Cyberathlete Professional League

Frag Reel Friday: World Cyber Games

The local organisers of the World Cyber Games kicked off shenanigans for this year's event - so this week, FRF takes a look at Australian events and their representatives past.

There's usually a lot of fanfare associated with the World Cyber Games in Australia. It's been the longest running international tournament represented in Australia, with players always guaranteed trips and accommodation overseas.

It hasn't necessarily been the best international event - the Cyberathlete Professional League, Dreamhack, ESL, WEG and the Electronic Sports World Cup have all run more spectacular events in their time - but none of them have the permanence of WCG, and, more importantly, the funds.

Other qualifiers are funded through purchasing a licence to run the qualifiers, which doesn't cover the cost of accommodation or flights. But even once all the financial and organisational queries are taken out of the equation, other international events lack the one trump card WCG has always held - the media.

With the obvious association to the Olympics, local media is always interested in Australians representing their country, even if their ticket is sealed from the dank corner of some dingy internet cafe - although in the early years, the venues were quite good indeed, especially considering the immaturity of e-Sports at the time.

In the years that followed, e-Sports grew bigger and bigger. WCG branched out of Korea, holding events in Italy, Singapore and the United States. Events began branching out across the world, with the legendary SK Gaming even visiting Australia for a showmatch against iCHOR in 2005.

iCHOR would later reform itself to attend WCG in Singapore that year, representing Australia for Counter-Strike: Source - the only time WCG has ever dropped the original version of Counter-Strike.

In the better years, Australia sent over representatives for other games as well. Australia has never finished in the medal places for Counter-Strike - despite sending over a team every year. Other games like Starcraft were more successful, although their competitive scene dwindled to the point where only a handful of gamers were attending the national finals.

FIFA, however, has grown steadily in popularity, despite WCG's insistence on using the PC port of the game for the majority of its existence. Along with a stage-match from 2002 of Starhunter plying his trade in Korea for Starcraft, albeit not successfully, is a game from Australia's Runaway in the group stages for FIFA in 2003.

Revived CPL Pays Back Pro-Gamers | Professional Gaming Life

But first, a bit of pro-gaming history: The CPL was formed in 1997, by founder and gaming entrepreneur Angel Munoz , who had the inspiration of forming a professional gaming league after hearing about tournaments like Death-match ’95 (for the FPS “ Doom II “) and Red Annihilation ’97 (for the FPS “ Quake “). At the time, a pro-gaming organization was unheard of; so Munoz decided to start the first global organization dedicated to pro-gaming.

After 10 years of fostering some of the greatest pro-gaming personalities, and 10 years of hosting pro-gaming tourneys, the CPL closed it’s doors in 2008, leaving a hole in professional gaming. It was quickly filled by organizations such as the World Cyber Games , Electronic Sports World Cup , World eSports Games , World Series of Video Games , and (most famously) Major League Gaming .

Though not operating, the CPL was far from dead, as the organization was acquired by an unnamed investment group based in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. In August 2010, it was then found out by the community that the CPL was back in business courtesy of WoLong Ventures CPE , located in Singapore.

Although the organization had been dormant for 2 years, Munoz promised the pro-gamers who had winnings that still needed to be paid, that they would get their cash. And for those who participated and won in the 2007 World In Conflict Tourney (for the RTS “World In Conflict” ), those gamers got their promised checks in December of 2010. The unusual circumstances of the payment have raised some eyebrows, since the checks were sent from the old organization address in Dallas, Texas; which is strange considering that CPL is now based in Singapore, after the acquisition of said company. NewWorld , one of the parent companies of the CPL had this to say:

“The CPL’s original founder Angel Munoz had publicly addressed the issue of WIC prizes and had stated that those prizes would be paid. The payments were made of an old CPL USA account (now closed) from monies provided by the new owners. Beyond that (and although this is overall good news) NewWorld is not able to publicly comment on any matters relating to the operations, plans or procedures of the new CPL, as per its acquisition agreement with WoLong. Therefore, it would be best you seek further comment from the CPL’s current management.