Tournament Map

The most important eSports Tournaments mentioned in the blog's articles are "World Cyber Games", "Intel Extreme Masters", "2013 League of Legends World Cup" and "International eSports Federation World Cup". They take place in different parts of the world. I will discuss some basic information about them and present the locations of the 2013 events on a world map.

World Cyber Games:

The World Cyber Games (WCG) is an international eSports event. It is operated by the South Korean Company "World Cyber Games Inc." and it is sponsored by the popular companies of Samsung Electronics and Microsoft. The goal of WCG is to transform eSports into a traditional sporting tournament like the Olympic Games. In order to look similar to the Olympic Games event it includes an official opening ceremony, an official mascot, players from various countries to compete for medals and the official motto "Beyond The Game". 

Until 2011 WCG was the largest eSports event in the world. The WCG Tournaments of 2013 took place in Kunshan, China. 

Intel Extreme Masters:

In 2006, Intel decided to expand outside Europe, especially in North American markets. It provided funds in order to establish IEM in 2007. The event's format included many smaller qualifying events leading up to a large final. The games included in this eSport event are Starcraft II, Counter-Strike 1.6, Quake Live, League of Legends and Hearthstone. IEM exists for 8 seasons already with a great success. It has become on of the most popular eSports events.

IEM 2013 series took place in Shanghai (1), New York (2), Cologne (3), Singapore (4), Sao Paulo (5) and the final round in Katowice (6).

2013 League of Legends World Cup:

League of Legends is the most played video game in the world. Every year it conducts a tournament in order to crown the best team in the world as champions. In 2013 the playoffs were held in North America and the Grand final took place in the Los Angeles Staples Center on the 4th of October 2013. The tickets to the event were sold within one hour after their official publication. After qualifying through their yearlong regional competitions, 14 teams from North America, Korea, China, Southeast Asia, Europe, and one of the emerging League of Legends territories competed in the World Playoffs.

The winning team was the Korean SK Telecom T1 and the prizes they walked off with, were the Summoner’s Cup and $1 million.

International e-Sports Federation:

Like WCG, the International eSports Federation (IeSF) struggles to get Electronic Sports recognised as true and original sports. It is based in South Korea and it was founded in August 8, 2008 by nine eSports associations from Denmark, South Korea, Germany, Austria, Belgium, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Vietnam and Taiwan. Since 2009, IeSF, hosts its own eSports tournaments like the "IeSF challenge", "IeSF Grand Finals" and "IeSF World Championship". During the 2012 massive breakthrough of eSports, IeSF hosted a tournament for women for the first time.

During the 4th Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games in July 7 2013, IeSF was selected as counterpart for the Electronic Sports discipline. This was a big step for IeSF and eSports as it was the first time that an eSport tournament was introduced in an Olympic Event.

The 2013 IeSF World Championship took place in Bucharest, Romania and included the game titles of League of Legends, StarCraft II and Tekken Tag tournament 2.