Today the organizers of the Arbalet Cup series announced structure changes, expansion and development for the future.  The group will be holding an amazing nine events a year, including a summer tournament in Dallas.

Arbalet has held a total of 9 tournaments in 2010 thus far, with the Female Arbalet Cup starting tomorrow.  A total of $184,250 has been given out in prize money from the Arbalet cups and qualifiers.

The Arbalet Cup organizers have just released their structural changes and revealed the huge increase in prize money.

1. The Arbalet Cups have reached international status and will therefor allow any international team wishing to participate do so. 

2. All tournaments will take place in an open format, but will feature a limited total number of participants at the final stage (16or 32). Decided by qualifiers and invitations. 

3. Tournament names will be determined by the host city. For example, Arbalet Cup Stockholm, Arbalet Cup Moscow. 

4. When a tournament features sixteen teams, there will be prize money for every team, to serve as a motivation boost for participants.

5. Teams will have to cover expenses such as travel, accommodation, meals etc. on their own behalf. The organizers will now focus on achieving maximum quality of the tournaments. Also, as long as the organizers do not pay for any travel or accommodation expenses, the prize pool will increase. 

The organizers also hope to help CIS teams on their way to a higher profesional level and give them valuable experience against international teams. 

6. Arbalet Cup is heading to the USA. Next up will be an annual tournament on U.S. soil.

Here is a list of upcoming events:

Arbalet Cup Dallas

Held: Summer once a year
Teams/Purse: 32 teams, $80,000

Prize Distribution: 

1: $25,000
2: $15,000
3: $10,000
4: $7,000
5-6: $3,500
7-8: $2,000
9-16: $1,500

Arbalet Cup Kiev/Moscow

Held: February, April, October
Teams/Purse: 32 teams, $42,200

Prize distribution:

1: $15,000
2: $10,000
3: $5,000
4: $3,000
5-6: $1,300
7-8: $900
9-16: $600

Arbalet Cup Stockholm

Held: February, April, October
Teams/Purse: 32 teams, $65,000

Prize distribution:

1: $20,000
2: $15,000
3: $10,000
4: $5,000
5-6: $2,000
7-8: $1,500
9-16: $1,000

Arbalet Cup Female

Held: Spring and Autumn
Teams/Purse: 16 teams, $42,000

Prize distribution:

1: $10,000
2: $7,000
3: $5,000
4: $3,000
5-6: $2,300
7-8: $1,500
9-16: $1,200

With this massive expansion the Arbalet family has instantly become one of, if not the, largest supporters of eSports world wide. 

Source: Arbalet
Image courtesy of HLTV.org

Willson had played with majority of the members from HBK for a good portion of his Counter-Strike career. Most of the members of Heart Break Kids are local to California, making it easy for them to LAN with each other and have a friendship outside of Counter-Strike. Willson originally joined Team Loaded as a temporary player, helping replace XP3 and Evolution upon their move to compLexity.

With the departure of Willson, Team Loaded has been left with four players, but not for long. They’ve picked up a former Frag Dominant player, and a well-known player in the US Scene, Nazar “naZ” Vynnytsky. Nazar was an in-game strat caller for  Frag Dominant and he could be the new strat caller for Loaded, looking to make an immediate impact to the squad. 

The current rosters of HBK and Loaded are as follows:

HBK:

Chris “happa” McDonald
Jon “heppler” Heppler
Noah “thedOn” Alvarado
Peter “supply” Lee
Tyler “willson” Willson

Loaded:

Shaun “hostile” Catron
Anthony “djibouti” Manosca
Paul “Adrenaline” Baker
Ryan “phamtastik” Pham
Nazar “naZ” Vynnytsky

Recently, it was announced that UMX was bringing in two new players to complete their roster for the remainder of the young ESEA season. The two additions are in the form of Travis “tuBBy” Bechtol and Dan “mehLer” Mehler, highly notable players in the North American scene.

