201009

In this Issue: IeSF Conference in Taebaek

IeSF 2010 Asia Conference in Taebaek city

LG Mobile World Cup

By Heieun Kim

Bulgaria is European Champion in FIFA Proleague, the biggest eSport event September events in Romania e-Sport Academy IeSF 2010 Qualifications People of this month

(IeSF 2010 Asia Conference)

(IeSF Torch)

IeSF 2010 Asia Conference held in Taebaek city was ended in a great success. It was held 3 days, from August 11th to 13th with the participation of Asia members and associate members including Korea, Chinese Taipei, Vietnam and Malaysia.

The gathering was not only for discussing important issue regarding e-Sports but also for celebrating IeSF torch-lightening event. During the day, participants had a heated discussion on international standardization, qualification and Intellectual property right just like the day of IeSF 2010 Euro Conference. Also in the early evening IeSF Torch lighted the night of the IeSF 2010 Asia conference.

(Torch-lightening ceremony)

(Torch-lightening ceremony)

The torch-lightening ceremony was the climax of the entire event. On pushing ignition button with representatives of each member and guests concerned, the IeSF Torch was turned on, meaning the start of IeSF 2010 Grand Final. Soon the mini-rocket from the IeSF torch was fired to torch cradle making a big fire. At the center of the stage, a torch bearer representing IeSF showed up, took the light from the cradle and went into the LED screen, starting online torch relay. Start with South Africa, IeSF online torch went around 15 member countries and returned to Daegu city where the IeSF 2010 Grand Final will be held. The journey of IeSF online Torch will be ended with the opening day of the Grand Final and the IeSF torch in the Taebaek city will be lighted once again during the Grand Final period.

You can see the promotion video, online torch route and torch bearers at IeSF online torch relay webpage: www.ie-sf.com 1

In this Issue: IeSF Conference in Taebaek LG Mobile World Cup Bulgaria is European Champion in FIFA Proleague, the biggest eSport event September events in Romania e-Sport Academy IeSF 2010 Qualifications People of this month

South Africa

Third Annual LG Mobile World Cup

By Colin Webster

LG Electronics (LG) today announced the kick-off of the LG Mobile World Cup South African Championship 2010, the world’s largest competition celebrating mobile culture culminating in an international tournament to find the world’s fastest texter.

Participants will be battling for a place in the World Championship to be held in New York in January 2011 to win the ultimate prize of USD 100,000.

Additionally, the fastest texter in the competition will have the chance to challenge the current Guinness World Records® established last year by Pedro Matias of Portugal, who set a new world record by accurately texting a 264-character sentence in just two minutes. Now in its third year, the LG Mobile World Cup continues to build on the success of the 2009 season with teams from over 20 countries including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Croatia, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Panama, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand, Philippines, the US, Venezuela and Vietnam. South Africa will partake in the competition for the second time, after a colourful finish from two University of Pretoria students, Kgothatso Moerane and Natalie Witoslawski.

(Natalie Witoslawski and Kgothatso Moerane )

“It was an amazing experience in that we got to compete against some of the world’s best. The competition also afforded us the opportunity to visit New York and make new friends,” enthused 22-year old Moerane.

This year’s competition will take on a fresh twist as new elements have been introduced. The texting video game -- which was unveiled only at the World Championships last year -- will now be part of the national competition.

The national competition is endorsed by Mind Sports South Africa. Through Mind Sports South Africa, participants can also earn provincial, national and even Protea Colours. Mind Sports South Africa has gone the extra mile to ensure that the texting competition is properly accredited so that the participants who represent South Africa at the final championships in New York will receive Protea Colours.

“The success of this global event shows how big and diverse mobile culture has become,” said Dr. Michelle Potgieter, Marketing Director of LG Electronics South Africa. “Our purpose through this international competition is to demonstrate just how homogenous the generation growing up with everything digital is and how technology can bring diverse people closer together, not push them further apart,” adds Dr. Potgieter. How to enter: Qualifying rounds will be held in September 2010. To enter, participants should log on to http://zaw.lgmobileworldcup.com on their phone’s browser. Eight of South Africa’s fastest and most accurate texters will then go through and compete to win a total of R80,000.00 in prize money at the National Championship to be held at the end of September 2010. The two top texters will qualify to compete at the World Championship early next year.

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In this Issue: IeSF Conference in Taebaek LG Mobile World Cup

Bulgaria

Bulgaria is the European champion in FIFA!

