201212

vol. 33

N ewsletter

[IeSF 2012 World Championship special]

Retrospect 2012 - Denmark [special News]

Retrospect 2012 - Spain

Retrospect 2012 - France The Top 10 Global e-Sports News

LOL(League of Legends) World Championship Finals were finished successfully as it is emerged as the best title in e-sports. Lots of experts said that LOL Season Two World Championship was far more than e-sports title in terms of gathering Netizens, audiences, live by khgames

Retrospect 2012 - Sri Lanka

[IeSF 2012 special opinion]

IeSF 2012 Retrospect Matthew Byun / Alex Lim / Jay Shin

Coordinator at International e-Sports Federation

Laying firm foundationsa

By Colin Webster President of Mind Sports South Africa

IeSF Newsletter - vol33

www.ie-sf.com

2012. 12. 13

IeSF Headline

IeSF 2012 Scoop Top 10 New Recruits at IeSF

1. New Recruits at IeSF As starting the new businesses of 2012, IeSF had welcomed one young and ambitious man, Jay Shin, taking charge of tournament organizing affairs within IeSF, and one young and smart woman, Su Jin Choi, in charge of accounting and financing, as new staffs. It has been almost one year since they started working at IeSF, and both of them are fulfilling their mission more than perfectly.

2. e-Sports encountered with “Olympic Council of Asia” International e-Sports Federation has been endeavoring to uplift the public confidence of esports globally as general sports, and to expand its realm. As the reward for its endeavor, on June 15, IeSF grabbed an opportunity to conduct presentation at the General Assembly of “Olympic Council of Asia (OCA)” in Haiyang, China, and had meetings with officials of OCA. As the result of these meetings, the endeavors of IeSF derived the achievement that esports became the official discipline of 4th Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games (AIMAG) hosted by OCA, and IeSF became the official counterpart for e-sports discipline within this event as the international governing body of e-sports. The 4th AIMAG will be held from June 29 to July 6 in Incheon, Korea.

3. IeSF 2012 Asia Conference IeSF 2012 Asia Conference, which is one of academic events hosted by IeSF, was held from July 6 to July 8 in Cebu, Philippines with the support of Cebu City Council and Sports Commission. 10 Asian Members of IeSF gathered, and discussed with the topics of major businesses of IeSF, issues of e-sports in Asian regions, and 4th Asian Indoor & Martial Arts Games.

Sujin, Choi

Jay Shin

e-Sports encountered with “Olympic Council of Asia” IeSF 2012 Asia Conference

4. IeSF meets International Sports Governing Body, “IMSA” As one of IeSF’s major projects, we have been preparing affiliation to Sport Accord, and we are closely cooperating with international sports governing bodies in order to expand the realm of e-sports. On August 14, during the World Mind Sports Games held in Lille, France, IeSF had a meeting with “International Mind Sports Association (IMSA)” which was established by Sport Accord. There, we had a discussion on the issue of expanding the realm of e-sports within customized sports world, and the cooperation measure between IeSF and IMSA. 5. IeSF 2012 Euro Conference IeSF 2012 Euro Conference, which is the module to handle the issues of e-sports within European region, was held from 15th to 16th of August, during the period of Gamescom with 19 member nations of IeSF gathered in Cologne, Germany. There, the Secretariat of IeSF and its European members discussed the issues of e-sports in Europe, the major businesses of IeSF, and IeSF European Online League.

IeSF meets International Sports Governing Body, “IMSA” IeSF 2012 Euro Conference

6. IeSF Referee Training in Vietnam With the request of the e-sports governing body of Vietnam, Vietnamese Recreational Electronic Sports Association (VIRESA), IeSF dispatched the international referee and an instructor to Hanoi, Vietnam, and held the “Vietnam VTC Referee Academy” for 5 days from 19th to 23rd of August. There, 40 Vietnamese trainees took the course with the subjects of general referee training, rules of each title, and actual practice. With the training, VIRESA secured 40 specialized full time referees to handle its national e-sports tournaments.