With tuBBy playing for EG during nation based events and mehLer being a part of the very successful GB organization, one can expect UMX to soon be competing on an international level. The new roster is as follows:

Roster

Kyle “flowsicK” Mendez
Bryan “buskey” Buskey
Jon “broodex” Gibbons
Dan “mehLer” Mehler
Travis “tuBBy” Bechtol

In what appears to be an update to fit the times, or a way to lure more kids into the Boy Scouts, the organization has added Video Games to their list of awards for boys. With the organization being a notorious for building outdoor and wilderness skills in young kids and teens, the video game award seems out of place.

Below are the requirements for the belt loop:

Belt Loop

Complete these three requirements:

1. Explain why it is important to have a rating system for video games. Check your video games to be sure they are right for your age.

2. With an adult, create a schedule for you to do things that includes your chores, homework, and video gaming. Do your best to follow this schedule.

3. Learn to play a new video game that is approved by your parent, guardian, or teacher.

View the official award page by clicking here

In March, it was announced that Infinity Ward was suing Activision over royalty payments owed to its ex-employees, after racking in over 1 Billion dollars since the Modern Warfare series was released. Now, it has been announced that the former exployees have filed suit against Activision under the IWEG (Infinity Ward Employee Group). The employees are claiming that Activision has breached their contracts.

The IWEG’s attorney Bruce Issacs exclaimed:

Activision has witheld most of the money to force many of my people to stay, some against their will, so that they would finish the delivery of Modern Warfare 3. Activision has no right to withhold their money — our money.

The 38 former Infinity Ward employee’s are hoping to extract $75 million and $125 million in damages out of the case. Although, Activision stated before that bonus money is only for those who decide to stay with Infinity Ward. Only time will tell the fate for the IWEG.

As if that didn’t put enough stress on Activision, it was confirmed on April 23 Mike Griffith, CEO and president of Activision Publishing, resigned. Griffith’s shocking resignation came from their failing relations with Infinity Ward.

Although, he will still have a primary role in board and internal strategy meetings for Activision Blizzard, as he continue’s his reign as vice chairmen.

Related: IW Sues Activision
Sources: 1up and mcvuk

FX has just announced via their website that they will be declining to use their autoberth. Instead, the team will attend their national qualifier and qualify the old-fashioned way. The decision was made when it was learned that numerous FX sponsors would be organizing the event. The FX website had this to say:

A week ago we informed You that Frag eXecutors’ Counter-Strike squad was invited for the Electronic Sports World Cup grand finals to defend their title from 2008: [ Frag eXecutors with an autoberth for ESWC 2010! ]. In the meantime it turned out that while having an invitation “the Golden Five” couldn’t take part in one of the most important Polish esports events of the year – ESWC Poland. It came our after a consutation with both main organiser – Games Solutions – and Beholder, the company which from this year is responsible for Polish qualifier. It confronted our team with a serious dilemma.

Eventually the Frag eXecutors’ board decided to turn down the direct invitation and instead play in the national qualifier. – We are a Polish team and we have to appear on the most important domestic tournaments – CS team’s manager Adrian “Ziggy” Witkowski explains. – We feel obliged to take part in them for our fans, the media and also teams’ sponsors.

Our original intention was to play in the national qualifier and keeping the spot in Paris finals. At first the organisers ensured us that our start is possible and does not mean losing the main tournament’s autoberth. We wanted to transfer the slot to another Polish team – or give away our prize trip. Unfortunately, the rules of Polish national qualifier and further decision change from the global organisers explictitly excluded us from playing in the qualifier and therefore forced us to make a choice between taking part in ESWC Poland and keeping the autoberth.

The finals will take place from 4th to 6th June in Warsaw – the venue wasn’t announced yet. They will be preceded with just beginning online qualifying in which, aside from Frag eXecutors, 120 (!) other teams will take part – including the female squads. That’s because the Polish organisers decided against making a separate qualifier for them.

To view the full release on their site, click here