201209

vol. 31

N ewsletter

[ Member Nation Reports ]

[ IeSF Notice for Members ]

Austria e-Sport overview by eSport Association Austria

e-sports are coming back strong this Autumn in Romania

by Vlad Rosca

Philippine eSports Organization

by Philippine e-Sports Organization

Switzerland e-Sport overview

by President of the SESF, Daria Salice

Dear all members As you may all know that the submission of necessary documentation will critically effect on the invitational status.

And, the due for the documentations is all over.

If you are missing any of documentation and still want to submit it, please contact us immediately and get consulted for future action. Also, if you have any change for submitted information, please let us know immediately.Also, for any of you have not submitted the copies of participants’ passports, please submit it immediately. Any failure for booking flight ticket for participant due to the late submission of passport will be the responsibility of related member association.

Also, the contract sheet for invitation support will be sent to you all via notice e-mail soon.

Please sign the contract and send it back to us. We would like to request all of your active cooperation.

[ ZOOM IN] [KGC 2012]

Russian e-Sport overview

“Needs to promote developers of middle standing playing

by RESF Secretary General, Constantine Surkont a key role”

IeSF Newsletter - vol31

www.ie-sf.com

2012. 9. 10

IeSF Headline

Details of IeSF 2012 World Championship

Global Data IeSF Notice for Members Dear all members, As you may all know that the submission of necessary documentation will critically effect on the invitational status. And, the due for the documentations is all over.

If you are missing any of documentation and still want to submit it, please contact us immediately and get consulted for future action. Also, if you have any change for submitted information, please let us know immediately.

Also, for any of you have not submitted the copies of participants’ passports, please submit it immediately. Any failure for booking flight ticket for participant due to the late submission of passport will be the responsibility of related member association.

Also, the contract sheet for invitation support will be sent to you all via notice e-mail soon.

Please sign the contract and send it back to us.

Online gaming market structure comparison by the world and by each country all over the world

We would like to request all of your active cooperation.

Thank you.

Member Nation Reports

2012. 9. 10

Austria Reports

Austria e-Sport overview by eSport Association Austria

The eSport Association Austria invites all pupils from Vienna to the second eSport School Championship. The Event will take place on Friday the 12th of October in the City Hall of Vienna.

The eSport School Championship illustrates that Gaming is not only about fun and amusement. Social aspects play a decisive role. Establishing contact with other players, forming of clans and teams, sharing knowledge, communication and dealing with the new media in a technical and social dimension area essential components for each young adult. These core competences are promoted through the participation at eSport School Championship.

Tournaments on PC, X-Box 360 and Tablet The Tournaments will be held on three different plattforms to ensure the biggest variety possible. The popular racing game Trackmania 2 Canyon will be played on PC. The hunt fort the hndredths of a second can begin.

The pretty new body control system on the console X-Box 360, which is provided by the Kinect technology, allows a wild ride on the whitewater rivers of the game Kinect Adventures. Finally the last discipline is called Flight Control. The purpose of the game is to savley land as much planes as possible.

For pupils: Competition Pupils from all over Vienna will compete at the City Hall of Vienna to find the winners of eSport School Championship 2012 in three different disciplines.

For teachers: Education Digital Media and „Social Media“ of all kind (computer games are part of this) are part oft he daily grind of adolescents. The eSport School Championship is contributing media competence in this context. These topics can easily be used in classes, for example in the formof open discussions.

The participation on eSport School Championship alone teaches the pupils in basic skills to deal with the new media. Big parts oft he communication will be held via Internet, so the participants will come in contact with several instant messaging tools or Voice-over-IP programs.Basic knowledge in HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language), Internet Security and various network techniques will be teached. Many computer games offer besides gaming editors, so it is possible to be creative and to design some game levels oneself.

For parents: Information A responsible handling with computer and console games is very important.

The BuPP (Federal Agency for positive rating of computer and console games) offers a plattform for parents, who want to get more information about their chlidren’s hobbies. Computer games offer a lot of possibilities and also a lot of risks. The eSport Association Austria takes youth protection seriously. It is the goal to understand computer gaming as sportive challenge. All pupils, teachers and parents are invited to participate in constructive discussion concerning the topics gaming in contact with politics and the public. These issues are subjected by the BuPP and the eSport Association Austria. You can gather further Informations under these weblinks: www.bupp.at & www.elternlan.at.

