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Official e-Sport titles for 2010 Grand Final

In this Issue: IeSF official e-Sports title eSport Soccer Cup 2010 IeSF conference

By Hei-Eun, Kim

MSSA’s season started Guitar Hero in Bulgaria ENC of Gamescom What’s new City of Utrecht People of this month

(IeSF official e-Sport titles: FIFA Online and WarCraft 3)

The International e-Sports Federation (IeSF) announced the first two official e-Sports titles for the 2010 IeSF Grand Final. “WarCraft 3” and “FIFA Online 2” beloved by worldwide fans and e-players are chosen as the official e-Sports titles. The process of screening e-sports titles is based on the polling figures that fifteen IeSF members recommended. Grounded on the figures, IeSF arranged most well-received games in order and discussed with game publishers of the games. After consulting with them about terms and condition, the two games, WarCraft 3 and FIFA Online 2, are decided. The announcement of demonstration e-sports titles remains unrevealed. IeSF will disclose additional e-Sports titles soon. * Please stay tuned for the IeSF additional announcement.

eSport Soccer Cup Austria

By Andrea Katschthaler Austria’s biggest energy supplier “Fernwärme Wien” is showing a high interest in electronic sports and is holding a yearly tourney by the name “eSport Soccer Cup”. In 2010 the Soccer Cup was bigger than ever, with competitions in FIFA 10, Forza 3 and Virtua Tennis, offering gamers a wide range of games to select from. Next to many attractive prizes, the winner of the main tourney, FIFA 10, received an ASUS gaming monitor. The gamers only took a break from their tough competition when some “real” soccer player showed up: The stars of the famous Viennese soccer club “SK Rapid Wien” dropped by for an hour during the event. They chatted to their fans, signed countless autographs and even took part in a little fun gaming exercise. However while they’re stars on real life soccer fields, when the soccer stars met the gaming stars they mercilessly lost to the experienced gamers in a FIFA 10 competition.

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In this Issue:

2010 IeSF conference in Leipzig

IeSF official e-Sports title

By Hei-Eun, Kim

eSport Soccer Cup 2010 IeSF conference MSSA’s season started Guitar Hero in Bulgaria ENC of Gamescom What’s new City of Utrecht People of this month

IeSF European conference opens at the Leipziger Messe GmbH, one of the world's oldest trade fairs, during 2010 Games Convention Online (GCO) in Leipzig. During the conference, Leipziger Messe will agree to give its support to the IeSF conference.

At the conference, IeSF will discuss important issues with European members, such as ‘Reviewing standardization projects’, ‘Affiliating IeSF new members’, and ‘Checking up the status of IeSF Grand Final preliminary’. Also IeSF will have open discussion on ‘establishment of good video game culture’ in the light of recent state of video games because the Swiss E-Sport Federation (SESF) is currently struggling with a bill which bans video gaming in Switzerland.

While the GCO opens from 8th to 10th July, the IeSF European conference will be on July 9. About 40 people of the IeSF members are expecting to participate in the conference.

South Africa

Mind Sports South Africa’s season has started with full force

By Colin Webster

The first eSports event that the MSSA held in 2010 was the ever popular Gauteng Provincial LAN Championships. The LAN Championships was hosted by Northcliff High School in the North of Johannesburg. Since the MSSA enjoys full recognition from both the South African government and the South African Olympic Committee (SASCOC), the LAN Provincial Championships are an integral part of selecting teams to represent South Africa in international competition.

One of the most encouraging features of the Gauteng LAN was the number of school children that entered. Scholars outnumbered the older more experienced players by more than three to one. This obviously bodes well for gaming in South Africa, as it is the youth that are the life-force of any sport. The next provincial championship is the Free State Championship that will be held on 5 and 6 June 2010.

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In this Issue: IeSF official e-Sports title

‘Guitar Hero’ enters the Angel Heart Bulgaria

eSport Soccer Cup

By Belosveta Peneva (BFES)

2010 IeSF conference MSSA’s season started Guitar Hero in Bulgaria ENC of Gamescom What’s new City of Utrecht People of this month

Music video game series ‘Guitar Hero’ will have a special night in the Bulgarian capital's rock club "Angel Heart". Two Wednesdays of the month, adult fans of heavier music will be able to measure strength in the typical game mode "Face Off" and fight for the title "Guitar Hero". The first outplay was scheduled for April 14 with start time 21:00. An hour earlier, at 20:00, visitors will have free access to guitars and drums to (participants join Guitar Hero) check their music talent.

Signing for the guitar battle will be on place and 32 players will be chosen for participation. The owners of club "Angel Heart" and one of the biggest Bulgarian game distributors - "Pulsar", which is the official distributor of Guitar Hero for Bulgaria will provide each time consistent awards for the best Guitarists.

Fans of the game series under the age of 18 years will not be ignored. For them a special tournament twice a month will be organized but on Sundays from 14:00 hour.

Conditions are similar to those listed above - 1 hour time for signing for participation, in which visitors can play freely, at 15:00 pm 32 guitar players will take their seats to win their awards and their place in the frontal mode “Face Off ". The first competition for participants under 18 years of age was held on April 18.

Austria

European championship at gamescom 2010

By Andrea Katschthaler

The European Nations Championship (ENC) is still keeping gaming fans in “good old Europe” on the edge of their seats. At the ENC gamers from 30 countries are competing for the prize money of 120.000 Euro. This sum, which is larger than all the previously awarded prizes, only shows that the ENC is serious about making this the biggest and best yet edition of the tournament. The finale will be held at Europe’s biggest game fair, the gamescom, which will take place in the summer in the German city of Cologne and has hosted more than 245.000 visitors last year.