IeSF Referee Training in Vietnam

IeSF Headline

2012. 12. 13

7. Valencia e-Sports Congress With the kind invitation of Dreamhack, IeSF visited Valencia, Spain from 20th to 24th of September. IeSF encountered with many different parties working in global e-sports field global organizers such as Dreamhack, MLG, ESL, ESWC, broadcasters such as Twitch and Own3D, publishers such as Nadeo, Blizzard and Wargaming, and others. They have discussed on the issues how to cooperate with each other effectively and uplift the global e-sports in professional manner. Also, IeSF met with the Mayor of Valencia, and the Mayor showed interest on the businesses of IeSF and promised future support. It was certainly good initiation for all the parties in e-sports world, and IeSF will hand over the torch for this collaboration in the near future.

8. IeSF 2012 World Championship IeSF 2012 World Championship hosted by IeSF(International e-Sports Federation) attracted over 300 players, Media and people concerned from governmentapproved 47 member countries and officially finished with a closing ceremony on 5th of Oct, 2012. Korean team became the overall championship of the games by winning the first prize in the competitions,‘Tekken Tag Tournament 2’ and ‘A.V.A (Alliance of Variant Arms)’. Philip Simon from Austria of StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty(Blizzard Entertainment) and Hyeonjin Kim from Korea of Tekken Tag Tournament 2(NAMCO BANDAI Partners Korea) took the first place.

Valencia e-Sports Congress

Korean team won Taiwan team in the A.V.A as it was a tight finish. Live pictures of all competitions IeSF 2012 World Championship were broadcasted in Korea and all over the world via NICEGAME TV, Twitch TV, Africa TV, GOM TV and Own3d TV etc and the total number of visitors were one hundred thousand people.

The reason of such a huge success is that this championship would tie in with local festivals held in Cheon-an taking place the same weeks as well as there would be many visitors based on family units.

9. IeSF 2012 General Meeting On last 5th of October, IeSF, as its 5th annual general meeting starting since 2008, held IeSF 2012 General Meeting during the IeSF 2012 World Championship. As the supreme legislative body composed of IeSF Members, all members of IeSF receive the annual report of the previous year’s IeSF businesses, and approve the business plans and affairs for following year. Also, IeSF General Meeting approves 9 new member nations: Canada, Egypt, Finland, France, Georgia, Mexico, Mongolia, Philippines, and Turkey. Also, Bangladesh, the former associate member of IeSF, was approved as the full member of IeSF as the reward of their endeavors for past 2 years. From 2013, it is expected that IeSF take a whole new leap for the future as its expanded global coverage and capacity.

IeSF 2012 World Championship

10. 2012 International e-Sports Symposium With the IeSF 2012 World Championship successfully closed on last 5th of October, International e-Sports Federation held the 2012 International e-Sports Symposium on 4th of October. At the International e-Sports Symposium, four topics were handled.

1) Global Media Network, presented by Sophie Jeon, Global Team Manager at Kyunghyang Games (Media) 2) International Referee Training Program, presented by Hyung Suk Seo, Manager at Korea e-Sports Association (KeSPA) 3) e-Sports and Sports: Need for Amateurism, presented by Colin Webster, President of Mind Sports South Africa (MSSA) 4) 4th Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games, presented by Jay Shin, Manager of International e-Sports Federation (IeSF) To top it off the useful resources and contents disclosed by the symposium, the significance of the symposium is that IeSF, as the governing body for e-sports in non-profit sector, keeps endeavoring to create a stage for all parties in the e-sports market to share their opinions and resources as well as set up a circumstance for academic contemplation for e-sports. The International e-Sports Symposium is 7th one, and has been held since 2006 annually for the purpose of global e-sports opinion share and trend reading.

It is expected there will be more various parties participating in the symposium such as global tournament organizers, publishers, broadcasters, professional teams, press, sponsors, suppliers and etc.

IeSF 2012 General Meeting

2012 International e-Sports Symposium

Headline News

The Top 10 Global e-Sports News 1. LOL World Championship makes huge changes in the global e-sports market LOL(League of Legends) World Championship Finals were finished successfully as it is emerged as the best title in e-sports. Lots of experts said that LOL Season Two World Championship was far more than e-sports title in terms of gathering Netizens, audiences, live audiences at the scene.

