World Cyber Games
World Cyber Games | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Status | Ended |
Genre | eSports |
Frequency | Annual |
Inaugurated | 2000 |
Most recent | 2013 |
People | Brad Lee (CEO) |
The World Cyber Games (WCG) was an international competitive video gaming event operated by South Korean company World Cyber Games Inc.,[1] and sponsored by Samsung Electronics and Microsoft. WCG events attempted to emulate a traditional sporting tournament, such as the Olympic Games; events included an official opening ceremony, and players from various countries competing for gold, silver, and bronze medals. The official motto of WCG was "Beyond the Game", which is also the title of a documentary about eSports.[2]
General
As of 2011, the World Cyber Games was the largest global electronic sport tournament,[3] with divisions in various countries. The World Cyber Games, created by International Cyber Marketing CEO Hank Jeong and backed financially by Samsung, was considered the e-sports Olympics;[4][5] events included an official opening ceremony, and players from various countries competing for gold, silver and bronze medals. The organization itself had an official mascot, and used an Olympic Games inspired logo.[6] Organizations from each participating country conducted preliminary events at a regional level, before conducting national finals to determine the players best suited to represent them in the main World Cyber Games tournament event. All events had areas for spectators, but the tournament could also be viewed over internet video streams.[5][7]
Besides providing a platform for tournament gaming, the World Cyber Games was used as a marketing tool; sponsors, such as Samsung, using the space around the venue to set up product demonstrations and stalls.[8] In addition, advertisers saw the event as a good means to reach young male audiences, who may not be exposed to traditional advertising streams via television.[7]
History
![](../I/m/Wcg_map.png)
In 2000, the World Cyber Games was formed, and an event was held titled "The World Cyber Game Challenge", which began with an opening ceremony on 7 October. The event was sponsored by the Republic of Korea's Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Ministry of Information and Communications, and Samsung. It brought together teams from 17 countries to compete against each other in PC games including Quake III Arena, FIFA 2000, Age of Empires II, and StarCraft: Brood War. The tournament ended on 15 October 2000.[9] The competition initially had 174 competitors from 17 different countries with a total prize purse of $20,000.
In 2001, the World Cyber Games held their first main event, hosted in Seoul, Korea, with a prize pool of $600,000 USD. National preliminaries were held between March and September, with the main tournament running between 5 December to 9 December. The World Cyber Games quoted an attendance of 389,000 competitors in the preliminaries, with 430 players advancing to the final tournament; teams from 24 countries in total were involved in the tournament.[10]
In 2002, the World Cyber Games held a larger event in Daejeon, Korea with a prize pool of $1,300,000 USD; 450,000 competitors took part in the preliminary events, with 450 ultimately making it through to the final tournament.[11] The 2003 tournament, which took place in Seoul again, saw an even bigger prize pool of $2,000,000 USD, and was the first World Cyber Games tournament to feature a console based competition, with the game Halo: Combat Evolved on the Xbox.[12]
In 2004, the World Cyber Games held a tournament in San Francisco, California, United States, the first tournament outside of its home country. At this stage, the prize pool was at $2,500,000 USD; with 642 players competing in the grand final.[13] The tournament has since been hosted in various countries around the world; including Singapore in 2005 and Monza, Italy in 2006 - at this time Microsoft became a major sponsor to the event, who would provide software and hardware for all the events through to 2008. In addition, all games played at the tournament would be based exclusively on Windows PC's or the Xbox console.[14][15]
In 2006, the prize purse had risen to $462,000, and the event had grown to 9 different competitions and 700 qualified participants from 70 different countries.
In 2007, the event was hosted in Seattle, Washington, United States, with a total prize pool of $4,000,000 USD. In 2008, the tournament was hosted in Cologne, Germany; it was the first World Cyber Games tournament to incorporate a mobile-game based tournament, with Asphalt 4: Elite Racing,[16] In 2009, the tournament was held in Chengdu, China, and featured a special promotion of the game Dungeon & Fighter.[17] The tournament was also coincided to run alongside the World Cyber Games debut reality television show, WCG Ultimate Gamer. Season 2 of WCG Ultimate Gamer was aired between August and October 2010.
In 2014 February, the CEO Brad Lee announced the closing of WCG.[18] Several partners described difficulty working with the CEO and the organization.[19]
World Cyber Game tournaments
See also
- T. L. Taylor, an academic who has written about the World Cyber Games
References
- ↑ World Cyber Games Inc.
- ↑ Beyond the Game » About this blog
- ↑ Hill, Jason (29 April 2011). "Let the Cyber Games begin". Brisbane Times. Retrieved 25 August 2011.
- ↑ "Americans win gold at world video game championships". USA Today. 10 October 2004. Retrieved 24 August 2011.
- 1 2 Svoboda, Elizabeth (October 2004). "World Cyber Games Finals". IEEE Spectrum. Retrieved 24 August 2011.
- ↑ "World Cyber Games: from Korea in 2000 to China in 2009 – and now on TV…". 9 March 2009. Retrieved 24 August 2011.
- 1 2 "Professional gamers draw big-name sponsors". MSNBC. 13 September 2005. Retrieved 24 August 2011.
- ↑ Rojas, Peter (11 October 2004). "World Cyber Games 2004 takes aim in San Francisco". Joystiq. Retrieved 24 August 2011.
- ↑ "WCG - Official History - WCG Challenge". World Cyber Games. Retrieved 23 August 2011.
- ↑ "WCG - Official History - WCG 2001". World Cyber Games. Retrieved 23 August 2011.
- ↑ "WCG Official Website - WCG History - WCG 2002". World Cyber Games. Retrieved 23 August 2011.
- ↑ "WCG Official Website - WCG History - WCG 2003". World Cyber Games. Retrieved 23 August 2011.
- ↑ "WCG Official Website - WCG History - WCG 2004". World Cyber Games. Retrieved 23 August 2011.
- ↑ Dobson, Jason (13 April 2006). "Microsoft Announces World Cyber Games Sponsorship". Gamasutra.
- ↑ Surette, Tim (14 April 2006). "Microsoft to sponsor World Cyber Games". CNET News. Retrieved 24 August 2011.
- ↑ "WCG Official Website - WCG History - WCG 2008". World Cyber Games. Retrieved 23 August 2011.
- ↑ "WCG Official Website - WCG History - WCG 2009". World Cyber Games. Retrieved 23 August 2011.
- ↑ "World Cyber Games to close down all tournaments in 2014". 7 February 2014. Retrieved 25 March 2014.
- ↑ Howell O'Neill, Patrick (February 5, 2014). "The Olympics of esports shuts down, partners say CEO was 'impossible to work with'". The Daily Dot. Retrieved May 20, 2015.