Austrian national teams will be competing in five different events.

What’s New? International e-Sports Federation As part of a cooperation to support IeSF on the basis of MOU which the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) signed with and European Union Chamber of Commerce in Korea (EUCCK), IeSF opens Ambassador Pro-am(Professional and Amateur) screen golf tournament at Swing Screen golf Samsung-dong, Seoul on June 17 coordinating with EUCCK. About 15 European Ambassadors will be participating in the event.

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In this Issue: IeSF official e-Sports title

The City of Utrecht Netherlands

eSport Soccer Cup

By Maurice Kroes

2010 IeSF conference MSSA’s season started Guitar Hero in Bulgaria ENC of Gamescom What’s new City of Utrecht People of this month

Amsterdam is a well known city in the Netherlands and sometimes even more popular than the country itself. However, there are many other great cities the Netherlands has to offer. One of them is Utrecht. Based in centre of the country it’s not a big city, as it counts only 300.000 people, but it still makes up for the fourth lar gest cit y in the Netherlands. It is a city with a long history and an important historical centre.

Even if it is on the fourth place in terms of population, Utrecht is arguably the biggest in terms of the Dutch gaming industry. It helps new initiatives, supports new ideas and financially helps new businesses. It plays host to a number of important events. In June there is the Festival of Games which is aimed at the business side.

It is a blend of all branches in the industry that come together to share knowledge, network and make deals. In the end of April the Indigo event took place which showcased independent and innovative Dutch game-design to the public. The latter was launched by the Dutch Game Garden (DGG) which is also supported by the local government. DGG is formed to accelerate the growth of the Dutch game industry by providing wide-ranging support for starting and established game developers. Projects include The Developers Club that acts as platform for both professionals and students and the Game Company Incubator that supports young entrepreneurs to set up their business. The incubator program helped the graduate-startup Ronimo to ship their highly successful and first Wiiware title: Swords and Soldiers.

Utrecht also takes care of game students and researchers. A large scale project called GATE (Game Research for Games and Entertainment) is an ambitious multi-million euro funded research program that started at the end of 2007. GATE is a collaboration between different educational institutes such as the University of Utrecht and Utrecht School of the Arts. The ambition of the GATE project is to develop an international competitive knowledge base with respect to game technology, and to train the talent required to enhance the productivity and competitive edge of small and medium-sized creative industrial companies. The project will substantially improve the competitiveness of companies producing (tools for) games and simulations by providing direct access to new technology and by technology transfer projects.

Last but certainly not least is that Utrecht has been the stage for the annual Dutch Gaming Championship in the past years and will be this year as well. The E-sportbond works closely together with the local government to host a bigger and better event each year. These are some examples of the commitment to gaming Utrecht has. * If you ever find yourself in the Netherlands, you might want to check out this creative city as well!

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In this Issue: IeSF official e-Sports title

People of this month South Korea

eSport Soccer Cup

By Hei-Eun, Kim

2010 IeSF conference MSSA’s season started

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Name: Lim Yo Hwan Game: StarCraft Game ID: SlayerS_`BoxeR` Date of Birth: 1980. 09. 04 Major achievements: Won the best e-sport player to reverse the games to win • Two times World Cyber Games champion • KT Megapass Nespot Premiere League champion • CoCa Cola Star League Champion

Guitar Hero in Bulgaria ENC of Gamescom What’s new City of Utrecht People of this month

IeSF finally met “Terran Emperor”, one of the best StarCraft gamers around the world. IeSF interviewed him and found out the stories of his professional and personal life.

Current Activities and goal of this year These days he is concentrated on the training for StarCraft Pro-League. Since the final match will be around August, he is spending most of his time to keep his best condition.

What was the strength to become e-sports icon?

In his heyday, not only did he concentrate on the training but also promoted himself and e-Sport by attending many other events and exposing himself to the media, while other competitive professional gamers simply worked on their practice. He emphasizes that this effort paid him back to become one of e-Sport icons.

How do you feel when you hear “Terran Emperor”?

When many people refer to him as ‘Icon of e-Sport’ and ‘Terran Emperor’, he feels honored to hear such nice compliments from others. However, he sometimes feels pressure to make better results in every game.

Role model In his initial stage, his role models were ‘Lee Gi Suk’ and ‘Park Chang Jun’, wellknown StarCraft gamers in 1998, but now he takes Kim Dong Sung, a former world champion of South Korean short track speed skater, as his role model because his role model was distinguished in different skates fields. As Lim Yo Hwan also wants to sweep all domestic e-sports games in this respect he tries to model himself after Kim Dong Sung.

When do you feel you hit the wall?

As they say, even Homer sometimes nods. ‘Terran Emperor’ sometimes missed his games. With all his great marks at tournaments, he sometimes feels the limit of his ability, especially when he did his best to win the games but he failed.

Do you have any improvement you want to achieve?

He addresses that he is weak on the basic training. In his early time, he has used unconventional offense with new strategies which is one of his signatures when playing games. Now he is so used to playing in irregular manner that he is struggling with the fundamental skill. Currently he is working on building the basics.

Do you have comments to say to young pro gamers?

He stresses that young pro gamers who try to enter into the world of Professional game should have resolute determination for a victory. He also adds that only those with ability can survive in this world of competition. Therefore young gamers should gird up their loins. * IeSF appreciates Lim Yo Hwan who agreed to have this interview and cheer for his next games.

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Contact us Editor Hei-Eun, Kim heieun05@ie-sf.org General Manager Noha, Park noha@ie-sf.org Deputy Manager Mibu, Kim mibu@ie-sf.org

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