By Belosveta Peneva

Bulgaria is European Champion in FIFA Proleague, the biggest eSport event

The Bulgarian team at the finals Kliment Ionchev "Alkazar" - manager Krasimir Ivanov "Krasi" - captain Jordan Rahnev "PeacheZ" Stanislav Chakurov "WickyBG" George Dimitrov "Crazy_kon"

September events in Romania e-Sport Academy IeSF 2010 Qualifications People of this month

Final standings First place - Bulgaria - 4,000€ Second place - Germany - 2,000€ Third place - Romania - 1,500€

The greatest success of the Bulgarian national team in the European Nations Championship came after a nail-biting encounter. Bulgarians with a minimum score prevailed 7-5 against the leader nation in FIFA - Germany. After meeting the Balkan opponents the German team gave a complaint for an intentional delay of the game.

Subsequent review of the record of the meeting followed and the Bulgarian nationals were exonerated.

The victory is strongly significant because Germany has lost only one final in ENC till present. Despite the enormous scale of FIFA scene in the country and significantly larger prize funds for competitions in Germany, Bulgaria picked up the cup and proved its superiority.

About the championship "European Nations Championship" is a national competition in e-sports for the Europe an region. The event runs from 2004 onwards and allows all European countries to compete in various disciplines for the honor of their country. The finals of the event to have been watched live by thousands of visitors and are broadcast on television over the Internet.

Phases of the competition: 1. The first phase of the event is conducted online and includes qualification rounds.

Countries are ranked according to results from previous editions - some groups are invited and others are figting for a place, through qualification matches.

2. The second phase group is completed until it reaches a specific number of countries - 12. They are divided into two groups of 6 teams, each playing against the others.

The first teams of both groups go directly to the finals while the second and the third have an additional round.

3. The third phase includes the playoffs – countries that finish second in the group stage play against the third team from the other group for the finals spot.

4. Finals - 4 countries are participating for a discipline. Normally the finals take place within the huge events like this year’s Gamescom 2010 - one of the largest exhibitions of games.

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In this Issue: IeSF Conference in Taebaek

Proleague, South Korea

The Biggest Starcraft Tournament

LG Mobile World Cup Bulgaria is European Champion in FIFA Proleague, biggest eSport event September events in Romania

By Heieun Kim On August 7, main rival of two telecommunication companies in Korea, KT and SK telecom, met to make an end to ‘Shin-Han Bank 09-10 Proleague Finals’, at the Gwanganri beach in Busan, the port city of Korea.

e-Sport Academy IeSF 2010 Qualifications People of this month

The ‘Proleague Finals’ held in Busan city is the biggest e-Sports event with Starcraft, the favorite e-Sport game in Korea, and other games. Totally 12 professional teams participated in the Proleague and competed each other to win the titles. Even the sweltering heat of the sun could not surpass the fever of the spectators’ passion for eSport. A mass of spectators flocked in front of Gwanganri beach and took over 10,000 seats in an instant. Although extra 3000 seats for the rest of people were prepared, there was no seat left in a short time. Most of the spectators were youngsters in their teens and 20s and people with their family. This summer festival for everyone lasted late night till 10 pm.

Although there was competitive cheering of each team, the KT Rolster earned the glory of winning the game in the Starcraft title in the end. The KT Rolster won SK T1 by the score of 4 to 2. It was remarkable achievement for KT team because it was their first ever win at the ‘Proleague finals’ for 10 year.

September Events in Romania Romania

By Stroie Silviu Romania is now preparing for the IeSF National Final, that will take place on September 18, an event where it will select the players that will represent Romania in the IeSF Grand Final in Daegu in late October. Based on the fact that Romania managed to get the Silver medal during IeSF 2009 Challenge, Romania has high hopes that its players will make it on the podium this year.

Besides preparing for the IeSF National Final, Romania is also preparing for Samsung Euro Championship 2010, that will be held during 3-5 September in Berlin. The country managed to have 9 players qualified for this event (Counter-Strike, FIFA10, Trackmania, Warcraft3 and Asphalt5 mobile). Since only Germany managed to have so many players qualified as well for this event, it is very proud !

Austria

e-Sports Academy starts up this year

By Elisabeth Haider

The Austrian eSport asscociation (ESVOE) offers new and unique trainings for its members. The emphasis of the training focuses around a wide range of relevant eSport topics, like sponsoring, event organization and project management. One highlight will be the introduction for a license in eSport. The attendants will benefit of a high learning quality in small groups instructed by professionals from economy and industry.

Each training offers new skills and gives the opportunity to meet like-minded people.

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In this Issue:

IeSF 2010 Qualifications!