Romania reports

e-sports are coming back strong this Autumn in Romania

by Vlad Rosca

After a scorching summer, pro-gamers in Romania are ready to get back into action and prove that they’re the best at what they do.

And what better way to start things off than the ESWC 2012 qualifiers that will take place this weekend in Forte Games, Constanta.

During August 25-26, the best FIFA 12, StarCraft 2 and Counter-Strike players will battle it out for cash prizes and the chance to participate (for FIFA 12 and StarCraft 2) in the ESWC Grand Finals in Paris (November 1-4).

This will be just the start though, because in September the Season 2 of the Romanian eSport Championship will kick off, heralding the return of titles such as Counter-Strike, FIFA 12 and DOTA 2, as well as a few surprises which are sure to thrill e-sport fans.

Another event Romanian pro-players have reason to look forward to is DreamHack Bucharest, the last stop in the DreamHack EIZO Open Tour, that will feature tournaments for Counter-Strike, League of Legends and StarCraft 2.

Hosted in Turbohalle on October 20-21, DreamHack Bucharest will be the biggest e-sport event in Romanian history and poised to set a new landmark for similar tournaments to come.

Matches will be broadcasted in HD via the PGLTV stream, so that even those who stay at home will have the chance to watch the pros fighting for a prize pool worth over 30.000 euro.

So whether you’re a shooter, strategy or MOBA fan, you won’t want to miss out on all the action this autumn, starting with the ESWC qualifiers this weekend in Constanta.

Member Nation Reports

2012. 9. 10

Philippine reports

Philippine eSports Organization

by Philippine e-Sports Organization Rules are important. It's a must to maintain an upstanding environment or anything we do.

Even in sports. Ever wonder what would happen if there are no rules Basketball? It'll be no blood, no Foul... or worse, there's blood, and still no foul. Or in Baseball, where the pitcher could just throw the ball straight to the face of the batter. That's the reason why organizations are made to regulate sports. E-Sports is no different. And soon the Philippines will be welcoming the organization that will handle the growth and standardization of Esports in the country, PeSO or Philippine eSports Organization.

PeSO or Philippine eSports Organization will be part of IeSF or International eSports Federation, the organization that ensures that eSports will be recognized as any other sports worldwide, made to ensure the growth and the setting of technical standards for eSports. IeSF aims to accredit eSports as any other sports worldwide. They hold human resource training for players, referees and other personnel for eSports tournaments and events and host a world eSports championship for this goal.

According to statistics, our country has the biggest number of gamers in the world with 25% of the 29% penetration rate of the Internet users stated that online gaming was their primary reason for access of the internet. With these data in hand, Mr.Brian Lim, sports commissioner of Cebu City Sports Commission, spearheaded the founding of PeSO as he identified eSports as one of the sports to be nurtured in Cebu.

Last Oct 2011, IeSF invited Mr.Lim to Andong Korea for a conference that sparked the formation of PeSO. PeSO wants the Philippines to excel in eSports internationally by 2015.

Where Filipinos are not limited by height, weight or size but rather the competitiveness of our mind and the Filipino fighting Spirit. With these in mind, PeSO wants eSports to really be a part of our culture.

Last July 6, 2012 IeSF held the IeSF Asian Conference at Cebu where 17 representatives from 15 coutnries including Mr. Lim and Mr. Marvis Sanchez as representatives for the Phililppines. Mr. Brian Lim laid in front of IeSF and other representatives the plans of PeSO for Philippine ESports.

Courses of actions were planned already to achieve this goal.

PESO's plans of actions 1.Create a body of several members representing various esports teams and groups in the Philippines.

2.Conduct elections for unifying body.

3.Coordinate with IESF for standardization of Esports in the Philippines 4.Create database of possible partners/sponsors.

5.Create database of players for Esports in the Philippines.

6.Create a self-supporting business model to be able to conduct leagues and esports tournament With these actions PeSO wants eSports to earn a slot in the list of OFFICIAL LIST OF ACCREDITED SPORTS on the Philippine Olympic Committee.

