Gamers Unite for Video Game Olympics

The Hobo writes "About 700 of the world's best gamers began battling it out Wednesday, as the fourth annual World Cyber Games got underway in San Francisco. The five-day annual event is a culmination of national competitions held around the world and pits the best players against each other in a variety of widely popular games like Counter-Strike, Unreal Tournament, Halo, Starcraft and FIFA Soccer.

Comments

visa rejected for european player

[perler]

in a german games television show they had an interview with a german warcraft player who qualified for the WCG but it's visa to the US was rejected. the only problem was (as he described it) that he had the german /and/ the turkish citizenship (which is quite usual in germany, we have some 3 million turkish immigrants (out of a population of 80 million)).

i think the US is shooting it's own foot if they continue to behave this way. a lot of people here already wait with their holidays in the US in the hope, that the obligatory fingerprints when entering the US will go away sometimes (which i doubt personally)

PAT

Re:Wow

[z0ink]

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of kids squander all their money on video cards (the primary promoters of large events) and half a dozen crappy titles a year - hoping to become 'a pro.' This really is a big scam. In racing, golf, any other sport the payouts roll all the way down. In gaming, typically, only the top 3 get payed. Airfare and a week of living in a hotel is not cheap. Not to mention it takes either knowing somebody with a lot of cash or already being a top team to get a sponsorship - but even then you'll be hard pressed to break even.

This stuff isn't all just a bunch of having fun on the internet either. The serious competitors work like dogs to get to where they are at. I like games as much as the next guy, or perhaps even more than, but once you start playing something 8 hours a day it becomes a second job -- one that you have to pay to work at.