IeSF Conference in Taebaek LG Mobile World Cup Bulgaria is European Champion in FIFA

Qualification in Hod-Hasharon city Israel

Proleague, the biggest eSport event

By Elisabeth Haider

September events in Romania e-Sport Academy IeSF 2010 Qualifications People of this month

(Hod-Hasharon Gaming event)

(Atidim junior high school basketball hall)

Israeli eSport Association has just finished its e-Sport event in Hod-Hasharon city which included the IeSF qualifiers was a big success. More then 5,000 gamers attend the event, and it was twice the numbers from our last event – Israeli eSport championship 2008. It has its first winners in FIFA and WC3 (1 winner in each tournament). The second part of the qualifiers will take place in Petah-Tikva city during September.

Another good thing is that the main news channel in Israeli came to the event and broadcasted an item about the event and the IeSF qualifiers talking about eSport that on its way to became a real sport. * please go check the website. (http://www.mako.co.il/news-channel2/Channel-2-Newscast/Article602622febbaaa21004.htm)

India

The IeSF India 2010 Grand Final has ended

Indiagames, one of the associate members of IeSF, has just finished its qualification, “IeSF India 2010 Grand Final” held on August 13~14. The national players of each title will join with other qualifiers the IeSF 2010 Grand Final.

Open House Party II Austria

At the moment the qualifications for the IeSF Challenge 2010 take place in Austria.

The National Final will be held on the 28th of August; after that the Austrian “dream team” will be complete. The Open House Party II takes at the ESVOE headquarter; located in the 21 district in Vienna. The happy winners of the National Final can enjoy the IeSF 2010 Grand Final in South-Korea where they are representing Austria at the competitions in FIFA 10 and Warcraft III. South-Korea can be tagged as THE gaming mecca of the world, where the scene of the professional eSport gamers is coming together.

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In this Issue: IeSF Conference in Taebaek LG Mobile World Cup Bulgaria is European Champion in FIFA Proleague, the biggest eSport event September events in Romania e-Sport Academy IeSF 2010 Qualifications People of this month

People of this month Netherlands

By Misha Krug,

In my search for the question whether an e-Sports policy should be used when creating a game, I started interviewing different actors (game studios, associations, pro-team and community portals) in the e-Sports scene. This time I want to share my interview with Daniel Stemkoski aka Artosis is a respected member in the Starcraft scene, he is been playing competitively for 11 years and moved to Korea about 2 year ago to work for the IEG (international eSports Group. IEG are the owners of the ESTRO Team. He makes a lot of video's for the Starcraft scene on the website sc4all.com. Besides that he does a lot of commentating at events like Blizzcon, eStars soul, WCG World finals, ESWC all sorts of events. Currently he is playing Starcraft II and go ahead with his pro-gaming career with the MYM team and enjoying life.

In this interview, Artosis shares his vision on how he thinks e-Sports evolves and that it is important game developers pay more attention to e-Sports.

Misha: Do you think eSports increased in popularity the last couple of years?

Artosis: Ah yes I would say so, you know there was a boom a view years back with CGS and all that, but I think now its a totally legitimate boom. It’s not that there a ton of money being pumped in that opens people eyes. It’s becoming more legitimate and there for more people getting interested in it and watching it more. Especially with the work SC4all.com and teamliquid.net which are community site for pro-gaming news have done, bringing the Korean scene to light it’s just so professional that also brought in a lot more fans.

Misha: Do you think the ladder or online service like Steam, Battle.net of a developer has influence on the participation of eSports?

Arotsis: Yeah I kind of liked Starcraft’s approach, Battle.net was a great place very functional one of the best multigame/online service whatever you want to call that. And they kind of let it be, we had iCup and other servers before that and they kind of let it be, ok don’t make money of it you can do it. That kind of really helped eSports out, especially iCup helped pro-scene a lot everyone played on it. So stuff like that helps.

Misha: Do you think eSports will be playing an important role in game development in the years to come?

[Contact] Editor Heieun, Kim heieun05@ie-sf.org

General Manager Noha, Park noha@ie-sf.org

Deputy Manager Mibu, Kim mibu@ie-sf.org webpage: www.ie-sf.org

Artosis: Yeah you know some games, they tried it in the past some games I know they are still trying it now here and there. Some games are being developed specifically for eSports games. They try to develop it in such a way that it is going to be perfect for tournaments and high skills sealing and stuff like that. You know it influences it that way but that’s kind of small it is on the edge. I think that Starcraft II is really showing how much eSports can influence game development because Starcraft II primarily is not been made for eSports. This is been made for people who like this kind of game this great multiplayer online game that you can play.

Misha: What do you think eSports has to offer?

Artosis: I think it is really entertaining, if anyone can come and stand behind these top Starcraft I players like JayDong or Flash and take a look at how fast they are and how controlled they are and then go watch a good commentator explaining what is going on you know if you have some sort of basic understanding of the game that is something actually very entertaining. I love to sit down and just watch Starcraft I games I don’t really think about it. * Please check out the full article at www.ie-sf.com 6