But PeSO won't be only focusing on local tournaments alone. On October 4-8, PeSO will be accredited to be part of the IeSF. Now with these organizations coming into the Philippines, we can say that eSports in the country really has a great opportunity to grow. We're one step closer to every gamer's dream, with Philippines nearly being accredited. IeSF is one country closer on getting their aim: MAKE THE ONE ESPORTS WORLD. Contact Info: www.esports.com.ph & facebook.com/ philesports

Switzerland reports

Switzerland e-Sport overview

by President of the SESF, Daria Salice

Over the past years Swiss e-sport has been lacking of three things: tournaments, players, and attention.

The e-sport community in Switzerland being based largely on games like Counter-Strike and Quake struggled to adapt to a changing landscape of e-sport games around the world.

A bit more than two years ago the worldwide Release of Starcraft 2 changed this state. The swiss e-sport community embrassed the new Blizzard title more than ever. Players and even spectators came and demanded activities and tournaments. With this demand they also gave back a reason to organize those activities. One of the first activities which came for this new e-sport spirit was the Barcraft movement. Streaming foreign tournaments to make them available to a local audience was a big step for the community and in retrospective acted as the glue to get the group together.

The lack of local tournaments made it more easy to be a spectator than an e-sport athlete itself. In 2012 the Starcraft Series Switzerland (known as S3) takes place for the first time and breaks with the paradigm that only a full blown league can bind players for more than one day to an e-sports format. S3 is basically a series of online tournaments, where everybody can participate and collect points to then qualify for the Offline Final which will take place in the beginning of September in Zurich, Switzerland’s largest city. This format is appealing for two kinds of players: Casual players who want to play some matches and only participate on parts of the five Online Tournaments Ambitious players who are aiming to qualify for the offline final where 8 players will compete for the big prices The S3 has been designed for those two types of players, which have different expectations and demands.

Casual players being the larger part of the expected participants are hard to attract, cause they know that the chance to score a good ranking against the more ambitious gamers is rather low. So the prize alone isn’t any motivation, cause not realistic to win. Each player who participates on one or more of the S3 tournaments will receive a discount coupon for each round played.

This coupon can be redeemed in the soon to be open online-store of the tournament sponsor. The prize pool is worth 2’000 swiss francs (ca. 2’200 USD) which for this year is the highest prize pot for a swiss e-sports tournament.

To attire the few but ambitious Starcraft 2 players in Switzerland it’s much clearer how to do that, but more expensive. The organizer of the S3 and the Swiss e-sports federation (SESF) can offer this with a cooperation. The top 3 players at the S3 will win hardware and gamer gear brought by the very same sponsor who gives out the coupons. The winner of the tournament qualifies for the IeSF 2012 World Championship in Korea, where he (or she) will be able to compete with e-sport athletes around the world. In addition to the hardware prizes, this offers a big exposure for the player in the international community.

Even though this is only a start, the S3 seems to manage the balance between the two groups of players. This gives us hope to see some good matches and motivated players on their way to the Finals resp. IesF 2012 World Championship in Korea.

For more information about the S3 the teamliquid-wiki offers results and rankings http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/StarCraft_Series_Switzerland

Member Nation Reports

2012. 9. 10

Russia reports

Russian e-Sport overview

by RESF Secretary General, Constantine Surkont

On the 11th of May in Moscow there took place the third tournament for amateur gamers “e-Sport Universe”. This time it happened in Moscow State Technical University. ASUS gaming notebooks were used for the competitions.

The event program included World of Tanks, Point Blank, Quake Live competitions. The strongest student teams of different universities presented their skills at special Counter Strike show matches. Some students even competed in LineAge2 group battles.

The prizes for e-sport winners and those who won other contest and lotteries at the event were backpacks, mouse HDDs and other computer stuff provided by ASUS Among other esport disciplines there is one which has nothing to do with videogaming. It is Internet heuristics (Internet search). On 20 May Internetheuristic competition took place in Nizhnekamsk (Russia, Tatarstan). The competition was held in two stages: preliminaries in high schools and educational institutions of the city and the final stage where 18 students competed to solve 8 search tasks. The winner was Abrosimov Artemy, student of Nizhnekamsk Agro-Industrial College.

Somehow it’s been happening recent few years that educational institutions have become base for e-sport further development in Russia. Many universities are interested in holding competitions and other e-sport events, some of them are ready to train its’ own teams. That gives a good ground for the All-Russia esport student league, which RESF has been planning. Yekaterinburg filiation, as many other RESF filiations do, closely co-works with higher schools institutions.

