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The World Cyber Games 2003 was held in Seoul, South Korea from the October 12th to the 18th. Approximately 600,000 competitors participated and 562 players advanced to the Grand Final. Total prize money was $2,000,000. It was the third iteration of the World Cyber Games.
Event | ||||||
Age of Mythology | Andrew James Regendatz (pgfire) | Jr. Cheng Chen (IamShiauTz) "" | Yu-Jen Wu (Iamsky_tw) "" | |||
FIFA Soccer 2003 | Dennis Schellhase (SK_styla) | Daniel Schellhase (SK_hero) | Dae-Han Choi (Volcano) | |||
HALF-LIFE: Counter-Strike | SK Gaming | Michael Korduner (ahl) | Team3D | Johnny Quach (boms) | Team9 | Ebbe Sønderskov (B!tch) |
Emil Pathric William Christensen (HeatoN) | Kyle Miller (Ksharp) | Kenneth Larsen (jerry) | ||||
Abdisamad Mohamed (SpawN) | Ronald Kim (Rambo) | Mike Lutzhoeft (spx) | ||||
Christer Eriksson (Fisker) | Sean Morgan (Bullseye) | Jonas Gundersen (calc) | ||||
Tommy Ingemarsson (Potti) | Dave Geffon (Moto) | Uffe Sønderskov (NituZ) | ||||
Starcraft: Brood-War | Yong-Bum Lee (Ogogo) | Fredrik Keitel (FiSheYe) | Guillaume Patry (Grrr_ca) | |||
Unreal Tournament 2003 | Nicola Geretti (ForresT) | Laurens Pluymaekers (fnatic_Lauke) | Dominic Lewandowski (snoop_dx_au) | |||
WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos | Zdravko Georgiev (SK_Insomnia) | Bin Guo (Chinahuman) | Sorin Popescu (TeGEviscErator) | |||
The World Cyber Games (WCG) is an international esports competition with multi-game titles in which hundreds of esports athletes from around the world participate in a variety of competitions also known as Esports Olympics. WCG events attempt to emulate a traditional sporting tournament, such as the Olympic Games; events included an official opening ceremony, and players from various countries competing for gold, silver, and bronze medals. WCG are held every year in cities around the world. The WCG 2020 competition received nearly 650 million views worldwide.
Manuel Schenkhuizen, better known as Grubby, is a Dutch real-time strategy gamer and former professional esports player. He competed in the RTS games Warcraft III (WC3), Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne and Starcraft II. Grubby is one of the most successful WC3 players of all time, as an Orc player, having won more than 38 LAN tournaments, of which six were World Championships. His command over the Horde placed him early enough among the elite of the WC3 players, while his clash with Jang "Spirit Moon" Jae-ho rewarded him with a legendary status among the fans of the game. Grubby is known for being part of some of the most successful WC3 teams in history, namely the British 4Kings. Later teams include the Danish MeetYourMakers and the North American Evil Geniuses. Grubby is widely regarded as one of the greatest Orc players of all time. Grubby is now a popular full-time streamer on Twitch.
SK Gaming is a professional esports organization based in Germany that has teams across the world competing in different titles. SK is particularly known for their success in Counter-Strike (CS) tournaments. SK's Brazilian CS team won the ESL One Cologne 2016 Major. SK currently has players and teams competing in League of Legends and Hearthstone. SK Gaming was founded in 1997 by a small group of Quake players in Oberhausen.
Fredrik Johansson, better known by the pseudonym MaDFroG, is a retired Swedish Warcraft III and StarCraft II player.
The World Cyber Games 2005 was held in Singapore at Suntec Singapore International Convention and Exhibition Centre from 16 to 20 November 2005. There were over 800 players from 67 countries. Over 39,000 spectators turned up at the games to cheer for the players. The combined prize pool for the games was US$435,000.
Jang Jae-ho is a South Korean professional gamer of the popular Blizzard real-time strategy games Warcraft III and StarCraft II. He is seen by many as the best Night Elf player in the world. Jang Jae-ho is a five time world champion and has won three televised national Korean WarCraft III Championships as well as four seasons of MBCGame's World War. He is particularly known for his excellent micromanagement and innovative strategies. He is often seen using strategies that later set the benchmark for many Night Elf players and was nicknamed the "5th Race" by Gametv.com. He has played and won more televised WarCraft III games than any other Warcraft III players. Jang Jae-ho is featured in the documentary film Beyond the Game. Moon transitioned to StarCraft II and was without a team for a while, before retiring from professional gaming in order to fulfill South Korean military service requirements. After completing his military service, Moon returned to Warcraft 3 and is currently active.
The World e-Sports Masters (WEM) was an international competitive gaming event organized by the Hangzhou eSport Culture & Sport Communication Company, Ltd. Prize money are awarded to winning individuals and teams. It was first held in 2005 under the World e-Sports Games.
The real time strategy (RTS) computer game StarCraft had an active professional competition circuit, particularly in South Korea. The two major game channels in South Korea, Ongamenet and MBCGame, each ran a Starleague, viewed by millions of fans.
