WCG 2013 was the last chapter in tournament's 14-year history. Photo: Worldoftanks.Asia
The official press release of World e-Sports Championship Games speaks of a project that is to pick up from where the World Cyber Games left off and continue the traditions of the multi-national, multi-discipline event.
In February this year, a 14-year old tradition was shut down. In a press release, World Cyber Games CEO Brad Lee announced that the unparalleled "olympics of eSports" will be no more, a decision taken by the WCG committee after analyzing the modern eSports trends and WCGs place in them as a business.
For many eSports fans, WCGs discontinuation was more than expected. The tournament had failed to adjust to the rapidly increasing standards of tournament production and although it maintained the olympic spirit in the sense that it gathered games from all over the world in one place, the delivery was subpar at best. The archaic Bo1 format in group stages was mixed with low-quality 480p broadcast and overlap with other big events which put off viewers. Consequently, having lost all its previous esteem, WCG had no other choice but to shut down.
Today, however, a press release was sent to representatives of the media which speaks of a project under the name of World e-Sports Championship Games, or WECG for short. Built on the partnership between Aegis Gaming Networks - a game competition organizer - and the China-based Mobile Game Confederation, WECG is described as an "independent e-Sports ecosystem for the world's leading players to train, collaborate and develop their skills".
With one Bory Jun - COO of WCG and now founder of AGN - sitting behind the project, WECG aims to continue what the 14 years of WCG established: to be the tournament that gathers national champions from all over the world and throwing them in a large annual competition. The few details given in the press release talk of a national preliminary round and global grand finals, exactly how WCG events used to operate.
More details will be given at a press conference on June 13th during Mobile Asia Expo, including the host city candidates and the game titles for the 2014 edition. Kick-off events are scheduled to kick off shortly thereafter in July, being held all around Europe, Asia and the Americas.