LOL World Championship had been held for 3months from26th of July to 13th of October, 2012. It’s estimated that hundreds of thousands of fans watched the competitions as 16 teams and 80 players all over the world took part in it.

The Finals were held at USC(University of Southern California)'s Basketball Arena, US at 7 PM, 13th of October and it’s between Azubu Frost from South Korea and Taipei Assassins from Taiwan. The popularity of LOL World Championship brought over 10thousand e-sports fans to the Finals even it was a game between teams of Asian countries.

The final winning team was Taipei Assassins from Taiwan winning 1 million dollars, ranking number 1 in the world. Taipei Assassins went into the Finals with 29 wins and 2 losses, easily winning European teams.

The total amount of prize money was 2 million dollars as the biggest ever: 1 million dollars for the first, 250 thousand dollars for the second. The competition was also the fiercest ever as the prize money showed a huge gap every round.

2. IeSF 2012 World Championship, finished with flying colors IeSF 2012 World Championship hosted by IeSF(International e-Sports Federation) attracted over 300 players, Media and people concerned from government-approved 47 member countries and officially finished with a closing ceremony on 5th of Oct, 2012.

Korean team became the overall championship of the games by winning the first prize in the competitions,‘Tekken Tag Tournament 2’ and ‘A.V.A(Alliance of Variant Arms)’. Philip Simon from Austria of StarCraft 2:Wings of Liberty(Blizzard Entertainment) and Hyeonjin Kim from Korea of Tekken Tag Tournament 2(NAMCO BANDAI Partners Korea) took the first place. Korean team won Taiwan team in the A.V.A as it was a tight finish.

IeSF 2012 World Championship known as a big festival for e-sports held ‘2012 International e-Sports Symposium’ and ‘IeSF 2012 General Meeting’. In the 2012 International e-Sports Symposium, Issues like Building a global media network, International referee training program, Amateurism and proposals to advance e-sports were raised up. In the IeSF 2012 General Meeting, new member countries were approved and there were discussions about joining Sport Accord, International Sports Federations.

Live pictures of all competitions IeSF 2012 World Championship were broadcasted in Korea and all over the world via NICEGAME TV, Twitch TV, Africa TV, GOM TV and Own3d TV etc and the total number of visitors were one hundred thousand people. The reason of such a huge success is that this championship would tie in with local festivals held in Cheon-an taking place the same weeks as well as there would be many visitors based on family units.

Wonseok Oh, a secretary general of IeSF, said it’d be a good chance to retrospect our today and forecast our future. We’re looking forward to continuous supports from our member countries, players and people concerned.

IeSF is starting to challenge Sport Accord, International Sports Federations to be a member of them next year as IeSF 2012 World Championship was successfully held. If IeSF is approved by Sport Accord, Korea would have the 2nd International sports federation after International Taekwondo Federation.

3. WCG 2012, China wins the overall championship Cyber Games 2012 Grand Final came to an end on Dec. 2nd in Kunshan, China.

After 4 days of competitive tournament, Team China ranked 1st place with 3 gold, 2 silver, 2 bronze medals, followed by Team Korea and Team Germany.

Warcraft 3, Undead (Ju-oh, Jung) won his opponent, Lu Wei Yang(Orc) by two to one, winning a gold medal. Ju-oh, Jung became a new top player in Warcraft 3 as he defeated Jaeho, Jang and Lu Wei Yang.

Most of the Semi-Finals, 3rd-4th place matches and Final matches were held on Dec. 2nd and 40,000 spectators were congregated. Especially, the 3rd-4th place match of Warcraft III between Moon (Jae ho, Jang Korea) and Sky (Li, Xio Feng, China) gave the spectacular scenery of 12,000 square meter hall fully packed with spectators The Chinese team showed its strength in DOTA 2(AOS genre). IG and DK went to the Finals together in DOTA 2, chosen as the first official title this year. IG took the gold and DK took the silver.

IG also won the gold medal and defeated Freedom from Vietnam 2-0 in Cross Fire, the most popular title having a significant record of 4 million concurrent users in China.