One of the most esport active HEI in the city is Ural State Economic University.

On May 20 the university held the third Eurasia Economic Forum for young people. And for the second time the forum included the Eurasia Cybersport event. Students and other young people competed in StarCraft2 1x1, Counter Strike 1.6 5x5, FIFA 12, Mortal Combat 1x1 and even Dance Central 2. Also there was a non-videogaming discipline – PC assembling.

June was not that full of events. The only significant one is forthcoming on 29-30 June in Samara. Two days competitions in Counter Strike 1.6, FIFA 12, StarCraft 2 and PC assembling will meet players of Volga region in the main exhibition center of Samara. And I'll try to make a report about it next month.

Meanwhile we’ve started our new web-project RESP.su (Russian e-Sport portal), which is still raw and has been working in testing mode since February.

But some of what we’re intending to have at RESP.su already works. At least the portal allows to hold online competitions. Briefly, people register for tournaments, play their matches, report the results to the system, and the systems draws brackets and show players their next rivals, sets time for the matches. It can use single and double elimination brackets, round robin and combined brackets as well.

So far we’ve carried out about 40 online tournaments using online competition system of RESP.su. The main games are CS16, SC2, WoT, Point Blank, Quake Live, BloodLine Champions, League of Legends, Call of Duty. Those were online prelims for some big events, just tourneys and even online battles between teams of cities. On the whole the number of participants (registered accounts) reached 6 thousand which is not bad for four months.

INTERVIEW

2012. 9. 10

Victor Kisyi, a president of Wargaming.net

World of Tanks is uncomparable!

In an age of mainstream MMORPG, FPS games, they have always ranked the top in the online game market against new games and new genres. However, this trend is changed a little bit compared with last year’s. Variety has been appealing to the Korean users like ‘League of Lengend(LOL)’ which hasn’t been expected such a huge hit.

In this context, ‘World of Tanks’is highly regarded in the Korean market these days. ‘World of Tanks’ has been a huge hit game recording 24million users all over the world as one of the top 10 games in North America and Europe.

Wargaming.net, a developer of ‘World of Tanks’ announced that they’re going to service the game in Korean market by catching the public eyes.

We wondered “What do they think of the future of their game service in Korea?” Victor Kisyi, a president of Wargaming.net, said that they’re preparing for game tests closed in upcoming July. They founded a Korean branch (a regional director, Changuk Park) and announced they’re developing next lineups like ‘World of Warplanes’, ‘World of Battleships’.

[Surpassing Riot Games] Wargaming.net’s plans are reminiscent of Riot Games; they founded their branch in Korea and service their killer title through their branch in Korea. A regional director is from Blizzard Korea. ‘World of Tanks’ make a tremendous success in [Active communication with Korean users through their Korean branch] North America and Europe.

People are curious about whether ‘World of Tanks’ can outstrip League of Victor Kisyi, a president of Wargaming.net, said “We’re trying to give the Legend (LOL) of Riot Games. So we asked him the question. Victor Kisyi, a Korean branch an enough authority to do something. Our branch is going to president of Wargaming.net’ said with a smile “the question is the most communicate with its main branch by analyzing the user’s tendency. embarrassing for PR team but I’ll give you honest answers.”

He already knew that Korean users have sophisticated tastes for games and We’d celebrate Riot Games’ huge success in Korea and Riot Games has played a Korean online game market is highly competitive. He has realized they need key role as a pioneer who introduces free-to-play model of Asian style into ‘Differentiation’ in the game to take over Korean game market.

Western countries. LOL is a well-made game and Riot Games leads it very well.

He said “We are focusing on the last stage of sound and translation to provide Victor Kisyi, a president of Wargaming.net, said that tendency of target users in two games are totally different; One for enjoying fantasy world, the other for higher quality game which suits for user’s taste in Korea. They didn’t modify balance part or add local contents. But he mentioned there could be possible to enjoying actual battles with real tanks. User bases of two games don’t lap over each other. Internally, we strongly believe we can do much better than Riot add those if Korean users ask the contents.

Games.

