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Why the World Series of Video Games ended
Following the death of the World Series of Video Games the guys at GameDaily BIZ spoke with Matt Ringel, president of Games Media Properties, and asked what went wrong. Ringel says there are a number of organizers competing for advertising dollars and the ad agencies are still trying to work our the merits of the different competitions. He says that Games Media Properties is making money off its websites (like GameRiot.com) and is going to focus solely on where they can make business work now.Boiling it down: Too much work, too little profit. Perfectly understandable given the complicated nature of dealing with television, setting up competitions and the absolute hell of trying to get sponsorship with a new concept. It's so much easier to just have your little corner of the internet and work there. We like it, although we do dream of one day hosting the Joystiq International Gaming Competition and having it simul-cast on all the networks while we roll in our disgusting mountain of cash -- one day it may come true, one day.
WSVG coming to Dallas this week
The World Series of Video Games is making their stop in Dallas, Texas starting tomorrow, July 5th and ending on Sunday, July 8th. And as always, World of Warcraft 3v3 arena tournaments are on the agenda! I'm afraid registration for the event is closed (though if you show up you can register for a chance at a competition spot opening up), but if you're in the area, you can certainly attend and watch some skilled arena players at work (for the $10 cost of admission). The real question is whether the pros at Team Pandemic will win again: so far, they've won both of the WSVG's WoW arena tournaments. And remember -- one lucky arena team will be winning an all-expenses paid trip to BlizzCon 2007!
Team Pandemic takes the prize in China
They started out as Power Trip, and were the first WoW arena team to have official sponsors. But today, team Pandemic proved that all the money and hype weren't for nothing. After coming up through the ranks, which included 63 Chinese teams, one European team, and one other American team, Pandemic went on to dominate in the finals against Fnatic 3-0. This makes Pandemic the current WSVG World of Warcraft Champions. And considering the roar from the crowd when Pandemic was awarded their prize, it appears that WoW Arena teams are most definitely a welcome addition to competitive gaming. The secret to team Pandemic's success appears to have been due to a combination of factors. One of the first, and most notable, is that the Chinese teams have not had access to the Burning Crusade expansion for nearly as long. This meant that those hometown teams were playing with spells and abilities that they are not very used to, whereas the US/EU teams have had the chance to get used to them for months. However, one of the most telling things in the final match was that both ending teams used a solid Warrior, Mage and Paladin combination. Why would this prove to be such a big deal? It's use put Pandemic in a far stronger place than Fnatic from the word go, as Fnatic's mage, Sander 'Vo0' Kaasjager, has only been playing his class for approximately three weeks. Both teams appeared to focus on the strategy of forcing the opposing team's mage to burn their two Ice Blocks as quickly as possible, which, combined with some poor crowd control and just plain bad luck on the side of Fnatic, proved to be the winning combination for Team Pandemic when it came down to it. Now we wait and see what happens next when the WSVG reconvenes in Louisville on June 21-23. Hopefully the camera work for the webcast will be a bit better this next time. Or better yet, that a channel like G4 picks up the final rounds at least. For now, the China WSVG videos are all over the Internet, for those interested in catching the highlights of some of the finger-twitching-good action. (The current team rankings and prizes awarded are beyond the cut.)
This year's World Series of Video Games to include WoW
The games to be included in the 2007 World Series of Video Games competition have just been announced, and it's an eclectic mix including World of Warcraft, Guitar Hero II, Quake 4, and Fight Night Round 3. Wondering what place World of Warcraft has at a competitive event like this? Diverging from Blizzard's 5v5 tournament format (where multiple teams have professional sponsorship) WSVG is going to be sending its competitors into the 3v3 arenas. The WSVG is a world-wide event that's making stops in Wuhan, China (May); Louisville (June); Dallas (July); Rome or London (October); and Sweden's Dreamhack event (end of November/beginning of December). Registration is currently open for Wuhan and Louisville, so if you think you're ready to dominate in the 3v3 arena bracket, here's your chance.
Dell says XPS 700 will NOT ship overclocked
We can't blame TG Daily for reporting that the Core 2 Extreme-powered version of Dell's XPS 700 gaming desktop will ship with a factory overclocked processor; after all, the placard in front of that demo machine at the World Series of Video Games did indeed mention an overclocked Conroe, with the promise that "system specs like this [will be] available within the next 30 days at [Dell's website]." After Cnet received a review unit of the new configuration that had not been overclocked, however, they called up Dell to set the record straight once and for all. According to company spokesperson Liem Nguyen, although "Dell has unlocked the BIOS so that customers can overclock the processor themselves...at this time Dell is not factory overclocking the system." So there you have it, straight from the horse's mouth: Dell's not actually doing the dirty work here, but it is giving customers the opportunity to tweak and possibly fry their machines themselves.