4. The champion wins GSL and MLG back to back Seunghyeon, Lee(StarTale) who attended an overseas competition for the first time accomplished an amazing result at the MLG(Major League Gaming) Fall Championship even he felt pressured.

Seunghyeon, Lee(StarTale) came from behind to 4:3 dramatically at Dongryeong, Lee(FXO) dramatically at MLG Fall Championship Finals. Seunghyeon, Lee won Jonghyeon, Jung with a score of 4 to 3 at Hot Six GSL Season 4 Finals. Seunghyeon, Lee took 25 thousand dollars’ cash prize, winning both GSL and MLG. At Finals, he won a come-from-behind victory and gained a consecutive victory by winning 3 sets after the 5th round using his specialty like jabbing attack and juggling control skills.

2012. 12. 13

IeSF 2012 World Championship photo news 5. Korean Pro League changes its title into Starcraft 2 ‘Starcraft2 Proleague’, the representative e-sports brand in Korea, officially opened on 8th of December after completing pilot operation. Total 8 teams like SK telecom T1, KT Rolster, Samsung Electronics Khan, CJ Entus, STX-soul, Woongjin Stars, 8th Team and overseas teams attended ‘SK Planet Starcraft 2 Proleague12-13(Starcraft2 Proleague). The most remarkable thing was that they’re supposed to start official broadcast relays in English to take a leap to be a global e-sports league.

This competition consisted of a league by the year, 6 rounds during the regular season and the winning players can keep making it to the next round at the 2nd round and 5th round. The regular league was made up of the best-ofseven series and they needed to open entry lists before a match except a match for a ace (the seventh series). Air Force Challenge E-sports Team didn’t attend this match.

KeSPA announced that Ongamenet, a previous broadcasting company to host and SpoTV, a channel of IPTV, IEG (International e-Sports Group) would broadcast it by building a consortium. KeSPA said that it’ll be complementary cooperation for the proleague.

6. International e-Sports Federation for the Disabled founded Korea made an international organization for the disabled in the field of e-sports as a birthplace. On 19th of April, International e-Sports Federation for the Disabled got an authority to build its federation from Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Korea with Korean e-Sports Federation for the Disabled and KOCCA(Korea Creative Content Agency)’s supports.

It promotes friendship among the disabled with e-sports as the vehicle, and to promulgate the positive functions of esports such as leisure for the disabled and vocational rehabilitation. Moreover, with the vitalization of e-sports for the disabled, it is expected to refine the social perception toward the disability.

The 1st IeSMoD(International e-Sports Meets of the Disabled) 2011 World Championship was held in Jeju Island for 5days and discussed the importance of vision and value to develop e-sports further for the disabled.

Korea held an inauguration ceremony successfully and 12 nations(Korea, US, China, Germany, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Poland, Netherland, Vietnam, South Africa, San Marino) signed up for joining the federation. Also, Kenya and Tonga confirmed their participation at the next general meeting. Since there are some more nations sounding out the intent of participation, more than 40 nations are expected to be attended.

Sukrok, Song, a secretary general and professor, said “Based on two words like e-sports and the disabled, International e-Sports Federation for the Disabled always tries to keep promoting e-sports as an international federation and develops our business to increase the value of human, education, culture, cooperation and peace."

7. MvP Invitational, Partnership with KeSPA, MLG and IEG KeSPA(Korea e-Sports Association) announced that they hold a MvP Invitational(MLG versus Proleague Invitational) with MLG(Major League Gaming) and IEG(International e-Sports Group).

MvP Invitational is a new competition between progamers of MLG in North America&Europe and progamers of KeSPA attending a proleague by an MOU partnership contract with KeSPA, MLG and IEG. The total number of participants was 48 and the competition should be divided into 2 sides to play online: One was KeSPA side(24 KeSPA’s players) and the other was MLG side(6 North American players, 6 European players, 6 Korean and Taiwanese players who were not in KeSPA).

Players of each side should play against the player in the opposite side, they didn’t play against the player in the same side. The competition consisted of 2 sets: One from Korean server and the other for MLG server (North American or European server). One player should join 3 games (total 6sets) and experience total 48 games during the regular season.