It was well-known that 1million of Korean users connected to North American Victor Kisyi, a president of Wargaming.net, is planning to launch ‘World of Tanks’ successfully first, and then ‘World of Warplanes’, ‘World of Battleships’ servers even before they didn’t service ’World of Tanks’ in Korea. He is planning to help Korean users playing in the North American server move into whose developments are now in progress. the Korean server if users want to and they can apply this technique as soon as Now, attention is focusing on how the games of Victor Kisyi’s become a sensation in Korea. We can’t help keeping our eyes on the future of them. possible.

zoom in

2012. 9. 10

[KGC 2012]

“Needs to promote developers of middle standing playing a key role” Partialized supports of government worsen the situation As the number one online game strong power, It seems that Korea is now losing its ground in the online game industry. There is a pervading sense of menace in Korea, because of lots of restriction, shrunk investment in online game industry and mass migration of Korean developers to foreign-affiliated companies.

Seunghoon Lee teaching at the university feels a sense of crisis more than any other people.

The number of students dreaming of being developers has been sharply decreased due to negative recognition on online game industry in this society.

Parents having a negative view toward games also play a key role when their children decide their major. Consecutive downsizing efforts of current game developing companies lead students to be the jobless.

Also, Only a few small developing companies can succeed in the mobile game field. At the same time, many web game developing companies are about to go bankrupt thanks to too harsh competition as a red ocean market. He strongly insists that we shouldn’t sit on our hands.

[Partialized supports of government worsen the situation] He said, foreign countries had positive viewpoints and used to envy Korean promotion policies in the field of games because the policy would promote small and medium sized companies and help them take the initiative in the field, but not any more.

KGDA, Korea Game Developers Association, has been doing a lot of activities with foreign companies and make a close cooperation with hosts of developer conferences and world famous game shows.

He said “I felt very proud of Korea whomever I met across the world. It’s because they acknowledged our greatness of game promotion policies. However, I feel ashamed these days as Korean game industry’s standing has declined significantly because of those two: allowing the next competitor to be chased and strict regulations from Korean government.

He held fast-paced mobile supporting business and functional game policy of government’s in high regard. It’s likely that it can be reverse discrimination against the online game industry. He said that promotion policies toward games are limited and focus on the broadcast and films after it is integrated into KOCCA(Korea Culture Content Agency).

But he points out mistakes of the policies leading to weakening competitiveness of our specialty, online game industry. That’s because our government thought that there was no more needs to make special promotion policies and mistreated online game industry. They only focused on a new field such as mobile.

In this situation, we couldn’t make next promising game developing companies and then it destroys a virtuous circle.

He said “It’s been over ten years to take effect to find new game developing companies since we put our lots of efforts into game incubating.

So most current game developing companies has started to do the game incubating with us at TechnoMart, near by Kangbeon subway station.”

He advises us that there would be no fruitful results within 1~2years even if someone invests huge amount of money now in online games companies.

He said that we can have our Golden Age again when systematic promotion policies for the long term can get over this crisis.

He worries about KOCCA’s employees shift system which is not proper for promoting game policies. It is possible that we’ll hardly hear vivid voices from current game officials when we move to Naju city next year. We do need specialized and focused game policies.

[Government should help the public change negative recognition toward games]

Among the next presidentiables, some of them said our children need a space to play. I think it means it’s time to acknowledge that some problems related to games should be in social concerns, not in restrictions.

When he was an elementary school student, there were lots of empty spaces to play between his house and school. But now, there is no proper space for children to play. Only cyber space is left for them. He said that It’s like adults attribute all their faults to their children and it is irresponsible for dumping all problems on the games and trying to get rid of all cyber spaces.

We should help our children enjoy the games properly and find a future vision as a future job, not as simple excitement. He said even though there are lots of positive effects and functions in games, the policies limiting the time and trying to stay away from the computer prevent games from showing a right function of games. So parents need to know what the game is, we need to let the public and parents know lots of positive functions in the games. Just by simply restricting the game, the situation is getting worse and worse.

He said “I strongly believe that recognition toward games helps students get future job vision. Contents business can break the negative bias on games and will have a positive effect on the public. Proper public awareness on games can draw intelligent people to work and make an innovative things and new success.

