Today, Games-Services, producer of the Electronic Sports World Cup (ESWC), announced that they will be cancelling their agreement with the company which licensed the ESWC USA preliminaries. As such, Games-Services will be using a new system of qualification for the US players for ESWC 2006 based on an application and review process.
American champions that wish to represent the USA during ESWC 2006 in Paris, France can complete the appropriate short candidate application form on the official website
http://www.esworldcup.com from Friday May 19th to Sunday May 28th.
Once the applications have been received, Games-Services will be forming a committee to review and select the invitees to ESWC 2006. The committee, which will include representatives from GotFrag.com, Official Media Partner of ESWC 2006, will analyze each candidate application and will proceed to the selection of the champions according to their latest performances and their past achievements. The invited list for the Grand Final will be announced on May 30th on Gotfrag.com (
http://www.gotfrag.com).
The final autoberth selection will consist in:
- 2 Counter-Strike teams
- 2 Warcraft players
- 2 Quake IV players
- 2 Trackmania Nations ESWC players
- 1 Pro Evolution Soccer player
- 1 Gran Turismo 4 player
Champions will have to cover their travel expenses for the event but will be accommodated in Paris by ESWC as all international competitors.
Application forms and candidate lists for all games can be accessed at
http://www.esworldcup.com/2006/?act=document_info&id_document=108.
UPDATE 1 -
The Global Gaming League (GGL) has made a statement regarding this issue.
The Global Gaming League was surprised and disappointed by the unilateral announcement from Games Services about the Electronic Sports World Cup (ESWC) 2006 United States qualification process.
GGL partnered with ESWC last year and looked forward to doing so again this year. In the past, to support the gaming community, GGL has even voluntarily paid for the U.S. team’s travel expenses and was a sponsor of Team USA the year prior to our formal involvement with ESWC.
Over the last few months, GGL has been working to resolve Game Services’ new business demands related to ESWC. As recently as yesterday, we made a new proposal to meet these demands, including GGL once again sponsoring the travel expenses of the U.S. team.
Unfortunately, our desire to reach an amicable resolution to our business dispute apparently was not mutual. We wish the ESWC well and regret the inconvenience and cost that their decision has caused the players.
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Right of reply of ESWC concerning GGL publication.
“The Global Gaming League was surprised and disappointed by the unilateral announcement from Games Services about Electronic Sports World Cup (ESWC) 2006 United States Qualification process.”
GGL has been notified the 17th of May that they were no more in charge of the licence.
“Over the last few months, GGL has been working to resolve Game Services’ new business demands related to ESWC.”
After months of negotiations GGL signed a contract for the ESWC 2006 licence with obligations the 29th November 2005. ESWC has never changed its business demands towards GGL. Conversely GGL decide to call their engagement into questions. We agreed on new conditions on the 21st of April 2006 to resolve the issue and GGL has received a signed fax concerning the extension of the partnership to a studio and live broadcast rights to make possible the US preliminaries. But GGL changed again their request and asked for more options that we couldn’t afford. As we were middle of May and as nothing append to select players, we took the difficult resolution that you know.
“As recently as yesterday, we made a new proposal to meet these demands, including GGL once again sponsoring the travel expenses of the U.S. team.”
ESWC agreed 2 times on 2 different GGL proposals that met our demands. 2 times GGL did not respect their commitment.
The only thing we can say is that we are really sorry for the American community that deserve a real challenge and fair competitions for ESWC but time is short to do thing in a better way today.
Matthieu Dallon
Games-Services ESWC / CEO
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