Finally, top 8 from each side, total 16 players made the playoffs based on the results they had got during the regular season. Players who advanced to semi-finals will be able to join MLG Dallas Championship after the playoffs.

8. Owner of Moscow Five, arrested by FBI Dmitry Smilyanets is well known in the world of e-sports as the owner of Russian organization Moscow Five, an organization with a number of high level teams in CS, DotA2 and League of Legends.

However, if the recent allegations are to be believed he has been living a bit of a double life and now finds himself in the custody of the American government as part of a global operation by the FBI's Cyber Crimes unit and Dmitry Smilyanets and Sergei Matvienko stood trial by US Court.

Although no charges have been made public, it's reported that Dmitry was part of a criminal network believed to have been involved in online credit card fraud totaling a massive $205,000,000. Co accused is Sergei Matvienko, the son of the speaker of the Federation Council.

Moscow Five LOL team founded in 2011 lead LOL trends around the globe with creative strategies and is well known for EU style play and has been getting more popular as they won a complete victory in all 9 games at IEM Season 6.

9. IPL Season 4, LA The fourth season of the IGN Pro League, IPL Season 4, was held at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, US between April 6th and 8th, 2012.

IPL Season 4 was made up of 20 main tournaments. Greg fields (EG), a winner of season 1 and ID: Whie-Ra (Ttesports), a winner of season 2 and Stephano(Millenum), a winner of season 3 were seeded. Jaeduk, Lee (IM), Minchul, Jang (SK Gaming) and Sungwon, Moon(Slayers) were seeded as invited.

Esuk, Han(FnaticRC), sunghoon, Choi(TSL), Jisung, Choi(StartTale), Hojun, Lee(EG) passing preliminaries online and Junghoon, Lee(Prime) and Wonhyeong, Kim(MVP) winning regional events were seeded, total 12 players joined the main tournament against 8 players passing open bracket.

20 main tournaments decided the winner by playing the best of three games with 5 players each team from A group to D group, then top 2 each team, total 8 players attended double-elimination style games. The champion got 40 thousand dollars, the second get 16 thousand dollars and total amount of cash prize was 100 thousand dollars. The champion was Esuk, Choi (FnaticRC).

10. ‘e-Sports Committee for Long Term Development’ founded KeSPA (Korea e-Sports Association) founded an ‘e-Sports Committee for Long Term Development’ to develop esports for a long time and strengthen its competitiveness. The ‘e-Sports Committee for Long Term Development’ included a KeSPA’s strategic committee, game teams, secretariats, directors, broadcasts and reporters.

The ‘e-Sports Committee for Long Term Development’ planed to make development strategies, discussing not only current issues about e-sports’ current status but ideal directions for our future. They will actively accept opinions of all members and ideas to help develop policies and strategies.

The first meeting was held on 24th of Feb as they discussed agendas like an annual plan and analysis of trends.

2012. 12. 13

2012. 12. 13

Member Nation Reports

Denmark News

Retrospect 2012 - Denmark

By Jens Christian Ringdal / President of eSport Danmark

Looking back on 2012 it has been yet another interesting year with progress of Danish eSport. The year started with the anual general assembly on March 3rd where the member organisations of eSport Danmark met to discuss 2011 and the future. Amongst the subjects that were discussed was a proposed coorperation with libraries, startup of eSport associations in selected cities and welcoming Lolland Falster eSport as new member of eSport Danmark. President, Jens Christian Ringdal was reelected for a 2 year term as well as treasurer Peter Vestergaard. Also, as board members Michael Antonsen and Jonathan Bornemann were reelected for their respective positions. Furthermore a membership fee of 75 DKK (appr. 10 euro) was decided. The board was assigned to work on a new draft of regulations for the federation which are to be presented at the general assembly of 2013.

After the general assembly eSport subjects was discussed like eSport activities, Danish eSport league, Danish national championship, Danish eSport community, Danish national team etc. The first big activity was the anual Danish FIFA Youth Club championship held in Odense on April 21st with participation of 256 players. In July eSport Danmark hosted the qualification for the Starcraft 2 World Championship Series. The final was between Babyknight and Blackcidy a final which Babyknight won convincingly with 2-0. Following the Starcraft 2 World Championship Series eSport Danmark hosted the qualification for the IeSF World Championship in both A.V.A., Starcraft 2 and Tekken. The A.V.A. tournament was hosted online and despite hard efforts against Holland and Belgium and a walkover win against Azerbaijan there was no spot for Denmark eSport Danmark also had meetings with the National Olympic Committee and in A.V.A. at the IeSF World Championship.