It is ‘people’ that is the most important asset now and the future of online games.

opinion

2012. 9. 10

e-Sports & Star Marketing

Jay Shin (Deputy Manager / International e-Sports Federation)

I am sure that everyone related to e-Sports is aware of Korean professional gamer, ‘Boxer’. At the beginning era of Starcraft League in Korea, Terran was regarded as the weakest and hardest tribe to play. However, ‘Boxer’, who acquired the honorable name of ‘Emperor of Terran’, have won numerous prizes and titles at diverse tournament events as performing various strategies, in spite of selecting ‘Terran’ as his main tribe. Since then, ‘Boxer’ led the popularization of e-Sports in Korea with wide popularity; the base of his power would not be possible without the support of game media – Ongamenet and other medias.

Ongamenet started to create story line between ‘Boxer’ and other outstanding players. One of the typical examples was the match between ‘Boxer’ and ‘Yellow’. After that, their match started to be called ‘LymJinLoc’ which all e-Sports fans looked forward to watching.

One of the preconditions for success of pro sports is an emergence of star players and the marketing through them.

For example, NBA concentrated on promotion and exposure of star player since its development so that NBA established high growth as well as huge marketing effect and social sensation.

Recently, most of the early star players have retired or being paving the way for coaching staff. Although the new generation succeeds them, the atmosphere of e-Sports field is not so active comparing to last time.

In early 2000, when there was even no such concept of eSports, Korean game broadcasting media, Ongamenet which hosted ‘Starleague’ discovered the potential of the evolution of game to pro sports.

Also, numerous amateur players began to have dreams to make themselves pro gamers watching the treatment as professional occupation. The success of starleague created another e-Sports broadcaster and pushed Korean enterprises to have interests in this new culture

I think that this is because of current situation that it is hard for Korea e-Sports to cultivate star players with other minor reasons.

It’s a dream machine in a game Over 30 years, Game hardwares have been innovated and made great performances. But this trend pursuing high technology is moving into the public as smart generation is opened.

In addition to massive funding, overloaded supports and famous game officials’ attention, there is a something special in this new machine.

Ouya, a brand new game machine based on Android 4.0, is in the spotlight from game industry all over the world since it only costs 99 dollars (110,000 won) and it is well-known as the name of Ice Cream Sandwich.

The most remarkable thing is that Ouya announced they don’t get the hardware loyalty from developers compared to current platform holders. In terms of current environment, as an open source, everyone can make and release his game using a software development kit (SDK). It can be applied to hard wares and users can customize their machine freely, so they change the parts and even the case.

Endivia Tegra 3 was embedded in CPU, Ouya with 1GB main memory and 8GB flash storage is just about a carton of milk sized. It is noticeable that a world-famous designer ‘Eve Bear’ who used to work for Prada and Puma is in charge of designing it. Another reason why Ouya gets lots of attention is the most successful project of ‘Kick Starter’, a social funding site.

kim dong wook But, there is a rule: If you want to launch yours in the Ouya, you khgames director should follow the rules by Boxer 8. And every game should be free. So game developers apply free-to-play model or premium service model and Ouya will get 30% of the profits.

On 10th of July, as soon as Kick Starter announced the plan, expected funding amounts (950,000dollars) were reached within 8 hours. It’s amazing that Over 50,000 investors invest 6,500,000 dollars. Who sponsors it is famous game officials like a president of Boxer 8 and one of Xbox’s four founders and so on.

It seems that the supply problems of game soft will be solved well even it used to be terrible. Game developers which want to provide their products are over 80 companies like very giant companies like Mojang of Minecraft, Spray Fox of Trifle Town.

Squar Enix, a pride of Japan, announced that they’d provide ‘Final Fantasy3’ to Ouya.

They also expand their lineups by making a partnership with ‘Onlive’ which is a cloud gaming service and has over 300 titles in the library.

In addition, they make a partnership with Livestream and VEVO, music video transmission service, to get more entertainment contents.

However, there have been other voices of concerns even it applies current trends that people can play the games for free.

According to Zynga, an emperor of Facebook games, average spending per person is 5cents a month. To get enough profits using free-to-play model, the game publishers should gather as many active users as Zynga. There would be risks that developers might suffer a great loss depending on the number of hardware sales of Ouya.