Bertrand Grospellier, also known as ElkY, is a French poker player and former StarCraft: Brood War and Warcraft III esports player. He has won a World Poker Tour (WPT), a World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet and a European Poker Tour (EPT) title, giving him the Triple Crown. He is a partypoker Pro and he currently resides in Prague, Czech Republic. ElkY is ranked #77 on the Global Poker Index. In November 2015 ElkY returned to the esports scene by joining Team Liquid as a Hearthstone player.
Li Xiaofeng, who also goes by the pseudonym "Sky" or "WE.Sky", is a Chinese former professional gamer of the popular Blizzard Entertainment real-time strategy game Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. He played for the China-based World Elite team. He is considered one of the best Human players in the game's history by World Cyber Games In the past few years he has been heavily involved with coaching Team WE's League of Legends team.
The expansion to the computer game Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, known as The Frozen Throne, had an active professional competition scene, particularly in China, Germany, and South Korea. The game was featured at eSports festivals including the World Cyber Games, the Electronic Sports World Cup, the World e-Sports Games, the World Series of Video Games and the International E-Sports Festival. Outside of the professional circuit, the game had many active competitive circuits, with users at Battle.net ranging between 70,000 and 100,000 at any given moment. In China, in which Warcraft III was extremely popular due to it being easily available through piracy, fans and users often used an alternative client due to the country's poor internet connections to the outside world. Around 3,000,000 copies of the game were sold in the country. 500,000 Chinese competed in the Chinese qualifiers for the 2006 World Cyber Games. The amount of prize money through the years has been significant with top players winning hundreds of thousands of dollars. As usual in competitive gaming, income for Warcraft III professional players flowed from various sources like team salaries from pro-gaming teams and sponsorships usually computer technology related. A famous example was the Danish gaming organization known as Meet Your Makers which boasted of paying their players US$300,000 on an annual basis. Similar to older games with huge competitive scenes like StarCraft: Brood War and Counter-Strike 1.6, the popularity of Warcraft III steadily declined and towards the end of the previous decade almost all tournaments and players were Chinese. After 2010, with StarCraft II, League of Legends, and Dota 2 being released and becoming popular, Warcraft III gave up its position as one of the prime eSports titles.
The World Cyber Games 2007 was held in Seattle, Washington, held at the Qwest Field Event Center, the second time the WCG was held in an American location. It ran from October 3–7, 2007, and featured over 700 players from more than 70 different countries.
Yoan "ToD" Merlo is a French former professional player of the real-time strategy games Warcraft III and Starcraft II. In WarCraft III he played as the Human race and in StarCraft he played as Protoss. he was signed to the top esports team in the United Kingdom, Four-Kings, until 7 November 2007, when he decided not to renew his contract for unspecified reasons. He later explained in an interview that the dissatisfying results of the Four Kings team were the reason for his departure. After much speculation, Merlo unexpectedly joined the team Mousesports on 1 December 2007.
The World Cyber Games 2004 was held in San Francisco, California, United States from the October 6–10. It was the first ever World Cyber Games to be held outside of Korea.
Chang "FreedoM" Youngsuk is a South Korean professional esports player of the real-time strategy games StarCraft and WarCraft III. He is known by his pseudonym FreedoM or FreeDoM. Chang entered the E-sports world in 2004 where he started his career playing as the Night Elf race in the game WarCraft III.
Song Byung-gu is a South Korean professional StarCraft Protoss player from Pohang who plays under the alias Stork[gm] or simply Stork.
The 2009 World Cyber Games took place from November 11 to November 15, 2009, in Chengdu, Sichuan, China. It had over 600 participates from 70 countries taking part. The prize money is estimated at around $500,000.
Seo Ji-hun also known as his tag XellOs[yG] or simplified XellOs, is a professional South Korean StarCraft player of the Terran race. Ji-hun won the 2003 Ongamenet Starleague and the World Cyber Games 2004 grand final.
Wang Xuwen, who goes by the pseudonym Infi, is a Chinese professional esports player of the real-time strategy games Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne and Starcraft II. He previously served in team World Elite, Tyloo and VICI GAMING. He is considered one of the best Human players in the world. In 2008, World Elite was the best team of the year and Wang Xuwen was the core member. In 2009, Wang Xuwen helped World Elite obtain the champion of Warcraft III Champions League Season XIV. Additionally, Wang Xuwen also has many individual champion titles from various Premier Tournaments such as World Cyber Games and World e-Sports Games. From 2008 to 2011, the Chinese competitive scene for Warcraft III was dominated by 4 players, Lu "Fly100%" Weiliang, Li "Sky" Xiaofeng, Wang "Infi" Xuwen and Huang "TH000"Xiang. Wang "Infi" Xuwen and the other three were considered the four kings in Chinese Warcraft III. He played Starcraft II for a few years before retiring from competitive gaming.
Park "Lyn" June (Korean: 박준) is a professional Starcraft II Terran player and former Warcraft III Orc player from South Korea. Lyn was a successful Warcraft III player before transitioning to Starcraft II. He is the only player to have won almost all of the premier tournaments, including the World Cyber Games, Electronic Sports World Cup, BlizzCon and Intel Extreme Masters. The only two premier tournaments which he has never won are the World e-Sports Games and International E-Sports Festival, instead placing second in the World e-Sports Games in 2008 and 2010, and in the International E-Sports Festival in 2007. The total prize money Lyn has won playing Warcraft 3 is behind only Jang "moon" Jae-ho.