Sports Confederation of Denmark during Beep 2012. The national tv station TV2 made a 3 minute news interview about eSport as a sport which was broadcasted The IeSF World Championship qualification in Starcraft 2 was also hosted in the sports news at 19:45 the same evening. online, however the semifinals and finals was played on August 24th and 25th in a TV studio in Copenhagen together with the Tekken qualification. The Starcraft The meeting with the National Olympic Committee and Sports Confederation of 2 final was broadcasted on live Danish television.

Denmark was very positive and it was agreed to engage into a closer dialogue and cooperation during 2013.

2012 culminated with the Danish Championship on November 16th - 18th, which was hosted at the electronic and gadgets fair Beep at the Bella Center in 2012 was also the year of interesting news like the association Roskilde eSport Copenhagen. The championship had 92 participants in games like Starcraft 2, receiving funding of 1,000,000 DKK together with the local skate association Tekken, Black Ops, Halo 4 etc. while the surrounding gaming activities had Hal12 Skate & Event. The funding is partial funding of a local eSport Center of 4,642 participants in games like Skylanders Giants, Forza Horizon, Trackmania 340 square metres as part of a youth street and underground activity environment 2, Shootmania etc. Alongside the championship eSport Danmark hosted a in Roskilde. Also great results by Copenhagen Wolves stole headlines in 2012 community meeting with representatives from Starcraft 2, FIFA, Counter-Strike mostly remembered was the 3rd place at Dreamhack Winter finals in League of and event organisations such as Copenhagen Games / SLAP and Copenhagen Legends.

Wolves.

France News

Retrospect 2012 - France 2012 has been the beginning of a great adventure for us and the French gamers in general.

We want to permit everybody to play for fun not for cash and not only during tournaments. The idea is to organize a championship in each county of France and provide a ranking to our players.

We started with enthusiasm our new goals about 8 months ago.

Now we can say that this is no longer a project the “Fédération Française des Jeux Vidéo en Réseaux” is born.

If 2012 was the time to think and prepare, 2013 is definitively the action year.

Our federation is very well structured and we are strictly following a plan to be sure to succeed. We reached our main objective by becoming an official member of the IeSF. This nomination gives us recognition of the hard work we did during this year.

To explain our vision in a few words: we are devoted to the casual gamers.

To succeed we need some politic and economic supports, and this is the challenge for 2013.

By Patrick Tisserant/ President of FFJVR (French Video Games Federation)

With the skills of our team and the coherence of ours projects we are very positive about it.

2012. 12. 13

Member Nation Reports

Spain News

Retrospect 2012 - Spain

By Ricardo Kails Herrero / LVP (Spain Pro Gamers League)

2012 has been an awesome year, as the e-Sports community is still growing in Spain on a daily basis. This is caused mainly by a huge increase in competitive players both on console and PC. League of Legends and Starcraft II on PC have established a new scene of competitive teams and star players. In the case of LoL, this is all backed up by the huge reach that the game is achieving, getting closer to mainstream every day. On console, the Call of Duty and FIFA franchises have been successfully growing their player base with every new release, and Spanish gamers are attached closely to both games.

Fandroid and its flagship the “LVP, Liga de Videojuegos Profesional” (Pro Gamers League in English) have passed their second year of life becoming the most important e-Sports organizations in Spain. The LVP has encouraged a new way of entertainment in Spain. It has changed completely the style e-Sports shows resulting in a growing audience that has developed a true passion around competitive gaming.

LVP.es has now passed 125,000 registered users. But this number is strongly growing thanks to a huge gamer community that is more interested in -Sports day after day. That success is reflected on social networks too: 60,000 likes on Facebook (one of the highest of any e-Sports organization worldwide), 15,000 Twitter followers and 20,000 YouTube subscribers and counting show the huge interest of the audience on Spanish e-Sports.