As Ouya is an open platform and everyone can make a game freely, it is easy to find counterfeits of your game just after your game make a huge success. No one can predict whether it would make a huge hit or fail until Ouya’s release next spring. But it’s pretty certain that Ouya will keep catching the public eye.

opinion

2012. 9. 10

Why we need confederations

Constantine Surkont, Secretary General of Russia e-Sports Federation

In the current edition of the IeSF Statutes there exists the term of Confederations. “Confederation: A group of Associations recognized by IeSF but belong to the same continent or incorporated in the same geographic region”. Generally confederations, that act within the frames of international sport federations, occur in many sports. The most luminous instance is football. The FIFA have six confederations, formed according to continental criteria. The confederations together cover all FIFA members. Similar situation has formed in other sports like volleyball, shooting sport, roller skating, curling and many others. In some sports just a part of national federations are united in confederations and rest of them do not belong to any (e.g. sambo).

Dividing countries into confederations basically pursues two aims. First, confederations can conduct primary stage of a World competition (exactly what is happening at our World Championship in A.V.A).

Secondly, aggregating national federations gives possibility to make territorial championships and gain support at the regional level.

The e-Sport is one of the most mass and affordable sports. The only reason why the IeSF have only around 40 members is its youth, juvenilty. 20-30 years old guys do not have much experience in creating national federations, in achieving governmental and commercial supports, communicating with officials. In this aspect joining the SportAccord is exceedingly important step. As soon as it happens (I hope quite soon), as the e-Sports becomes World-recognized, organizing a national e-Sports federation will turn much easier and there will appear more people willing to create such national organizations. Thus serious increasing of IeSF member-nations number is a prospect of the nearest two years, I guess. Then we’ll not be able to dispense with federations banding regionally.

There’s the third reason, besides the two I described above, for confederations in our sport. It is rather specific for the e-Sport itself. Of course we have the IeSF standardization and title committees. But anyway we will not be able to avoid the fact that different videogames competitions are popular in different regions. I’m sure many national federations do not always agree with the choice of titles that the IeSF make each year. The only game that doesn’t cause objections is StarCraft 2 (in 2010 WarCraft 3).

Concerning such titles as FIFA Online 2 or A.V.A we could argue a lot (as well as about absence of some other games). The more NFs join IeSF the more possibility of such controversies and the bigger their seriousness.

Meanwhile we know that particular games get good promotion in compact territories. It doesn’t depend on IeSF decisions (at least so far), but on commercial success of franchisors and games localizers (and maybe on mentality of local population). For example, in Russia and some other former USSR countries such games as Point Blank, World of tanks and IL-2 Sturmovik are much more popular than in many other countries. To judge about popularity of single games in different regions it is possible with annual IeSF title voting statistics. Neighbors often choose similar set of titles. We’re unlikely to elaborate the universal unified set of game titles which fits all parts of the World.

Confederations work can overcome this arguing about titles. Each confederation can hold competitions in videogames appropriate for its region. And other federations don’t have to seek small and rare communities of the games (or train newbies in a short time) realizing that the selected players will never rise over round of sixteen.

Definite conditions shall be applied to a confederation formation. This may be about necessary number of countries that form a confederation or (and) total number of people who live in these countries. Decision upon a confederation and its regulating documents is made by a group of national federations with indispensable approval of the IeSF Board. Head of confederation may also be elected by the majority of confederation members and approved by the Board. At the same time a confederation can have its representative in the Board.

Whatever we decide on the issue, national federations will jointly carry out international competitions in games that are regionally popular. Thus they will group together formally or unceremoniously. It will be better that such alliances are created and act within the frames of IeSF statutes.

Which, on the one hand, give space for maneuver in internal confederation affairs but, on the other hand, fix definite restrictions and rules for their operation and compliance.

Contact US Dear all members!

All rights are reserved by IeSF, Kyung-hyang games is now in alliance with IeSF. Kyung-hyang Games has been the most famous and dominant game newspapers in South Korea since 2001. We are the world’s first weekly tabloid with a variety of distribution channels throughout the country and has the largest readers .We has unmatched authority and resources, also operating an up-to-the-minute online webzine (www.khgames.co.kr) and maximizing our benefit by providing online, offline service together.

Now we have multinational global correspondents all over the world to lead global trend.

Kyung-hyang Games would welcome any posts of our contents in IeSF’s newsletter into the personal blogs or the press. Copyrights should be marked with your posts.

Please contact me as below if you need contents. Texts of all contents could be provided.We would appreciate your cooperation.

Sophie Jeon (sophie@khplus.kr), Alex Lim (limcw@ie-sf.org)