blurry, and we might not get a sense of the game’s upgraded graphics that are often touted by Valve, but the Question & Answer/Commentary is absolutely awesome, as it reveals more in-depth details about the game. Add to the fact that it was played live with several seasoned pro-gamers who were invited by Valve to play the game, as playing the game (right now) is not allowed to the public. Though there will be a lengthy beta available to everyone, in the future.

So watch the video and see if you can pick out some choice factoids about the new game. Stuff like: “How will they accommodate newer players?”, to “How will they satisfy older, more hardcore pro gamers?”, to even “What engine are they using