LVP’s end-season event, the Final Cup, brought together 19,000 visitors, achieved major media coverage and made possible a great consolidation of the Spanish scene. All these hard figures have been built practically from scratch, with a hardworking team of dozens of professionals and volunteers.

Still, daily improvement and careful reading of community needs is our main focus of attention, as well as the promotion of truly sport-like ethics in competitive gaming.

We expect 2013 to be another awesome year in Spain and we hope to share it with the International e-Sports Federation officials and member nations. See you next year and may you all have a very happy holiday season.

Sri Lanka News

Retrospect 2012 - Sri Lanka

By Raveen Wijayatilake / President of Sri Lanka e-Sports Association

This past year saw Sri Lankan e-Sports slowly but surely solidify its position as a culture and a sport within the country. The start of the year saw a number of Sri Lankan clans take the initiative to organize tournaments, giving a large burst of activity to the local e-Sports scene. With more tournaments being organized, the Sri Lanka e-Sports Association was able to take a stronger role in regulating tournaments and introducing a solid ranking system, thus giving a non-formalized Sri Lankan competitive scene some structure.

Sri Lanka took part in the IeSF 2012 World Championship for the second year running, with the participants being able to bring back invaluable experiences to share with the rest of the local community. The standards of local events and organizational processes have also being improved or re-structured based on observations, notes and discussions held with fellow members at IeSF conferences and events. The annual IeSF general meeting and World Championship has been a fantastic way for smaller countries like Sri Lanka to be directly exposed to the larger international scene, and enabled us to improve how things are done here in Sri Lanka. We are grateful for the support that is given to us by the IeSF every year.

The end of the year was witness to the climax of the e-Sports calendar in Sri Lanka, with the Sri Lanka Cyber Games 2012 Championship being held on the 16th, 17th and 18th November '12. With record breaking crowds and participating teams, SLCG '12 not only pushed boundaries in terms of participation, but also managed to bring eSports to the mainstream media with several media organizations taking notice of this mega-event. A glimpse of SLCG '12 : http://bit.ly/TxezWk (YouTube video).

The conclusion of 2012 left Sri Lankan e-Sports in a stronger position than it was ever before. We currently look forward to take part in the Asia Indoor and Martial Arts Games for the first time in 2013. New opportunities, new ventures and new partners - we look forward to 2013.

Opinion

2012. 12. 13

IeSF 2012 Retrospect

By Matthew Byun International Coordinator at International e-Sports Federation

By Matthew Byun / International Coordinator at International e-Sports Federation Once again, we successfully finished the IeSF 2012 World Championship.

The IeSF 2012 World Championship had been various attempts to enhance tournament quality.

IeSF had made a women’s tournament of Starcraft2 and Tekken Tag Tournament2, and also tried to broadcast Korean and English language through Twitch TV, Own3d TV, Gom TV and Africa TV. This World Championship had a lot of issue in competition. Taiwan had won Japan and USA that those teams are favored to win the A.V.A. Starcraft2 Player in Austrian named Philip Simon who had made big issues, he won with Korean national player who seems most likely favorite to win and he won the first prize in the Starcraft2.

In this World Championship, especially, I would like to say thank you to sponsor such as LG electronics, Tt eSports, CJ to support IeSF 2012 World Championship.

Through General Meeting, we had approved new 9 members, which made IeSF expand to true international governing body with 42 member nations from all over the world.

In order to join the Sport Accord, IeSF is preparing application, national document, doping test, so on and we will improve of the authority of the e-sports.

Personally, I expect that IeSF will be to take on a greater role in changing e-sports market.

IeSF 2012 Retrospect

By Jay Shin International Coordinator at International e-Sports Federation

It was lucky for me to join IeSF in February. I had have a dream to share e-Sports I loved with lots of partners not only in Korea but in foreign countries since I saw the establishment of IeSF when I was in KeSPA in 2008.

When I stepped in IeSF, IeSF secretariat was operated by only 5 members. I was surprised that the 5 people carried out so many works. I think I did my best to contribute to IeSF and not to be burden on my colleagues. Although I felt that the tasks of IeSF were a little bit tough at the first place, I believe that those tasks will be helpful to the development of myself and global e-Sports.

