Without a doubt the World Cyber Games has been a staple of eSports and the progaming community for quite some time now. Today the WCG announced that the US National Finals will consist exclusively of online qualifiers and will see “4 teams/players into the National Finals, with the exception of StarCraft 2 which will qualify a total of 8 players.”

Each game will include at least one “Last Chance” qualifying round which will consist of the top 32 teams / players from each of the previous online qualifiers who will be automatically autoberthed into the event.  Each qualifier will be a single elimination into double elimination finals format with only the top team or player successfully qualifying for the US 2011 National Finals.  Players must be US citizens and live within the continential United States, and will not be allowed to qualify for multiple games.

In case you haven’t been following WCG news, the games being played this year include:

Counter-Strike 1.6
StarCraft II
League of Legends
Tekken 6
Cross Fire

The online qualifiers will be running from April 25th through July 31st. To register for the WCG or to check out all the details, click here.

After numerous issues with the sound coming from the casters at MLG Dallas this past month, MLG has decided to implement soundproof booths at MLG Columbus, the next event on the MLG Pro-Circuit. In Dallas, the casters live audio had to be cut as players could hear the play by play, which may have led to unfair gameplay from its competitors.

MLG’s Lee Chen had this to say:

Soundproof booths have already been successfully implemented into the GSL, WCG and Dreamhack events. CompLexity Gaming will be on-site at MLG Columbus to bring you all of the latest videos, pictures and news from the event.

After months of waiting, tonight finally marks the start of the North American Star League. At 8:30 PM EST pregame interviews will start, followed by the first match at 9:00 PM EST.

Expect to see some fantastic games from tonight’s Division 1 group featuring: Moon vs. Grubby, Vibe vs. TLO, Artosis vs. Sheth, Fenix vs. Kiwikaki, and Rainbow vs. Morrow. For a breakdown of Division 1, click here.

Each match will be a best of three and will feature the maps Terminus RE, Crossfire SE and Backwater Gulch.

In order to tune into tonight’s matches, just head over to the NASL homepage to check out the free stream. If you have already paid for your HD stream pass ($5 per broadcast or $25 per season), you will be able to log into the high quality stream from the NASL site as well. Commentary will be provided by Geoff “iNcontrol” Robinson and Andre “Gretorp” Hengchua.

Please note that the NASL will be broadcasting Tuesday through Saturday until Season one ends on June 11th. Be sure to tune in tomorrow so you can cheer on compLexity’s CunCher as he takes on Darkforce.

Tomorrow morning at 8:30 AM EST the Dreamdrehack Stockholm Invitational StarCraft II tournament will be kicking off. With an impressive player list consisting of: MC, Jinro, IdrA, Huk, Morrow, White-Ra, TLO and Sjow, entertaining games are pretty much guaranteed. Top that with the fact that the winner will be taking home 100,000 SEK (roughly $16,000) and you can bet each player will be playing his heart out.

Coverage of the tournament will be provided by DreamHacktv, with casting by Shaun ”Apollo” Clark and Benjamin ”Demuslim” Baker.

The bracket looks like:

The format is relatively simple. Every game except the grand final will be a best of three. The final match will be a best of five. Unfortunately there is no information available regarding the map pool.

For the rest of the details click here.

Recently GOMtv announced that the well known and respected American commentator Noah “moletrap” Kalb will be arriving in Korea to help doa with the Code A casting.

For those of you who may not be familiar with Moletrap, he’s been an active member in the eSports community for a long while. His resume includes: “many live events both online and offline,” even working “as the official SC caster for WCG US Final 08. He has also casted a several VT Opens and some Reddit events with the most recent event being CSL Invitational.”

In preparation for this new gig, Moletrap has recently uploaded several replays to his Youtube page where he commentates along side his future Code A casting partner doa. To get an idea of their chemistry check out the replays here.

Anyone who watches GOMtv’s Global StarCraft II League is familiar with the Code A commentator DOA. Today DOA uploaded a short video to Youtube showing off the backstage area of the GOMtv studio.

It’s pretty interesting to see how GOMtv makes the GSL happen. For most viewers, myself included, we’ll never get a chance to fly out to Korea and check out the GSL live. Videos like this help us “foreigners” feel a little more connected to the GSL and eSports. Hopefully DOA will keep bringing his camera to work so we can get an idea of how Korean eSports operates behind the scenes.

Recently on ESFI, popular eSports journalist Chris Schetter released an editorial piece about the boom/bust of gaming. Schetter discusses the influx of tournaments and prizes being awarded for Starcraft II, as well as the need for an internal organization in gaming, similar to that of the PGA in golf.

Below is an excerpt from the article:

The notion that e-sports is a cyclical beast – that periods of rapid inflation and deflation are a given – seems to be one that’s widely held. Even the most starry-eyed optimist would have to admit that the pace of the current uptick in activity and attention around the scene can’t be sustained indefinitely.  In just three years time, the American scene went from its post-collapse emptiness to one that’s arguably too full; nearly a million dollars will be distributed to StarCraft players alone through a handful of different invitationals and prize circuits this year.

It’s too soon to address questions of whether the audiences around these competitions will grow in proportion to the money being dumped into them, or whether the return-on-investment can’t keep pace, and a contraction is in store for us in a year or two.  If the latter proves true, just as it had in 2008, it would seem to lend credence to gaming being cyclical.  However, an analysis that stops there would be incomplete, and would let gamers as a whole off the hook for allowing that to be the status quo.

Read the entire article on ESFI by clicking here.

Photos: MLG