World Cyber Games to Abandon PC Tournaments for... Mobile Only Tournaments?

[Shawn Zipay]

Wait, what? Did I just read that headline correctly that I just typed out? Well, according to an allegedly leaked letter from The WCG (World Cyber Games) CEO, Brad Lee to esports site cadred.org, it seems as though the WCG will abandon PC esports to focus solely on mobile gaming.

I still don't quite believe it. However, here is the supposedly leaked letter in its entirety as noted by GameArena.

In recent years, the gaming and IT trends have been moving so fast. In the current status of gaming and IT industry, one of the most remarkable information to us was the mobile shipments have exceeded the PC shipments.

As wide spread mobile devices, mobile gamer would rapidly increase as well. In this situation, the major PC game publishers have been expanding their investment and business in the mobile game development & publishing.

This information was very cruel to us since we had been committed to the PC-Based gaming event for long time. We have witnessed that there have been many companies and organizations who went out of business because they didn't put effort to change. Therefore we concluded that we should create WCG's new identity.

Under this circumstance, we made a hard decision that we should bring the mobile, new key sector in the game industry, in our event concept. Hence, WCG decided to start the Mobile Game-Based Festival.

To create the Mobile Game-Based Festival, WCG is under the discussion with the sponsors and game publishers regarding new event structure and the countries for new festival. Therefore, there will be no longer present event module, such as Pan Championship, and PC-Based National Finals. And, the official game titles of WCG will consist of mobile games.

Adding some validation to claim, GameArena did hear from a WCG rep in Australia that the letter was indeed accurate, though he declined to elaborate. In addition, last year's WCG Grand Finals offered up a $40,000 (USD) top prize for the mobile title, Asphalt 6. That figure is $15,000 more than the top prize amount for their Counter-Strike finals and League of Legends finals. It was twice the amount for the top spot in the Starcraft II, Warcraft III, and FIFA Soccer 11 events.

It should be noted that The WCG is almost entirely funded by Samsung. What does Samsung make and wish to promote? Mobile phones.

[CptainCrunch]

Re: World Cyber Games to Abandon PC Tournaments for... Mobile Only Tournaments?

Yep. There is this huge belief in the industry that the next big games are the $1-$5 game apps. As phones get more powerful and the big distributors start making titles for them, its the future.

This could be because of that or because Samsung is buying everything to make it seem that way, which I think is more the case.

[Guest]

This was confirmed to be a leaked April Fools joke.

[Shawn Zipay]

Re: World Cyber Games to Abandon PC Tournaments for... Mobile Only Tournaments?

This was confirmed to be a leaked April Fools joke.

Confirmed where? A joke by whom? The WCG or GameArena?

[Guest]

Re: World Cyber Games to Abandon PC Tournaments for... Mobile Only Tournaments?

Confirmed where? A joke by whom? The WCG or GameArena?

I take that back, it hasn't been confirmed; people were just posting 'confirmed' because they thought it was an April Fools joke. Guess I made that mistake as well D:.

Still though, this can't be real. Aren't PC games the center of WCG's biggest tournaments?

[Shawn Zipay]

Re: World Cyber Games to Abandon PC Tournaments for... Mobile Only Tournaments?

I take that back, it hasn't been confirmed; people were just posting 'confirmed' because they thought it was an April Fools joke. Guess I made that mistake as well D:.

Still though, this can't be real. Aren't PC games the center of WCG's biggest tournaments?

Nope.

Look at the OP where I talked about Asphalt 6 (a mobile title) in their last WCG Finals. They gave out $15,000 more for first place in that then in ANY other tournament. Even if you factor in the $9,000 for 2nd and 3rd place combined for the Counter-Strike tournament they had, that's still a premium of $6,000 just for first place in Asphalt 6 over the total 1st-3rd place pot of the CS tournament.

[Guest]

That really is a shame. I usually like to watch the occasional esport final for various games because of the hype that's involved, but watching someone play a game on a phone just doesn't excite me at all...

[CptainCrunch]

Re: World Cyber Games to Abandon PC Tournaments for... Mobile Only Tournaments?

http://www.nj.com/jjournal-news/inde...mall_game.html

The era of the mobile is at hand (pun intended)

[jimykx]

Re: World Cyber Games to Abandon PC Tournaments for... Mobile Only Tournaments?

How can someone that plays angry birds consider themselves an hardcore gamer

[CptainCrunch]

Re: World Cyber Games to Abandon PC Tournaments for... Mobile Only Tournaments?

They dont.

See, thats the thing. I believe, and this is just my opinion, the days of hardcore gaming are done and have been for a few years. Every 4 to 5 years the gaming industry shifts and changes and 2003 - 2008 was the hardcore era. Each year after that, the games have scaled down from that to meet the biggest masses to take interest in the product.

A few months ago I read an article how Apple is the #1 PC manufacturer again. They beat out HP, Dell, Alienware, etc. Why? Because they count their tablets, iPods, and iPhones. They have sold so many to so many people that they are back at the top. Everyone copies them as well and follows. Now people spend more time playing a game on their phone than on their PC or console.