What is the most meaningful to me in 2012 is to make connections with many e-Sports partners in all around the world. They have tried to make the goal – global standardization with their own know-how and vision, and it pushes me to be motivated more.

I feel I owed all members in IeSF a big favor in 2012. In next year, I hope to contribute to members and IeSF. Personally I will try to enhance the brand power of IeSF by making it possible for our tournament to provoke interests of global e-Sports fans.

Thanks to god for giving me precious relationship. Thanks you.

For the next 10 years of e-sports

By Alex Lim International Coordinator at International e-Sports Federation

It has already been 2 years since I started working in International e-Sports Federation (IeSF). I had worked in the sports market for several years before I jumped into esports market. I think, by the time I faced e-sports, that I got little too sick and tired of sports market being bourgeois as chasing materialism. Thus, e-sports came to me as a sort of fresh shock. e-Sport seemed absolutely future oriented and attracting alternative sports.

For past 2 years, I have been communicating with e-sports organizations from more than 40 nations, and invited 17 member nations into IeSF. Also, with the issue of esports, I have discussed and dealt with international sports governing bodies, and have shared words with numerous parties in game and e-sports market. It always came down to the fact that e-sports is sort of attraction, and now, it has grown up as to be handled on major daily newspaper and broadcaster such as New York Times, CBS and ESPN. Now, it is expected to leap further.

However, now I am looking at the dark side of e-sports. Might it be the reason because e-sports, different from other sports, was derived from games, the material created by market? It seems that e-sport is more affected by flow of economic principles. For sure, passions that the e-sports tournament organizers and gamers participating in it show are always admirable. However, I cannot just ignore the feeling that something is lost in e-sports, and I think that is basic philosophy which constitutes the grass root and provides the direction.

I believe that this basic philosophy will be the criteria to judge whether e-sports would be either simple entertainment or real sports in the future. For sure, today’s e-sport is the best entertainment for gamers. That’s why people show enthusiasm toward such global e-sports event as MLG and Dreamhack.

It might be understandable for games and e-sports event to launch in the U.S and Europe since they are the major markets in the world and profit generators for the gaming companies. However, with profit aside, there are silent generations and communities somewhere in the jungles and favelas of Africa and South America, who are closely watching unfold for the launch of this games and e-sports events. However, it seems that no one cares because they have no premium account with the game companies or access to online banking to pre-order these games. We cannot just look on unconcernedly at these “LEFT OUT” gamers. e-Sport has been continuously growing up for past 10 years with the concerns and cares of fans and gamers. As cultural contents such as arts, music, movies and sports should be equally to all, e-sports and games should more concern on the left out part. Now, I have another goal. With IeSF, I will keep on inviting more nations into IeSF, and provide more opportunities that these left out gamers come out to the international stage and meet others and share friendship.

LAYING FIRM FOUNDATIONS

By Colin Webster President of Mind Sports South Africa

The foundations laid by the IeSF are indeed proving to be the sort of stuff upon which great works are built.

From humble beginnings in 2008, the IeSF has consistently improved upon itself as visible seen through the annual IeSF World Championships.

If the growth of the membership is not enough, then certainly the way in which the IeSF instituted the Member Review System, handled its changes to its Statutes, and initiated the Women's Championship Events bear further testimony to the readiness for the IeSF to take its place among all the other sporting codes at SportAccord and to further develop eSports as a true sporting discipline.

From a South African point of view, the introduction of the women's events was a much appreciated boon for gaming.

It has long been a treasured belief by the MSSA that you simply cannot exclude women from mainline gaming, and that everything that can be done, must be done to make sure that gaming is available to female gamers.

The ability for South Africa to send two women to the 2012 IeSF World Championships as part of the normal team, helped the MSSA create a far deeper awareness of eSports in South Africa. The media coverage received from the female section of the team was truly phenomenal and reached the Ministry of Sport itself.

As a result of the much increased coverage, the MSSA is now able to further help develop eSports within the continent of Africa and build on its successes that it has already achieved over the past few years.